Merry Christmas from New Zealand!

Hello everyone! We just wanted to drop a quick note wishing everyone around the world a Merry Christmas. There's even a bit of snow on the mountains here in Queenstown so maybe we'll have a white Christmas after all! Also, we are obviously very far behind on the blogging but we will catch up as soon as we can. It's not even been two weeks since we arrived in New Zealand and I have been working a ton on the river and Steph has been busy preparing our Christmas feast. So in the next couple weeks look out for some posts on Hong Kong and Australia, but for now enjoy the Christmas festivities wherever you are! Merry Christmas!

Shanghai

Our last stop in China was Shanghai. There's not nearly as many world-famous landmarks to see here, but we were able to keep ourselves busy shopping. The knock-off markets of Shanghai was something I've been looking forward to ever since Steph came back from a work visit here a few years ago. It's a huge 5-story building filled with little stalls selling shoes, handbags, watches, jeans, jackets, and assorted souvenirs. We came armed with a list of souvenirs for friends and family back home and went to work. The fun is all in the negotiations. They use the calculator system here too and will usually show you a "joking price" to start things off. I think some people just take the intial offer and divide it in half for their counter-offer. The merchants have realized this so their intial offer is usually 5-10 times the actual price. Some of the merchants in China can get very animated during the process and it can be quite amusing. Somehow the most quiet merchant in the building somehow convinced me to buy a remote-controlled helicopter. Why in the world would I need a remote-controlled helicopter on an around the world trip? I have no idea, but it is very cool. $10 well spent.

fake North Face jacket anyone?

As I said earlier, Steph has been to Shanghai before on business with Kimberly Clark. One of her friends that she had dealt with in Shanghai is named Jane so we met up with her for dinner one night. She took us to a fairly traditional Chinese restaurant and we got to sample all kinds of foods, though we didn't try anything too crazy. They had a dish that tasted exactly like the Mongolian Beef we get in American Chinese restaurants, but when I asked her if the recipe was from Mongolia she just looked at me funny and said "umm, noooo...".

After dinner we went for a walk with Jane along the Bund. The Bund is the walkway along the Huangpu River, which cuts through the middle of Shanghai. It's a famous walkway and affords some amazing views of the skyline across the river. Maybe China has cleaned up it's act a little or we just got really lucky because we had a beautiful clear night.

We didn't do a whole lot worth mentioning besides shopping and eating in Shanghai. We spent an afternoon in the Shanghai Museum mainly because it was free, though the exhibits were very well done and pretty cool. They had a bunch of old Chinese coins with square holes in the middle and some pottery dating back 8,000 years! If you watched the 2008 Olympics, you'd know that China is pretty famous for it's acrobatics (even 10 year-old girls pretending to be 14). so we decided to see a show called 'ERA: Intersection in Time' (whatever that means). They didn't do anything that you wouldn't have seen at a standard Cirque du Soleil show, but it was still some pretty incredible stuff. The balance, skill, and flexibility of those guys is just ridiculous. Our favorite act was when a guy a girl swung around the ring holding onto a long piece of cloth. At one point the guy was holding the girl by her leg with only his flexed foot. Point his toe and she'd be a goner. Good show and only $10 bucks. Very good show.

I still can't believe it myself, but there are 4 girls here

Our last day in Shanghai we figured we'd better get out and do something. Shanghai has a lot of "canal towns" near enough for a day trip. We picked a town called Suzhou basically at the flip of a coin. The train ride out there was an attraction in itself - over 200 miles an hour smooth as silk! The canals themselves weren't all that interesting or attractive but we did go to some beautiful gardens. Hundreds of pictures followed, especially when we discovered the "oil painting" effect on our camera.

