Sunday I woke up even earlier to go on a tour of the Qing tombs. The Qing dynasty was the last dynasty in China and the majority of the emperors and their wives are buried outside of Beijing. Hua and I took a cab down to near Tian’anmen square to catch the tour bus to the tombs. Here is me taking a picture of myself to chronicle the event, as a side ntoe it was not until I looked at this picture a couple of days later that I realized I had toothpaste nasties on my mouth. Thanks for telling me Hua.


The pick up place was near the oldest church in China which is a catholic church and since this was Easter there was quite the crowd going in. For a fleeting moment I felt like I should wander in for Easter mass but the moment fleeted and I jumped on the tour bus.


I got to see quite a bit of the countryside from the bus considering it was three hour ride to get there. We drove through towns of a lot of varying sizes which was a pretty interesting view of China. Much different from being in Beijing and only seeing how people live here, this was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip. The main drawback was the size of the seats in the bus. As we were waiting to leave one group of people left because the bus was so uncomfortable and they were small people.






On the way there we stopped to pee which is not that exciting but helps set the stage for later. As we got to the tombs the tour guide jumped out and bought all the people on the bus tickets. She then handed them out and found there was one extra ticket which could only mean that we had left a person when we stopped to pee. She stopped the bus on the side of the road and started counting people until the guy to my right started yelling that it did not matter at this point if we left someone or not. We were pretty much at the tombs so we might as well go the last little bit and let everyone who was accounted for see the tombs. She relented and we went on.


The tombs themselves were really amazing. One nice thing is that it is so far outside of Beijing that no one is there. This means it is not crowded and the people trying to sell you stuff don’t even try with me because they don’t even know enough English to determine the amount they want to charge me for whatever.



The first tomb we went to was an empress’ tomb which also had a number of concubines for a particular emperor. The next tomb was CiXi aka the woman behind the curtain aka the woman who caused an end to the dynasty method of government in China. She is a really interesting historical figure. She is the reason we have a phrase “ruling from behind a curtain”. She placed her son as the emperor than her nephew and ruled for about 74 years which is longer than any other emperor. Her tomb is larger than every tomb except for Xian Long who was one of the most famous Qing emperors.


















After CiXi’s tomb we saw Qian Long’s tomb and it was awesome. The tomb itself had the most intricate carvings and was huge. It was really interesting and made me interested in Buddhism again because all the carvings are related to Buddhism. Qian Long ruled for a year less than his grandfather in a time of peace in China. His life is fodder for many Chinese TV series currently. He wrote poems and traveled the country.














His grandfather, KangXi, was the next tomb we saw. He was as famous as Qian Long but for different reasons. He was the first Qing emperor to take over all of China and rule from Beijing. He was a military genius and well known for this. His rule paved the way for Qian Long’s later success.

We also saw the man in between these two who only ruled briefly and supposedly died at 24 even though the rumor is that he joined the monastery. His tomb is thought to be empty because he died in the monastery so it is the only tomb that has not been opened by the government or by tomb raiders. He joined the monastery because his mother killed the woman he loved instead of letting him marry her. She just was not the marrying type.





Porcupines that I was supposed to pay a dollar to take a picture of but did not because the boy forget to say dollar and only said one. I responded with "what?" as I was taking the picture. Score for Justin.


On the way to all these tombs we decided to hire a motorcycle cart to drive us in between. As Hua said the tombs were not built with tourists in mind. From the back of the cart we saw many goats, sheeps and even a herd of camels. It was fun being able to ride in a contraption like this.

After the last tomb we picked up two women who were on our bus and headed back to the bus or so I thought. Hua and the women decided they wanted to see another temple even though we had 5 minutes to make it back to the bus. “Everyone else will be late” I believe were the words out of Hua’s mouth. Needless to say no one else was late or at least as late as us. The women were mighty embarrassed but Hua did not seem to mind and I think everyone expected me to be late.









The bus ride itself passed by quickly because I was passed out. The one interesting thing that happened was that they revived the whole missing person debacle. I suggested that they just ask all the people who were sitting by themselves if there had ever been anyone sitting with them. After counting the rows four more times they decided to follow my idea and determined that no one was missing. When we got back we had dinner at a fast food duck place and headed home. I forced myself to stay up to 10 again and then passed out.

Saturday was a really good day even if I did wake up at 7:30. I foolishly went to the coffee shop that is somewhat near my house. As you can see coffee here is not the same as in the US, it is not something you use to help you wake up in the morning, it is someplace you go to be seen using the free wireless.



