We spent three days in Shanghai, Chinas largest and most modern city. Whilst there we spent the first day walking round the old town, the classical Chinese architecture of the shopping area a change from the glass and steel monotony. The Yuyuan gardens were pretty, being similar to the west lake in Hangzhou. We both purchased communist hats, Robert bought a brown furry hat for winter whilst I purchased an army style flat cap.
For lunch we ate at Nanxiang Steamed bun restaurant. The buns, which were more like dumplings were filled with meat, and whilst tasty they weren’t as outstanding as Lonely planet and the street signs pointing one there suggested.
In the afternoon we walked along The Bund, the old European quarters of the city, with its 1930s neoclassical architecture lining the Huangpu River. There is a rich history attributed to this part of town, one grand building formerly the home of the Shanghi club, a British expats institution (where naturally no Chinese were allowed), and the bank of china at a time considered the finest building in Asia. In contrast to this European vista, was the modern skyscraper filled panorama across the river (which includes the Shanghai financial centre, mainland Chinas tallest building at 490m). The city, originally a British then French Concession immune from Chinese law was a financial powerhouse and Chinas biggest port in the 19th century. It was also unofficially known for its gambling dens, brothels and opium trade. We stayed in the Bund area till the evening, when the haze faded into the darkness and the city lit up, revealing the second best skyline yet seen in Asia.
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| The Bund |
The next two days were far less productive, though we managed to visit the site of the first Chinese Communist party conference in 1921, a one storey house turned museum which was fairly interesting. We also visited the Shanghai museum, the most famous in the city which presented the changing face of Chinese art, cartography, coinage and pottery. It wasn’t really my cup of tea though some interesting parts were finding out that buildings painted on vases and pots are still used by historians to understand ancient Chinese architecture(as many of the wooden structures haven’t survived), and that the first money used in China was actually metal spades. Having failed to get a train ticket we ended up leaving for the historic Xian a day late. We could only get a seat for the 21hour journey. Seating class was in the same carriage as standing class and it was jammed with people the whole way. The feats of endurance I witnessed were astounding-people standing for hours on end, or whole families (all three of them) curled up in corners, children layered on mothers, mothers on fathers. Westerners wouldn’t have accepted such cattle class travel.
I expected a feast of history from Xian, Chinas ancient capital at the end of the Silk Road, though unfortunately the city turned out to be a modern metropolis bar a few exciting traditional parts. From our suitably ancient hostel, a former Ming Dynasty house excellently located just inside the city’s 600 year old walls, we explored the lively Muslim quarter. Aside from the mosque, the bustling area didn’t contain much Arabic influence in an architectural sense, however there were a few rug shops and plenty of Chinese Muslims going about their day in fez’s and veils. The street food defiantly had a different look to it, with meet sold on skewers and some excellent beef wrapped in a deep fried sort of pancake, like a kebab. There was also a bazaar which seemed unfortunately to be catered to tourists (I purchased a poster of Mao here). The second part of the day took us to the impressive 16th century drum and bell towers, the latter unfortunately now the centre of a multilane roundabout and accessible by only by underpass. We were fortunate in our timing to see some drum and bell performances.
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| The train was like this for 22 hours |
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| Street food in the Arab District |
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| Street market in the Arab District |
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| Drum Tower |
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| Watching a performance in the bell tower |
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| Bell tower at night |
Whilst queuing to get train tickets out of Xian on our first day (an attempt which failed meaning we had to get a coach) we met two Danish girls, Helena and Simone who we traveled with to the terracotta warriors. Despite having heard from several travelers that these were unspectacular, Rob and I both thought they were very impressive. They were located in pits spread across three giant halls (by giant I mean aircraft hanger size). The first hall contained the military headquarters with several hundred warriors including generals(though not many are actually on display), followed by the other two, the largest of which contained six thousand warriors, all with unique faces, all facing east in battle formation. This bronze armed, battle ready force, until 1974 buried underground in wood and earth covered bunkers, was built by the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang (Qin dynasty 221-206BC). It is theorized that he believed he would still rule after life, so needed an army to keep control of his kingdom here on earth. The sight was fascinating.
That evening, after the Danes had left, making their coach with seconds to spare we ate a hearty meal of blackbean covered fish at a local restaurant. On the last day we rented bikes and cycled the 14km around the city’s impressive outer walls, built in 1372. The authentic watchtowers located every few hundred meters, were worth the exercise, though the towerblocks that house the masses (6.5million people to be precise) surrounding the walls hardly helped one immerse oneself into the city’s past.
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| Cycling the city walls |
In order to kill some time before Beijing, our penultimate trip in China took us a coastal city called Quindao. Aside from being recommended for its beaches (which turned out to be terrible), the town is called little Switzerland by the Chinese due to its German influence from its time as a concession (calling it little Switzerland was very much of a stretch- it was defiantly more akin to Leningrad then Lausanne). Aside from a few churches, the German’s greatest influence on the town was the creation of a Brewery. For Quindao is the home of China’s most famous drink-Tsingtao beer. Of course, during our visit, we took a trip to the one hundred year old brewery, heading on the obligatory tour. This turned out to be very interesting, with rich history of the brewery under initial ownership of the Germans, then Japanese during WWII where it was used to produce Asahi, and finally the Chinese. One interesting point was finding out that the oldest, still valid food law in the world was The German Beer purity Law created by Wilhelm IV back in 1518 which said only barley, hops and water could be used to make beer!
After the tour we went and had a few drinks and food on beer street, trying some different varieties of the beer (my favourite of which was of course a black beer, think Robert preferred the original) and eating supposedly famous kebabs which were just average.
