China - Traveling Thru History

Flying Standby to China

Erin — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 23:58:03 +0000

Recently I had the opportunity to fly standby to China. I'd never done an international standby flight before and it was definitely a different experience. A little stressful at times, but totally worth it. #TBIN

The post Flying Standby to China first appeared on Traveling Thru History.

Biking Around the Xián City Wall

Erin — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 06:50:31 +0000

I really love traveling internationally. There is so much to see, do and learn. It’s so fun being in other cultures and seeing how other people live. The most amazing part of international travel is that there are TONS of things you can do in other countries that you really can’t do in the US. Like climb around 12th century ruins, explore castles and actually SEE ancient mixed with modern. It’s really great. When we were in China, we got to have a pretty fun experience. I was a little iffy about it at first. I mean, I wanted to do it, but my thought was, “Okay, we’re going to go bike around a wall. It’ll be fun and unique and we’ll get to have a cool little story about how we road bikes in China on an old city wall, but really, what’s so great about biking around a wall?” What I didn’t realize, though, was how MASSIVE that old city wall is and how surreal of an experience it would be. The city of Xián is over 3,000 years old. The original city wall was started in 194BC and completed in 190BC. It was either rebuilt or modified for further fortification during the Tang dynasty, which lasted from 618AD-907AD. During that time the wall measured 13.74 kilometres (8.54 mi) in length, 12–16 metres (39–52 ft) in thickness at the base and encompassed a city that covered 14 square miles (36 square kilometres) Later, the wall was rebuilt on this second foundation during the Ming dynasty of 1368-1644. The size of the wall during each rebuilding measured 59ft wide at the bottom, 49ft wide at the top, 39 feet tall and 8.5mi long. No wonder it took 4 years to build! When we arrived at the Xián City Wall, what impressed me most was the size of the wall. That thing is HUGE! I thought it was going to be quite a bit smaller than it really is. Walking inside the wall is pretty neat, too. When you walk inside, you really get to see the magnitude of the wall and feel how secure the ancient inhabitants felt when they lived inside it. To help you feel even more old-timey and like you’ve stepped into the past, they have pretty cool little guards to greet you as you walk through the gate. Don’t mind the cafe sign. I’m sure they had signs like that in the past. haha. This is a map of the entire wall. It doesn’t seem quite so big looking at the map, but seriously. This place is huge. It took us the full two hours to go around it with hardly any stops. The last quarter of the ride we were biking as fast as we could so we wouldn’t have to pay a fine for returning the bikes late. It’s hard to describe what it was like riding a bike around the city wall. It was fun and just felt so surreal. Here we are on modern bikes riding around on top of an ancient fortification, going past buildings that go back further than I can count! It really was amazing. After you climb up the stairs to the top of the wall and rent your bike (at either the north or south gates), you are free to ride around the entirety of the top of the wall. Of course, there is a 2-hour time limit, but they will gladly extend your rental for a small fee…………..every 5 minutes you are late. lol. If you don’t think you can do the whole wall in two hours you can just drop your bike at one of the other bike stations around the wall and you’re good to go. After they return your deposit, of course. But I recommend trying to get the entire circuit. We arrived about 2 minutes past our time, but the guy was really nice and wrote down that we returned it on time. So, but nice to the bike wrangler. There’s also an option to ride a tram. We didn’t see any trams while we were there, but that would probably be a good option for people who have trouble walking long distances or who have little kids. Having someone else drive you around seems like it would be a bit more relaxing, but would probably take away from the adventure. And, really, it was an adventure. We were pretty much in awe our entire ride and the first building we came to, we just HAD to take a picture in front of. But it couldn’t be just any picture. It had to be an action shot! And then we did our still shot. And, yes, that stuff Troy is wearing is all his camera gear. You’d think he’d be losing