We hopped on a bus to outside the fifth ring to go to the paintball place. I decided not to bring my camera once we got there which turned out to be a poor decision because they supplied us with lockers and I could have taken a picture of the Rambo posters and the guy who was way too into the military who was running the place.

The games turned out to be really shitty and really fun. The first game they gave us guns and the amount of paintballs we had paid for then ushered us onto the field to shoot theses paintballs at each other. What made the game kind of useless was that there was no point to it. If you got hit you just kept shooting until your paint was gone. Basically it was a scam to make us buy more paint. The only exciting thing that happened was me getting hit in the face by Xu, one of my mentees. He loved that and made sure to let me and everyone else know how much he loved hitting me in the face after the game. Maybe I am teaching him too much. That sort of reaction strikes me as a suspiciously Justin type of reaction.

After we bought more paint we played capture the flag which was a lot of fun. If you got hit three times you were supposed to leave the field. I hit a bunch of people and managed to avoid getting hit at all myself. The one drawback was that none of the people I hit three times left the field. I know what you are thinking right now cause I was thinking the same thing, what a bunch of cheating bastards. As the new mature Justin though I just swallowed any comments I had and sat out the next game with the rest of the people who had decided to sit down by now. As an aside how shocking is that, me not yelling like a two year old when I get all competitive and what not. I continue to be shocked by this development.

As we were in the bus heading towards the spa I realized that I was actually doing what you were supposed to be doing in a morale event. Meeting people in your team you don’t normally talk to and strengthening friendships across sometimes different teams. Another shocking development.

At the spa place we got to have hot pot buffet which might be the best thing ever. They give you your own hot pot and unlimited food to put into it. I managed to miss the first helping of meat though because it disappeared in ultra quick time so I loaded up on ducks blood and decided this might be the food I miss the most when I leave here. Yet another shocking development, but don’t worry this was not the last.

After eating we hit the springs. This was the last shocking development of the day, I got to see every one of my male co-workers naked as the day they were born and them me. To be honest it was slightly surreal. The springs themselves though were like a day at the beach. If you took away the sand, women under 55, waves and beach. And if you added brown, really hot water, Chinese medicinal herbs and sand storms.

It is just pools of varying hotness that you sit in until you are too warm and then you get out for a while. Then back in, then back out, etc… Most of our group ended up hanging out in the medicinal spa which also happened to be the hottest pool. It was relaxing hanging out and doing nothing for the day. The most bizarre thing though was the dust storms. We are sitting in this spa that is kind of sheltered watching these huge clouds of dust pass over the open areas of the hotel and coat everything in orange. Talk about surreal.

After this though we headed home and I showered getting ready to catch this opera / acrobatics. I was not quite up to it though as I was so tired so when Sarah called and said she was tired I did not complain much, actually at all. I talked to people back in the states until 10 PM at which point I feel dead asleep. I know I said I was done with the shocking revelations but this one continues to bother me. I have turned into one of those people that wake up before their alarm. This bothers me to no end. Maybe I will get back on a proper night time schedule when my mom and aunt are here and we are partying till the wee hours. 

Friday I had the craziest lunch. We had a morale event the following day where we were going to go to play paintball and hang out in a hot springs spa afterwards. So we split into two teams for paintball ahead of time. Friday was the day of our strategy lunch. I thought this was kind of a joke but people were dead serious. We split into further teams of 3-5 a team and forged strategies based on my poor remembrance of paintball in the states because I was the only one that had been before. During lunch there were repeated attempts by the other team to spy on us and us on them. By the time lunch had finished we had a strategies developed for a full war and capture the flag type games. We also had people buying walkie talkies and binoculars.



After work I headed over to visit one of Cathy’s friend’s daughters who was in town on a tour and go with her to Chinese opera or acrobatics. I took the subway there (which is where I saw this old man who was too tired to go on) and decided to boldly walk from the subway stop to her hotel which I had a street name for and a vague idea of where on the street it was. After walking in the wrong direction along this street for a while I ended up calling the hotel and finding out that I was going in the wrong direction. By the time I finally got to the hotel though it was too late to go to the opera or acrobatics so we grabbed a drink in the hotel lounge which was eerily deserted.

After lots of indecision we decided to go to the Green T House because they had desserts in dry ice. I had dinner there which was ok. The one good point was it had tons of the ma peppers which make your mouth go numb so that is always fun. Sarah did not find it quite as amusing as I did. I think my tastes are pretty divergent from normal now. We ended up having dessert and the dry ice was not quite as spectacular as I remember it although it was still pretty cool.