One last funny story about Shanghai: while wandering around town one day looking for somewhere to eat, we ended up in this really odd animal market. They had some rabbits and tons of birds, but most of the shoppers were more interested in the hundreds of grasshoppers of all shapes and sizes that were kept in individual containers. At first I just figured that Chinese people liked to keep them in their house and listen to the chirping as they fall asleep. Why else would you closely examine and buy a huge cricket? Fighting, that's why. So we've all heard about cockfighting, but imagine it on a much smaller scale with two grasshoppers going head to head in a battle to the death. Sounds amazing, right? The Chinese think so. Apparently it's serious stuff here. It wasn't cricket fighting season while we were there, but I hear you can buy the highlights from last season on DVD. Not even joking. What a wacky world we live in.

Xi'an...the land of Ping-Pong and the Terra-Cotta army

Back in Beijing, we booked an overnight train to a town called Xi'an (pronounced She-an), home of the famous Terra-cotta Warriors. It seemed we were the only tourists on the train and possibly in the whole train station (one of the biggest in the world) since everyone was staring and pointing at us and some even came up and took a picture with us! So we were a little worried about the train but it turned out pretty good. We had the top bunk (3-high) across from each other and had a good night's sleep thanks to our sleeping pills. The only problem was the bathroom - how are you supposed to use a squat toilet on a moving train? Once in Xi'an we got a free pick-up from our hostel, which is always nice. All the hostels we stayed at in China were essentially the same. They offered a range of tours depending on location and had a bar/restaurant serving western food and Americanized Chinese food. No complaints there. The hostel in Xi'an was our favorite, though, because they arranged cool activities every day for all the guests. Our first night we had a big trivia tournament (my team got 2nd, but the 1st team cheated). The second day had the best activity of all - ping pong lessons from a professional. The moment I saw this guy I knew he was a ping pong master. He just had the look. Sure enough, the guy could ball. I consider myself an above-average ping pong player (Grand Mayan Puerto Vallarta champion), but this guy could literally beat me playing behind his back. The spin he'd put on the ball was mind-boggling. When he wasn't completely embarrassing me, he taught Steph and I a lot. He told Steph (through a translator) "I have seen your weakness. I will teach you in 10 minutes what it would take you a year to learn." He was a fan of Steph's game and gave her a lot of compliments ("you have the quickness of a 16-year-old"), but I think he did say my positioning was "beautiful," if I remember right. We had a great time in the presense of the master and are already trying to figure out we'll be able to get our own ping pong table. Gonna be a while.

The master, Mr. Zhou

The real thing you come to Xi'an is, of course, the Terra-Cotta Warriors. Steph and I went to the exhibition when it came through Atlanta a few years ago so we've been wanting to go ever since then. The site is an incredible archaeological discovery. It was built in around 210 BC for the First Emperor of Qin to help him rule another empire in his afterlife but was completely lost until one day in 1974 a farmer decided to dig a well. The spot he picked was at the very edge of Pit 1, which has the rows of soldiers that you've probably seen pictures of. Literally a couple feet the other direction and the site may have never been discovered. What came next must've been like winning the lottery for archaeologists. In the following few years, a total of three pits have been unearthed. Even today, just a small portion of the site has actually been dug-up. Who knows what else is under there. The first pit, as I said is home to the "army." Every soldier is different. There are foot soldiers, kneeling archers, standing archers, and horse's with accompanying carriage. I hadn't realized this before, but almost every soldier has been smashed to bits and has to be rebuilt piece by piece. Originally the rows of soldiers were in an enclosure covered by wooden beams and layers of woven pads and soil, all of which eventually collapsed and reeked havoc on the soldiers.  The peasants who rebelled against the emperor and raided and burned the place soon after it was built didn't help either.  A lot of the jigsaw puzzle of piecing these guys back together is still ongoing and probably will be for quite some time.  In Pit 1 then have uncovered about 2,000 soldiers, but estimate it to contain about 6,000!

Pit 1

this guy is in bad shape

Pit 2 has a lot more calvarymen but still another 1,300 soldiers. The original "roof" of the enclosure I guess is still in good condition and is largely still in place, so you don't really get to see the goods underneath. They have a little museum next to it where you can see a few of the different soldiers as well as some of the weapons they were buried with.