weight, lugging all that around…………..but, no. He likes to eat too much. lol I think on of my favorite things about the experience was being able to see the old mixed in with the new. It was pretty neat to see this ancient Chinese architecture surrounded by all of these modern buildings. I felt like I was stopping to take pictures every 10 feet. There are just so many amazing views and neat things to see from the wall. I read some reviews about the ‘attraction’ of visiting the Xián City Wall and it amazed me how people said there was nothing to see and that it was just ‘okay’. Seriously? It was amazing! It was such a neat experience and there were a lot of interesting things to see. There is just something surreal about hanging out on the top of a structure that’s over 3,000 years old while being surrounded by skyscrapers and hearing cars honking just below the wall. It’s like stepping back into the past while still holding onto the present. The buildings on the wall were pretty cool, too. They all had signs next to them, describing what they were for, which I really liked. They were mostly barracks and storehouses for the troops that were once stationed on the wall or places for them to warm up or dry off when weather was bad. Some were office buildings, which I thought was interesting. I would have thought those would be inside the wall, but perhaps they were offices for military officials who had complete confidence in the structure’s ability to withstand enemy attacks. Some other interesting things we saw on our ride were: This cool building. I’ve googled and googled to figure out what this is, but I have no idea. Maybe one of my Chinese-speaking friends can tell me? There was this cute little street market by the East side of the gate. It was fun watching people wander around down there. They are working on restoring the Guangren Lama Monastery by the northwest corner of the wall. Was kinda bummed that we were there before it was completed. I bet it will look great once the restoration work is done. Another building that I’m not sure what it is, but I like how it looks. Slanted ramp to bring supplies up to the top of the wall, yet keep it from getting too slick from rain. Kinda cool. This is where ancient artillery was stationed for the defense of the city. There are several of these spots around the wall. It still amazes me how well this was constructed. And I just love neat it all looks. Fun snake sculpture on the wall to commemorate the Year of the Snake. Once we got to the snake (about 3/4 of the way around the wall), we realized that we only had less than 10 minutes left on our rental! I can’t remember how much the late penalty was, but we certainly didn’t want to pay it. We were closer to one of the other bike stations, but we really wanted to be able to say we biked the entire wall, so we decided to race the last bit. It was a rough 2 miles, but it was a lot of fun darting around people and trying to ride as fast as we could. Everyone must have thought we were pedaling like crazy people, but we had such a great time bumping along the bricks. And we were so glad most of our remaining ride was downhill and that the wall wasn’t too terribly crowded. Unfortunately, we didn’t make our time, but the bike checker was nice and put that we were in on time since it was only maybe 2-3 minutes past. After we turned in our bikes and started heading towards the gate we’d come in, we found the reason why the last part of our ride hadn’t had many people. Down at the bottom of the stairs in the courtyard, there was a demonstration getting ready to start! Once we had secured a decent place to watch the performance from, I popped out my little camera and recorded it. The video is a bit jumpy because it was super windy and crowded. I kept getting pushed by people………….and at one point a kid started peeing right next to me and I had to jump to avoid getting peed on. Good times. :/ Gotta love China. Always something interesting. lol Price: To get inside the wall, it is 54 yuan for adults and 27 yuan for children under 4ft. For entrance and the Forest of Stone Steles Museum, 100 yuan. To rent a bike for 2 hours, it is 45 yuan for a standard bike and 90 yuan for a tandem bike. Both have a 200 yuan refundable deposit. Sightseeing tram is 80 yuan for the regular and 120 yuan for luxury. We didn’t see them while we were out, so I’m not sure what the difference is. Hours: Warrior Parade Performance : 11:00, 14:00, 17:00 (peak season only) Relieving Guard Ceremony: 10:00, 15:00 Thanks for reading my blog! If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comments section below. I’d love to hear what you think!

