Trip to Xi'an and Beijing

I have just come back to my room after having enjoyed Chinese fondue, or “hot pot” as it is called here, with the people from my floor and now find myself with time to write a bit more about my life out here…

Time is running fast and I have not been able to check in to write about the latest things that I have seen and experienced, and a lot of things has happened and does happen all the time. But I will try and run through it to get up to date.

Yesterday (28 September), I returned to Hong Kong after 6 days of traveling in China, where I went to Xi’an and Beijing. As we planned the trip, we all in a sudden realized that 1.3 billion Chinese people (that is 1’300’000’000 people!), where planning to travel around the country to meet and see their family, as their national day approached the 1st of October. This happened to coincide with our trip, so we quickly changed plans, as advised by local students, and left one week earlier. Namely the 22nd September, we were off to the first stop on our journey: the small 5.6 million city of Xi’an, some 1500km up along the great Yellow River.

Xi’an: The city of insane drivers

Finishing my mandarin class, which I have every Friday afternoon, quickly off I was to meet with Søren and Christina, whom I was traveling with. We left for Hong Kong airport with the Airport Express, and on to our flight with China Eastern Airlines to Xi’an. In the plane we had to fill out various papers that would eventually allow us entry to China, we hoped as both Søren and I had a soar throat due to the extreme air-conditioning in HK. We had to fill out a health declaration concerning it, but it turned out that we passed through the thermal scans upon landing without anything trouble; neither were we carrying any prohibited items, such as DVDs, books, or CDs that were “detrimental to the political, economic, cultural and moral interest of China”. Right before entering Chinese soil, a large container was placed with the purpose of collecting and confiscating such materials…a warm WELCOME to China!
Only just outside the airport the first taxi driver approached us, wanting to give us a “cheap” ride to town, and that was only to be the beginning of hundreds of people asking us to “help”, sell, ask and beg us for money during the trip… Western people = big money, huh?! Err…students?! No, we don’t have money to go around in those amounts! Anyway, we found an official taxi, just to realize that he did not know the address of our hostel in English. However, everyone, and I do mean everyone, as people around gathered to see and hear what was so weird about those foreigners… luckily, we had the phone number to the hostel, and one call later, the driver nodded and off we were on the most crazy drive I yet have experienced in my life…

Southern Italian drivers go home, that is no match for how cabdrivers in Xi’an drive… Apparently, there are no rules, or should I say “observed rules” for driving. Whether you pass the car in front off you by the inside or outside, the emergency lane, or for the sake of passing between two cars on a two lane street does not really matter, but I can assure you that it makes a simple 30 min trip a hell of an exciting ride. Brake, horn, or a slight push with the front of the car gets one on the edge of the seat, which of course has no seatbelts… But after a day, it seemed quite normal to drive this way, and despite the traffic light not yet has been invented in Xi’an, the traffic seems to move quite fluently through 6 lane intersections without too much trouble. Arriving at the hostel, we found it to be one of the hidden dream locations. It was absolutely fabulous…see picture. True Chinese style and it was very cozy!

The one day, we had in Xi’an, we spent on a full day tour to the Huaqing Hot Springs and its surrounding palace built during the Western Zhou Dynasty, the Army of the Terra Cotta Warriors and the mausoleum of the Tang emperor Xuanyuan (the Yellow Emperor), who initiated Chinese civilization. It was a very interesting day, and the Terra Cotta warriors were quite impressive!

Nine million bicycles in Beijing:

The next day, we had to fly off to Beijing, this time with China Airlines. It was a short 2½ hours flight. In Beijing, we had booked a room at a hostel in the Central of Town in one of the old Hutong areas. Our hostel was called the Lotus Hostel, and was run by local Chinese. The first day, we just spent walking around the infinite number of roads trying to get our coordinates right…Beijing is a really massive city, so this is quite hard. We did manage to find our way to the center of town and to the front entrance of the Forbidden City.

It is very impressive and while we stood amazed by the structure, the Chinese Army was training in the background. As we turned to watch, it turned out to be really funny and interesting to see… you can watch it below:



After the short practice, we had to exit the city walls, and go to Tiananmen Square, which is the largest square in the world. As we exited the wall, under the famous portrait of Mao, the square unfolded itself with hundreds of people waiting excitedly for something… We did not know what it was…but it turned out that it is a tradition in Beijing, that the Chinese National flag is lowered everyday, by the marching soldier that we saw practicing inside the palace. A few minutes later, the group of soldiers exited under the picture of Mao, and crossed the main road to the square, lowered the flag, saluted Mao, and returned to the palace.


The second day, we had planned a city tour to the main cites, such as the Forbidden city, Tiananmen Square’s Mao Mausoleum, Beihai Park and the Bell and Drum tower. All the sites were of course very touristed, and the Forbidden city was fabulous, or rather, we think, because many of the buildings were unfortunately covered for construction purposes, in preparation of the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 (http://www.beijing2008.com/).

The third day in Beijing, we joined an organized tour by the hostel with the destination of the Great Wall. What really was the exciting part, was the fact that it was a short of “secret tour”, since we were not going to the public open part and restored part of the wall that all tourists go to. We headed out with a local guide in a minivan to his family’s village 3 hours outside Beijing. From there we hiked up into the mountains to the great wall, and after 1 hours hard climbing, the wall stood right in front of us. We climbed up, and here is what the view was like from the top:

It was fantastic! We walked along the unrestored wall for 4 hours, up and down many, many stairs and eventually reached the part of the wall that normal tourists would visit at Mutianyu. From there we took a slide down the mountain and was picked up again in the minivan, and heading back to Beijing for another 3 hours… I did not see much, was a sleep during the whole trip. It had been an exhausting day, and the weather was perfect, clear sunny sky, so I could not have asked for more. It was as close to perfect as it can get!

The last day in Beijing we took very easy. We went to the Summer Palace of the Emperor, and from there to the construction of the Olympic city, where we saw the new Olympic stadium, named the “nest”, which is been built to the north of Beijing. In the evening, we went to the famous restaurant “Qianmen Quanjude Roast Duck” south of Tiananmen Sqaure and had the renowned Beijing roast duck or Peking duck as some call it.

In the morning of the 28th, we went to see the Great Hall of the People, or where the Chinese government is situated. It is a fantastic building rising to east of Tiananmen Square. We had to join a guided tour of the hall along with 50 older Chinese people, all wearing red hats. And that was the end of our trip to the north of China. Back to the airport, through the dense traffic, back to Hong Kong…which actually has started to feel like home (at least when you return from China Mainland!).

Back again to classes and the life of an exchange student...

Anders