From there we headed next door to the bowling alley. It was like a bowling alley anywhere in the US except they played the people singing karaoke downstairs as the radio station of choice. Also they gave you socks when you got your shoes in case you wanted to use their socks instead of your own. Overall it was a nice time talking to someone about China and what is fun here and what is not. We ended up going home after the first frame because she was dying at that point. The 16 hour flight and day of sightseeing caught up in a rush. 

These pictures will give you an idea of how exciting my Thursday was. My life is a rich and full tapestry. I spent around 4 hours in the evening arguing about the design of a distributed test framework, sweet.

I am going home to drink two deuces of Tsing Tao and have some dumplings.

 

Defeated again on Tuesday. I thought nothing exciting could happen tonight, I was going from work to dinner than back home. I keep forgetting that I am in China. So I met up with Hua for dinner at a place near his house. First the food, it was awesome. We had cold rice noodles that are fast becoming a favorite appetizer and eel with rice krispies, extremely spicy rice krispies. Imagine a rice cake that is dropped in spicy sauce, absorbs the sauce and then dries out so just the hot part remains… that is what we had for dinner.

So we met to discuss our trip to Cambodia which now sounds like it might include Vietnam and Laos. After that though we were talking about many different things and were at one point talking about the economic policies of Dong Xiaoping. Specifically we were talking about how he opened the country up econimcally while keeping it closed politically. It was at this point that I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see an extremely drunk younger Chinese man standing by my shoulder. As he started talking the managers at the restaurant started to descend. It was coincidental timing though. He just wanted to talk about America and how he liked it more than China because you were more free to express yourself there. His choice of freedom of expression was music which endeared him to me quickly even though it was Nirvana (#1 in his book because they don’t fuck groupies), Bon Jovi (#2 because he does), and Ricky Martin (who would have fucked him). He was also a big fan of the Sex Pistols. It was an amusing couple of minutes talking to him about the US and baseball.

Afterwards I swung by Hua’s apartment to see it after he had set it all up. It is a nice place with a great view. It is within spitting distance of my place but due to geography and very high fences it is about a 20 minute walk. So I broke one of my own rules and hopped in a cab to get home. I need to shower now because I have compromised my morals to such an extent.

Monday was rough because of how late I stayed up on Sunday night. At lunch we talked more about Cambodia and I actually looked up some tours online. I am not sure whether I want to go the tour route or the winging it route. So far winging it was worked surprisingly well.

Left work pretty early to grab dinner down in WangFuJing with Brian before he left. We went to south beauty, aka the best nice Chinese restaurant yet. I found out what their specialty is after ordering of course but now will be able to try it next time I go back. It is like the fish in hot oil at the place near my house but they throw in a little beef as well just to mix it up.

After dinner we went back to Bodhi for the third foot massage in as many days. Not a bad day all in all. Got to watch some college basketball dunk contest and a Cantonese vampire movie. The vampire movie might qualify as the cheesiest thing I have ever seen. The masseuses could not believe we were willingly watching it.

Wednesday was pretty uneventful. The only exciting thing that happened was that I got to take a picture of the train coming at me and leaving. Also the trip to Cambodia might end up being a trip to Laos where we go to Cambodia. All the flights from China to Cambodia are full for three days running. Damn 1.6 billion people on national holiday making it hard for me to travel.

 

I was woken up a little earlier than I planned by my driver, robin, because the lobby was too busy for him to find me in. He came up to my room so we could meet face to face then I had to rush to get ready and head down to meet him after checking out.

He was a nice guy who knew quite a bit about Xi’an. We talked about the city and how it compared to Beijing for a while until we saw a wedding procession driving past. Chinese weddings are celebrated differently than western ones. The big party is at lunch were everyone shows up and wishes the couple good luck. After lunch everyone leaves and dinner is a much smaller affair with close friends and family.

We first went to the terra cotta warrior factory… I mean museum. I felt like a superstar, robin pulled up right to the door and I hopped out and got to avoid the tourist line which was insanely long. He was able to get me an English speaking guide and they told me briefly how the warriors were first made and how they are made now. It was more of a shopping tourist trap deal than anything else. Since I was wearing a jeans and t-shirt though everyone thought I was a student and left me to my own devices.




After the museum we headed out to the actual warriors which are located a ways outside the city. Robin gave me a brief explanation of the layout of the museum and told me the optimal way to view it. With this information in hand I left the parking lot and started the 20 minute walk to the warriors.