Pit 2: mostly just a bunch of dirt

kneeling archer

Pit 3 is somewhat of the command center - it's where all the military leaders and strategists were buried.

some of the carnage in Pit 3

Also at the site there is a big museum, which is home to the creepiest statue's ever. Apparently as some sort of goodwill gesture for the Beijing Olympics, they build a giant terra-cotta soldier holding hands with a creepy-looking little girl. The pair are the worlds largest marionette puppets, which makes it more strange.

The museum also has a lot more artifacts found in the pits and, in typical Chinese fashion, a bunch of propaganda talking about how great they are.

Considering we hung around for three days, I'd like to say we enjoyed the town of Xi'an. I wanted to. Thought I would. But, I did not. It was constantly ensconced in a cloud of misty smog. At first I thought it was just a foggy place, but it was definitely pollution. A whole lot of it. The town wasn't all that scenic either, though we did get to visit our first Walmart since leaving home! It was quite a different experience than we were used to, unless the Walmarts back home have started selling live turtles (and not in the pet section). Xi'an is the world's largest completely-walled city. There is a big wall that forms a rectangular around the downtown area. Our last day we decided to rent a bike and some gasmasks (not really) to bike around the top of the wall. Since, we had never done it before, we opted for the novelty tandem bike, which produced the humorous results you'd expect. We never crashed though, which was good, especially since Steph made it very clear what she'd do to me if I caused us to crash. The ride wasn't all that scenic, but you get a good view of some of the more interesting goings-on in town. They had a bunch of wacky light-up floats up on the wall for a celebration of some sort. Our favorite thing we saw was a small band playing some really strange (and not very pleasant) music with a lady singing that made it over the top weird.

yuck

lots of these strange statues

It was a nice, relaxing few days in Xi'an but other than wishing for more lessons from the ping pong master, we were ready for another overnight train to Shanghai!

The Great Wall

I assume that by this point everyone knows that the idea of the Great Wall of China being one continuous wall is a myth, or at least that it can't really be seen from the moon (unless you can pick out a human hair from 2 miles away), right? Well, I can assure you it is not one continuous wall and instead is made up of many different sections constructed piece by piece by different emperors from around 500 BC to 1600 AD. Because of this, I'm not sure how they come up with the estimated length of 5,500 miles. Either way, it's long and it's big. You can visit many different sections of the wall of course, but we ended up choosing the section at Mutianyu mainly because it's close to Beijing, not too crowded, and our hostel offered a tour. Sure, it's not the most "authentic" wall experience, considering you take a chair lift up the hill to the wall and a luge back down, but it would have to do. There are places where you can go, have the wall all to yourself and even sleep in one of the guardhouses, but I cannot stress just how cold Beijing was. We met one guy who tried to do this but quit because he was freezing and didn't want to leave the campfire. Ironically, we had a beautiful clear day when we went - probably our warmest day in Beijing. But who can turn down a chance to ride a luge?

took the cable car up. good call because it saved a ton of time

the snack vendors basically forced this pic on us, but it was funny

I don't know where we got our expectations from, but we were expecting a leisurely stroll along the wall where we'd just be happy to say we did it. Boy, were our expectations way off! Far from a leisurely stroll, it was steep with tons of stairs and we had an amazing time. Was better than anticipated. The views of the surrounding mountains were amazing but we really loved seeing the wall snake off into the distance along impossibly narrow mountain ridges.

the mountains surrounding the wall

the picture doesn't do it justice. Look at the walls along the mountain ridges

They gave us 3 hours to explore so we pushed ourselves and made it farther than anyone else in our tour. After climbing a ridiculously steep section we were rewarded with a brief walk on an unrestored section of the wall. The Mutianyu section was originally built in the mid-6th century but what is remaining today was built in the late 1500s. Most areas were really nice and well-kept but this one section was crumbling and overgrown with plants. Sounds kind of lame, but it was cool to see a different side of the wall.

that's a lot of stairs - around 450 actually

Steph on the crumbling wall

Overall we had a great day at the wall. Top 5 experience for sure. If we ever go back, we'll definitely spring for a 2 or 3-day overnight trip, but we were more than happy with our first visit. The luge ride down was just the cherry on top!