The post Biking Around the Xián City Wall first appeared on Traveling Thru History.

Leshan Giant Buddha

Erin — Thu, 20 Aug 2015 03:51:55 +0000

In 693 AD one of the most colossal undertakings in pre-modern history began taking place. A Buddhist monk named Haitong decided he wanted to build a Buddha statue in the Sichuan Province of China. But it wasn’t going to be just any Buddha statue. This Buddha statue was going to be carved into the side of a mountain next to a river in hopes that the Buddha would be able to control to tempestuous river spirits and allow safe passage to the numerous travelers of that river. After saving alms for 20 years, Haitong saved up enough copper coins to begin building this monumental statue. He enlisted help from other monks, masons and his disciples and they worked tirelessly to create Haitong’s vision. Since the project was bigger than Haitong had realized, he didn’t quite have enough money to cover all the costs and he solicited a government grant. Soon after the project had begun, legend says that government officials lobbied for the cancellation of support for Haitong’s project in order to keep the money for themselves, but Haitong fought for his cause. Legend states that Haitong told them they would have his eyes before they would have the money for the Buddha statue. When they pressed further, in a fit of religious rage Haitong gouged out his own eyes and flung them at the government officials. Thus terrorized and convinced of his conviction, nobody ever tried to take that money again. Unfortunately Haitong died before his statue was completed and after his death the government officials were successful in diverting funds from the project to their own special interests. The statue languished, unfinished, for 70 years until a regional military governor funded the completion of Haitong’s dream and the statue was finally finished in 803 AD. Fun fact: there are 1,021 coiled buns in the Buddha’s hairdo. Another fun fact is that the ears on this statue are 23 feet long, made of wood and covered in mud. When you first arrive at the Leshan Buddha Park, you don’t really see much. Well, after you’ve gone past a few temples and pagodas you come to this open area with the tell-tale railings that zig-zag long lines of people. And, seriously, this was a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG line. From the time we got in line until we got to the bottom of the stairs at the base of the Buddha we had been in line for a little over 2 hours. But at least the line was bunched up next to the top of the statue and we got to entertain ourselves by trying to get pictures of it without one of the billion other people that were trying to do the same thing. Aside from entertaining ourselves that way, there was a snack cart with lots of things to choose from. The only problem is that they have it right next to the line and the only way to purchase from it is to get out of line. And yell. A lot. Those of you who have been to China know what I’m talking about. For some reason, I got voted as the person to stand in line and fight people to get my order taken. I tried a few times and I’d get shoved or yelled over. And I’m so not kidding. People were physically pushing me out of the way. I don’t do good in crowds and this type of situation was really making my anxiety go nuts, but I eventually pushed someone back and stood my ground and got our chips and water. The next fun part was making my way back through the line to find Troy and Scott. I kept saying “excuse me” and trying to politely make my way past people, but most of the time they’d just stand there or look at me and then move in front of me. It was so frustrating! Eventually I started getting mad at how rude people were being and started just shoving my way through people. Some people tried to block me (what the crap!) and I had to use a lot of force, which made me feel awful, but why were they not letting me through? At one point I had to shove my way through two guys who were blocking me and ended up dropping some of my stuff. It’s really hard to carry 4 water bottles and three bags of chips by yourself while trying to also protect a large camera. I really wanted to go home at that point and was about to cry. The elderly man in front of me turned around and helped me pick up my stuff and moved aside so I could get past. He was the only kind person in that entire line and I’m still grateful to him for that. By the time I made my way back to Troy and Scott I was super frustrated and told them next time we were in this situation that one of those two would be left behind to fight the crowds. It was not fun. But after a few minutes of non-stress I was able to calm down and get my anxiety back under control. Soon we made it over to an area where we could take pictures by the Buddha and we all took turns taking pictures of each other. It was pretty fun. It’s so embarrassing, but you can totally see how sweaty I am. It was so dang hot and humid that day. I don’t know how Troy isn’t a sweaty mess because he was sweating, too, but you can see it quite nicely on me. Even though getting the extra water had been frustrating, I’m glad I did it because we hadn’t expected it to be so hot and to be in full sun the entire time we were in line. After an hour and a half of zig-zagging slowly we finally figured out what the holdup was. In order to get down to the Buddha you have to climb down a thin 1,640 foot switchback staircase that was carved into the side of the mountain. It’s pretty steep at the end, so people were going super slow. Kinda hard to fault them for that. One of the neat things about the rock face (and another reason why the line moves so slowly down the stairs) is that there are carvings all down the wall. You can see several in the above picture. The few that we were able to see on our descent were pretty neat. It wasn’t until we got to the bottom of the stairs that we faced the true magnitude of exactly how tall this statue is. The Leshan Giant Buddha, also known as Dafo, is 233 ft tall. His shoulder span is 92 feet and each eyebrow is 18 feet. Seriously, they could fit almost 3.5 of me across one eyebrow. WOW. Another interesting thing to note is that there is a drainage system that runs through the statue to help protect from erosion and weathering. There are holes in his hair, collar, chest and back of the ears to keep excessive amounts of water from running down the whole of the statue. And there is also regular maintenance to clean up excess moss and repair any significant damage. We spent about a half an hour taking pictures at the base of the Buddha. We would have stayed longer, but after spending over two hours in the direct sun, we were ready to head out. But, before we did, we had to get our selfie. By this time pretty much my entire shirt was soaked. lol. Leaving the Buddha area is a bit easier than arriving and I totally recommend visiting via the exit. We saw a few people doing that and we wish we had. People like to hang out at the bottom for a while and the exit stairs aren’t nearly as crowded as the entrance stairs. Plus they’re wider and not as steep. There are also some neat carved tunnels to walk through. I love the texture on the walls. It’s really neat. We also found these on a wall in the tunnels. No clue what they say, but they look really neat. Admission Fee: RMB 90 Opening Hours: 9:00am-4:50pm Recommended Time To Visit: Early in the morning How to Get There: Long-Distance Bus from ChengduXinnanmen Bus Station toXiaba Bus Station and then take Bus 13Intercity High-Speed Train from Chengdu to Leshan Railway Station and then take Bus 3 Ferries to Yibin, Luzhou and Chongqing are available at the port of the city. You can also get there via taxi or rental car

