Xi'an and the Terra Cotta Warriors

We arrived early in the morning before our hotel rooms were ready, so we went out for breakfast and coffee. My steamed dumplings were delicious and about twenty cents each, while my Starbucks was almost six dollars. The disparity is crazy.

My cheap, delicious dumplings.

The terra cotta warrior exhibit was our whole reason for visiting the city, so we took a bus over to the ancient burial site of one Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. Literally thousands of these guys were buried underground, meant to protect the dead emperor. Farmers stumbled across the national treasure while digging for a well, and since then have been very well off. We had lunch with a family that benefitted from the discovery of the terra cotta warriors. The government had moved them off the site and built them a large new home. They couldn’t farm anymore, so they cooked traditional meals and talked with tourists as a means of income.

Our tour group after lunch with the locals.

The first exhibit hall of three. They were still actively excavating this site.

All of their heads were different.

Me, being there.

They buried a real armory for the Emperor, too.

Some particularly elaborate chariots also unearthed there.

That evening we explored the city a little, checking out the bell and drum towers used to rouse the citizens and tell time back in the day. We walked through a night market and passed by a Muslim temple where lots of halal cooking was going on. Certainly was unexpected to see Chinese Muslims, but there they were.

A drum or bell tower, can't remember anymore.

The Great Wall, the Forbidden City

The first day of our tour we drove out to see the Great Wall. It was a pretty magnificent sight from the top, but the stairs up felt like a joke after tackling an entire mountain in Japan. They had an optional toboggan ride down, which would’ve been a great idea on Mt. Fuji.

Pushing our way to the top.

Look at all that wall. Keeping out all those invaders.

On the way back we stopped by the Silk Market, a multilevel indoor shopping center where all the prices were negotiable. One person in our group got a dress for 5% of the price she was first told! Some mark up.

Monday we walked around the Forbidden City, the ancient capitol of China. The last Emperor’s school and quarters were on display. We started from the Imperial Gardens on the north side and worked out way south through the castle walls. I was impressed with the sheer scale of the place. There were tons of little details that were interesting, like the significance of the number 9 and the giant carved stone slab used to decorate a staircase that could only be moved in the winter when it was icy enough to slide it.

The northern entrance, where the Emperor's extensive harem was allowed to enter.

Hill of Accumulated Elegance. I'll name my kid that one day.

Lover's tree, interwined. Aaaaand that pose was not my idea. For the record.

One of a pair of guardian lions to ward off evil. She represents yin, negative energy, and is playing with a baby.

That giant stone slab I was talking about. It has 9 dragon carved on it.

The southern 'front' gate, where we exited. There was so much more space to this place.

The gates, with a 9x9 grid of round decorations. Said to be lucky if you touch all 9 in a row.

On the other end of the Forbidden City was Tiananmen Square. Nothing mentioned the protests that staged there--in fact, gatherings of all kinds are forbidden (ha) now. The place was crawling with men in uniform, and a display was being put up in honor of the world expo being held in Shanghai.

Chairman Mao is still honored, though even the Chinese acknowledge he wasn't a saint.

Tiananmen Square was large but otherwise mundane.

We headed to the train station for an overnight train to our guide Howard’s hometown, Xi’an. Again, the size of the place was unreal. The train station was immense and packed with people. I actually got a little anxious from the size of the crowd, which hasn’t happened in a long time. Anyways, we picked up some snacks and went on our way.

Beijing, Ancient (and current) Capital of China

I arrived in China early in the morning and, after a confusing exchange with our taxi driver, managed to get to the correct hotel. I can understand why English speakers are perceived as rude, because I did no research about the Chinese languages before arriving, resorting to pointing and uselessly repeating myself in English.

The guided tour I signed up for didn’t start until Saturday so I just did some shopping in the area and arbitrarily chose a restaurant for dinner that turned out to be delicious and inexpensive.

First Chinese meal. Very good, and very cheap!

We met our tour guide and group the next evening. Our guide, Howard, was a Chinese local in his 30’s (I think). He told us the plan for the next week then we all had dinner together.

Our hotel for the tour. It was a convenient location at least.

The giant bike/moped lane. Not that people really followed traffic rules.

Wandering around at night, we found a crazy food market. Which sells seahorse on a stick.

All kinds of meats, some of which I was way too grossed out to try (sheep testicles, anyone?).

We were told each city we would be visiting in China would have a different feel. So far, Beijing feels the most American because of the wide streets and the use of cars as a primary method of transportation. The unusual parts are the insane number of bicycles and mopeds in the designated lanes on the outside of the roads. All the mopeds are electric and completely silent, so a lot of honking happens. Coming from Japan the streets seem filthy, and the people are much more diverse in stature and dress than Japan or Korea. Prices are even cheaper than I imagined though, with food costing anywhere between $0.16 and $3.00 for fair sized portions. I like to eat a lot, so already this bodes well.

