Visiting China Part I - 31 october 2009  | | Tienanmen Square in Beijing - Ph. by D. Santal |
More than a year ago, I was preparing the itinerary of a trip to China.
A week ago to the day, we came back from our first ever exploration of China and It was dazzling! Our itinerary took us first to Beijing, on to Xian, to Lijiang, to Kunming, to Guilin, to Chengdu and finally to Shanghai; it also included cruises on the Li River and on the Yangtze. It is difficult to do justice to this magnificent country and its charming people, but I want to try.
Any itinerary, even the briefest, tends to include Beijing, Xian and Shanghai. I will start there.
Beijing: on our first day, we walked from our hotel to Tiananmen Square. As China was celebrating its 60th anniversary of the Revolution, it was especially crowded and it was difficult to get a good sense of the largest city square in the world. What I enjoyed most was the flowers; there were displays everywhere, bright colors, mostly red and yellow, and intricate designs; there were also 56 columns all around the square, and each represented one of the fifty six ethnic minorities which compose the People's Republic. Of course, we entered the Forbidden City of the Ming and the Qing dynasties. The formal visit I enjoyed most was the Temple of Heaven, once the royal temple: it has been skillfully restored and is typical of ancient Chinese architecture.
We had reserved one of the days just by ourselves as we wanted to explore the contemporary art scene in Beijing. We took a taxi to the 798 Art District -- it used to be an area with factories and storage facilities and it has been transformed into space for galleries, museums, restaurants and cafés. We were amazed at how sophisticated and up-to-date Chinese artists are. The Museum of Contemporary Art, though small, gives visitors a really good sense of what's going on: an English-speaking docent guided us through and then let us wonder around to our heart's content. We had assumed that the government would interfere with artistic expression, the way the Soviet government had interfered in the USSR, so many years ago: we found that there is a great deal of freedom of expression, at least artistically.
On another occasion, we took the Beijing Subway: ultra modern, fast, easy to manage as all the signs are in Chinese and in English (yes Indeed!); furthermore, someone announces all the stops, again in Chinese and in English!
We marvelled at the warm hospitality Chinese people express readily and their kindness, their sense of humor delighted us and they love to trade jokes! We also enjoyed many excellent and healthy meals, including the famed Peking duck... but more on that at another time.
On our last day, we were taken to the Great Wall: we had been advised to go to the Metanyu section as there are cable cars which take visitors to the top. Unfortunately, it was very foggy and we could not see more than 10 feet in front of us; it was quite a disappointment, but we enjoyed the eerie atmosphere, nonetheless.
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