The post Leshan Giant Buddha first appeared on Traveling Thru History.

Temple of Heaven: Circular Mound Altar

Erin — Sun, 19 Jul 2015 14:00:29 +0000

After we finished up at the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests we decided to wander around the grounds as the sun went down. We hadn’t done a ton of research as our trip to China wasn’t planned far enough in advance to do more than list places that looked interesting, so we didn’t really know what all was on the grounds on the Temple of Heaven. We saw people heading through a gate opposite from where we had entered the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests area and decided to see where they were going. We had no idea what was there and were excited about being ‘surprised’. The first thing we saw when we came upon the Circular Mound site was a beautiful and elaborate wall with a set of intricately decorated gates. Thankfully, there was a description of the site, but we didn’t read it until later. The sun was going down and we wanted to get a few decent shots before it got down too far. Troy isn’t a fan of me stopping to read all the info cards at all the the places we go (some have TONS), so we compromised and I take photos to read later. As the sign says, the Circular Mound Altar was first built in 1530 during the Ming Dynasty. The original purpose was to offer sacrifices during the Winter Solstice to both thank Heaven for the bounty of the current year and to ensure good harvests in the coming year. The other ceremony held here was a rain prayer ceremony during times of drought. The Emperor would come to the Circular Mound and pray to Heaven during an elaborate ceremony for the drought to end and rain to return. Since we didn’t read the sign and hadn’t looked into the site before we got there, we didn’t know what was going on, what it was, or why people were interested in it, but we decided to follow along and check it out with them. There where were way too many people at this gate, though, so we walked around the side to an identical set of gates so we could get better pictures. Before I get into any of the interesting things about the layout of the site, I’ll mention that the exterior has significant meaning. The Circular Mound grounds are enclosed by a square wall and the next wall, the one with the gates, is round. This design symbolizes the world. To the Chinese, the square outer wall represents earth while the round inner wall represents heaven. The three levels of the altar represent communication with heaven. To give you an idea of how large the Circular Mound site is, I was all the way back in the far corner of the square wall, leaning back as far as I could, but I still couldn’t get the entire site with my wide angle lens. The gates of the altar site are called Lingxing Gate of the Circular Mound Altar. There are 24 of them total, three on each side of the square exterior wall and three on each of the four sides of the circular inner wall. The three doorways are said to be of differing heights, the center being the tallest for Heaven, the one on the left is the second tallest and is for the Emperor while the door on the right is the smallest for all the others in attendance for the ceremony. One thing I learned while researching this site is the importance of the number 9 in Chinese culture. The Chinese see odd numbers as positive while the even numbers are negative, so with 9 being the largest single-digit positive number, it is associated with the dragon, which is a symbol of power and is in turn associated with the Emperor. Since 9 is such an important number in Chinese culture, the entire Circular Mound Altar is made using derivatives of 9. There are three levels and each of the stairways between the levels is composed of nine steps. The pillars on each level are in multiples of nine and the stone slats on the walls of each layer are also in multiples of nine. Once you get up to the top, that’s where the fun starts. At the center of the altar is a stone called the Heaven Heart Stone. People stand on this stone to make wishes to heaven. But during the Ming Dynasty, this stone was where an orator would stand during the sacrifice ceremonies and where the Emperor would pray during the rain prayer ceremonies. Due to the acoustical setup of the site, the person who is standing on the stone’s voice will be amplified. It’s actually really cool to see. If you look closely (i know, it’s a terrible picture. i had my focal point way too small), you can see that there are nine pieces of marble surrounding the stone. Outside of that is a layer of 18 stones. Past that, 27. It goes all the way up to 81 stones. It really is a masterpiece of symmetry and numerical composition. As we stood watching people take pictures of each other on the stone, we eventually decided that we should do it, too. People were quite nice when we got on the stone and our friend took a picture of us. Several Chinese people giggled a bit and took pictures of us standing on the stone. They probably knew we had no idea what we were doing, and they were right. lol Have you ever gone somewhere and when you were done found something you weren’t expecting?