Castles & Robots

Our flight out of Fukuoka was quite late, so we decided to leave early and see as many things as possible on the train ride back across Japan.

Our first stop was an 18 m (59 foot) tall Gundam! A toy company built it for their 30th anniversary. It was built at a 1:1 scale and was done up in lights, but only its head turned a little bit. Still, totally worth the stop.

Truly epic.

Great day...for hanging out with robots.

Next we visited Himeji Castle, one of the best preserved ancient Japanese castles. It was under renovation when we arrived, but that kept our visit short and we had a schedule to keep. The sky was clear which made for beautiful pictures, but it was so hot. We grabbed a taxi to get back to the train station in a hurry, and it was one of the most harrowing rides yet. Our elderly driver ran lights and nearly threw us out of the car when he made the turn to drop us off and the passenger door automatically opened.

Under construction.

Cool stuff. Supposedly it resembles a white crane.

Proof I was in another Japanese castle.

We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare and were checked in to our Incheon hotel before midnight. After a quick fix of banana milk we were done with traveling for a few hours.

Turning Japanese

Sushi was the first order of business in Tokyo, though we were still hungry after finding that it’s not significantly cheaper than in the States. We walked around Sunshine City in the northwest part of the city, and eventually found some Chinese pork buns in the train station near our ryokan.

More vending machines. This one had pancake-flavored milk for sale.

Correctly anticipating a low level of enthusiasm for self-planned sight-seeing, we had all booked a bus day tour of Tokyo. It was a welcome break from the past few days, and we learned a lot of subtle bits about Japanese culture from our tour guide. We were able to see a lot of the big tourist sites and make plans for our last days in Japan.

One of the 3 tori gates to the Meijo Shinto Shrine.

A corner of the Eastern Imperial Gardens.

The Senso-ji Buddhist Temple, built around an image of Buddha found by fishermen. Noone has actually seen the small statue.

One of the ceiling tiles in the temple. Dragons!

At the Kaminarimon, or Thunder Gates, leading to the Buddhist temple.

On the Symphony, doing a quick boat tour of Tokyo Bay.

A mini-Statue of Liberty. It's a replica Japan made of the one France let them borrow? I don't know.

After the tour we went to Shibuya, famous for its insane scatter crossing (a crosswalk that alternates between vehicle traffic in set directions and foot traffic in any direction). We had a dinner of tempura there, then stopped by a small shop for ice cream and other snacks on our way home.

Hachiko waiting for his master outside Shibuya station.

A shot of the scramble crossing from the nearby Starbuck's window.

There wasn’t enough time to really get to know Tokyo like we did Seoul, but I’d visit Japan again.

Land of the Rising Sun

Getting to Mt. Fuji was more difficult than we anticipated. We left Kyoto about noon and didn’t begin hiking until about 9 PM Monday. The plan was to hike all night and reach the summit before the sunrise at 5:41 AM. I was prepared enough to have my hiking boots with me but foolishly left my one jacket in my luggage in Korea. It had been sweltering our entire time touring Japan, but climbing up 3,700 m in the dark can get quite cold.

So eager. So naive.

Fortunately we had a full moon to help light the way.

Yeah, that says 385 minutes (~6.5 hours) to the top. And we just started.

The hike up was difficult but not painful. We took breaks at all the way stations and started early enough that we could eat ramen at the last restaurant on the way up. Really we just wanted a break from the wind, which was a good thing because the food was terrible. Towards the top it really started to get crowded, but we managed to find a good spot to sit well before the sun began to rise.

Viktor took this excellent shot looking up the trail.

Well look at that. A vending machine on top of a sacred Japanese mountain.

It really was a fantastic thing to see the sun rise over from Mt. Fuji, one that can’t be captured in pictures. In just a few seconds the blood red sun was completely over the horizon and people began their descent.

The beginning of the sun's rise.

Yah I made it! But damn was it cold.

Group shot at the top.

Really we were just delaying the inevitable trip back down.

The return part was something none of us prepared for.

Looks a lot different by daylight. Because you can actually see.

Walking down (off?) the mountain.

After spending the whole day traveling and the whole night climbing, the alternate downhill path was grueling. The switchbacks were entirely too steep and the path was laid with essentially loose gravel, making it very difficult to keep balanced. Almost 5 hours later I was at the 5th station where we started, hungry, tired, and in a lot of pain. I pieced together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and we got on the bus back towards our hostel and unused beds. The owners were kind enough to allow us to shower even though our room was already occupied by another group. We dressed and packed in the lobby and started off for Tokyo.