It was a beautiful walk further reinforcing how much I liked Xi’an. As I got to the ticket booth I was right at the front of a large group of tour groups and there were two open lines. A middle-aged man, an older woman and I all started rushing for the two open ticket sellers. The man made it to one first leaving one open spot for the woman and me. We started running and as she zigged I zagged. At the last second I was able to get a shoulder in the opening and beat her to the seller by a couple of inches. I turned to give her a triumphant smile and she returned it with a spiteful glare. Her friend was laughing at her for getting beaten by a foreigner. I turned to the seller full of pride, reached in my pocket and realized I had left my wallet in my bag back in the car. Defeated I left my spot to the now gloating woman and went back to the car.

The museum is really large. There are 3 pits, a movie theater, an additional museum and a restaurant area. There also is a metal detector that you have to walk through to get in to the museum. This was the first I saw of this in China. I also realized that there was no one manning the detector. After passing through it I realized it was not even on. At least it is more honest than the TSA system which is basically the same thing.


I watched the circle movie first. It was pretty cool how the movie was filmed. The screens completely surrounded you and you had a 360 degree view. I am not sure how they filmed it; I kept imagining three or four cameras taped together all pointing in different directions. The movie went over the history of the emperor who created the warriors. He was the first to unify China and the first to build the Great Wall. He also set up the basic institutions for Chinese government that were in place until the revolution at the middle of the 20th century. All in all a bunch of impressive feats. He also decided to build an underground city for a tomb and the warriors are guarding this city. This tomb took 40 years to build which was actually longer than he lived.

After the movie I went into the first pit. There is where the majority of the warriors that have been uncovered are. It was pretty amazing. The place is massive and the soldiers are all lined up and restored for the most part. All of the detail on the warriors is unique so they have different faces and slight differences in clothing. There are a couple different groups of warriors and the way their hair is done is what differentiates them. So one knot is a regular soldier. Two is an officer and so on. There are also a lot of pits that remain to be excavated. They are waiting for better technology to help in preserving the warriors because the ones they have already excavated have lost most of the color in the paint that was on them.





















After the first pit I saw the third pit which was a much smaller pit. It was more of an honor guard I guess. From there I went on to the second pit which was pretty massive again. This was almost completely unexcavated though. So it just looked like a bunch of dirt. There were a couple of areas with some shards though which were pretty interesting. It is like a really difficult jigsaw puzzle. This pit also had really complete statues of each kind on display.



















The museum was next up. There were a couple of different exhibits. There was one of Tang dynasty pottery (tri-color pottery) which I really like. They had it for comparison to Qin dynasty artifacts. There was also some jade work from the Qin dynasty and the bronze chariots they found in front of the third pit. The bronze chariots were really cool. They were smaller but really fine detailing.

After finishing up in this museum I grabbed some ice cream and walked back to the parking lot. It was the perfect weather. Just my shoulder blades were hot. There was a nice breeze to keep you cool but the sun was nice and warm. I love that combination of weather and could walk forever like that.





I also found a shortcut heading back to the parking lot by following a group through a construction area. When we first entered a couple of people walked towards us and I thought they were going to tell us that you could not walk through this area and to turn around. Nope they just wanted to try to sell us some junk. I forget sometimes that I am in China and I should expect you can go wherever you want and wherever you go someone will be there trying to sell you some trinket.





The ride back to the airport was really interesting. We drove on all local roads and got to go through some of the more rural areas outside of Xi’an. Most of the pictures I took did not really turn out but it was cool seeing a non-citified version of China. To be honest though I did not take my eyes of the street for the first 30 minutes. All driving rules go out the window outside of the city. Double yellow lines are a suggestion that is ignored frequently. As are almost all sense of lanes. There was one point where there was a truck, us, five bikes and a car going in the opposite direction all in parallel on the road.

After I got to the airport I went to the airport buffet for the first food I ate all day. I am getting too used to the prices here. The buffet was 60 quai for food and all the beer you could drink. Even with the free beer the buffet was pretty weak with most foods being chronically gone. I kept feeling like I was getting ripped off but then kept reminding myself that 60 quai is 7.50. The beer alone would have cost more in the States (but not here leading to my sense of getting ripped off)

After getting back I got in the ridiculous taxi line and watched some guy get chased down buy the guards and hauled off. It was pretty exciting even though I had no real idea what was going on. Instead of going home though I met up with Brian and Hua in Sanlitun for drinks and dinner. We went to the tree and had many pizzas. Hua and I decided to go to Cambodia for the May holiday here so now we are in the process of getting tickets and setting that all up.

After the tree we went to browns to get a Guinness then we went to get a foot massage. After that we went to the bus bar which is a bus that has been converted into a bar. It also is the weed smoking haven for Beijing apparently. Brian and I decided that probably was not the best place to hang out as they tend to do things like execute you for drug possession here so we went to another bar and had some drinks till they closed. Overall a very full day.