The post Temple of Heaven: Circular Mound Altar first appeared on Traveling Thru History.

Temple of Heaven: The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests

Erin — Thu, 16 Jul 2015 14:00:56 +0000

If you ever go to Beijing, one of the places you’ll want to visit is the Temple of Heaven. It’s a 15-minute drive south of the Forbidden City and close to several other areas of interest. We did a circuit where we visited the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and then the Temple of Heaven in one day and felt like we were able to enjoy ourselves at each one without feeling rushed. The Temple of Heaven began construction in 1406 and was completed in 1420, just 4 years before the Yongle Emperor died. The complex is made up of two sections, the inner section and the outer section, covering 660 acres. The outer section is a lovely series of garden paths while the inner section is broken up into several smaller sections: the Abstinence Palace, the Echo Wall, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests and the Circular Mound Alter. Today’s post is going to be about the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. There are several ways to get into the Temple of Heaven complex. We went in the entrance by the North Heavenly Gate and after a short walk down a tree-lined path and through a beautifully ornate gate we came to the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is a triple-gabled circular building, 118 feet in diameter and 125 feet tall. It stands on a three level marble base and is where the Emperor prayed for good harvests. One of the interesting features of this building is that it was built entirely out of wood, but used no nails. The original building was burned down after being struck by lightning in 1889 and the current building was re-built several years later using the same design. This is the building where the Emperor would come to offer prayers of thanks for the bounty of the current year’s harvest and to pray for a good harvest during the upcoming season. The symbolism of the building is very profound. In Chinese culture, the circle represents heaven and the square represents earth. If you look at the building, both are represented in the design and ornamentation. The interior of the building has four inner, twelve middle and twelve outer pillars, representing the four seasons, twelve months and twelve traditional Chinese hours respectively. Combined together, the twelve middle and twelve outer pillars represent the traditional solar term. The outside, well, the outside is just magnificent. One of the things I really loved about this building was the roof. Various aspects of Chinese culture are represented in the artwork carved into the panels. Doesn’t it look amazing? The blue tiles of the roof are representative of Heaven. The dragon is the ultimate symbol of power in Chinese culture and is thus associated with Heaven and the Emperor. While I was wandering around, I noticed these little girls across the courtyard having so much fun. It was hilarious to sit there and watch them run up the stairs, slide down and then run up again. They were pretty cute. While it may look like the steps leading up to the top platform are a lot, they’re really not that many. The three-level marble terrace of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests has four sets of double stairways of which there are 9 steps per leve. The stairways facing north and south are decorated with stone bas-reliefs symbolizing dragons and phoenixes presenting prophetic tokens. The balustrade pillars and water spouts on each tier are similarly decorated. There was also a neat little exhibition hall on the grounds that says the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is the largest round wooden ancient building in China and explains how the numeric logic of the design is identical to the time concept of the Chinese lunar calendar. It’s really neat to see how exquisitely the craftsmanship is in sync with the religious ideology of the Chinese culture. And then there were the scale-model replicas of different buildings around the complex. Aren’t these neat! We were all so fascinated by the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests that we spent almost an hour at this section alone. All the marble carvings and decorative woodwork of the tiered roofs were just magnificent. Before we left and moved on to the next section of the complex, we stopped in the Imperial Hall of Heaven, which was where the tablets of the Emperor’s ancestors were housed. The Emperor would come here the day before the prayer ceremony to burn incense and perform rituals before the tablets were moved to the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. And, of course, our trip wouldn’t have been complete without having a photo of us in front of the Hall. Check back on Sunday for more about our trip around the Temple of Heaven!

The post Temple of Heaven: The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests first appeared on Traveling Thru History.