Hey, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all that!

Unfortunately Christmas is not really a thing in China, so there's not much of a difference between this week and any other week for me. Heck, I remember in suburban Hangzhou, ten years ago, people were about as familiar with it as westerners are with Chinese New Year - not very. They'd probably say, "There's some old guy in red, there's a tree, and people exchange gifts... I dunno?" Appropriately, that's about all you get in Shanghai. To SH's credit though, it's a much more international city, and there are quite a few decorations in areas that foreigners would frequent - downtown, malls, and the like. There's even a few Christmas markets around town, and we managed to go to two of them. Ya know... they're nice I guess. Got some glühwein, saw a tree. But this is definitely the exception more than the rule. I won't say no to a free day off from work though, which is more than I was expecting. The offer on the table was for a week off, but the rest of the staff voted against it, and opted instead for double pay. Which, I get, because it's not like we have family to visit here anyway. But I will always vote for time off over pay, because I guess that's the type of person I am.

But regardless of time off, we have gotten into a few things as of late. A few months ago, work had a staff welcome dinner at a fancy mall restaurant nearby. While I was incredibly, incredibly unimpressed with that dinner (seriously, one of the worst meals of my life, don't get me started), I did pass this place that was "Upside-down World" or something like that. I was so curious about it, I kept it in my mind, and now, one quiet weekend later, Ella and I went to check it out. It's basically an apartment where everything is bolted to the ceiling, and light fixtures to the ground. It is completely unnecessary, ridiculous, and only serves to take amusing photos. In short, I loved it, so here's a bunch of photos:

The last post or two I mentioned there are some day trips in Shanghai I've been wanting to try out, and we got a chance to do just that. We took the longest metro line far north to Jiading District, an unremarkable suburb that just happened to have two things I wanted to see. One was the village of Nanxiang, which claim to have invented xiaolongbao (Chinese soup dumplings). For some crazy reason, this is not the first time I have eaten the "original" xiaolongbao. But this one is on Wikipedia, so you know it's at least somewhat legit. I have to say, they were pretty good? But with only 3 or so ingredients, it's kind of hard to really stand out among the competitors. Still, it was a unique experience that was worth the trip, at least for me. While the restaurant there claims to be "the original", there is a competing claim from a restaurant that shut down recently, which is kind of a shame. It's kind of like "Original Rays" in NYC - there's a sort of well accepted answer as to what the "original" was, but either through greed, an absence of record keeping, or both, there are several claimants. Anyway, it's as close as you can get. Which, not going to lie, that's a big reason as to why I travel. So 50 years from now, at a dumpling shop in who knows where, I can stroke my beard and tell an unnecessarily long-winded story about how I took the metro, uphill, both ways, to eat "the original".

But also up in this part of town is a museum that I rarely see discussed, The Shanghai Automobile Museum. I guess because it is so far north of the city, it's not a place people make the time to go out to. And just like the Astronomy Museum from the last entry, it's a shame, because this place is something special. Now, let me preface by saying I am not a car guy - to me, cars are like power tools: they serve a purpose, I acknowledge how they can be cool, but I would prefer not to own them or have to own them. However, this museum was incredibly impressive even to me. It the first cars ever made up to today, and they are in absolutely amazing condition. I don't know if I've ever seen a Ford Model T before (maybe at the Smithsonian?), but this thing looked like it just rolled off the assembly line. Their collection is, IMO, the most impressive in the world. Maybe there is a better one somewhere in the US (honestly, there must be), but a place like this in suburban Shanghai is the absolute last place I would expect. There's a few hundred cars there, and all of them are in mint condition. For a car enthusiast, or even someone with a passing interest, I think this is a must see.

On Christmas Day itself, it was actually very cold for Shanghai - below freezing, in fact. We even got some flurries, so I guess it was a white Christmas? Ella and I decided that staying inside watching TV would be a bit depressing, so we decided to brave going out to do some stuff. The first stop was a noodle shop that has a Michelin Star, which I've been curious to try. We've tried another noodle shop with a Michelin Star before, and those are legit, some of the best noodles I've ever had. So I had high hopes for this one. But in the end I was pretty disappointed. They weren't bad by any means, but they were...fine? Good even. Still, I've had better noodles for far less. At $5 a bowl they didn't exactly break the bank, but I just expected better. And if you ask locals to direct you to better noodles in the $2-$3 range, what's the point? I have to think that the Michelin Star people just arrived in China the night before, woke up late, and went to the closest noodle shop to their hotel. In case anyone sees this in the future, you can skip 阿娘面馆 (Mother's Noodle Shop). Just down the road is the much better, cheaper, and equally acclaimed Michelin Starred spot, 味香斋 (which means... umm... Flavorful, Fragrant, and something? Anyway, it's "Weixiangzhai").

After a perfectly okay lunch, we headed across the river to the Pearl Tower. Despite being the most famous landmark of Shanghai, this is the first time I've ever been inside, although not to the top. Actually, I don't really get the appeal of going to the top. It's nowhere near the tallest building in Shanghai. Heck, regular apartment buildings are taller than it is. Yet it's 220 yuan (~$30) to go up. I should probably take a look online to see if there's anything interesting, because if so, they certainly don't advertise it. Also, if I want to go to an observation deck, I'd rather drop 180 yuan (~$25) to go up the Shanghai Tower, which has the highest observation deck in the world (the building is shorter than the Burj, but apparently the Burj's observation deck isn't at the top?). Anyway, one day I would like to do that, because you know, "Worlds Blankiest Blank". Today wasn't that day though, because we were going to the basement of the Pearl Tower. They have a Shanghai City History Museum tucked down there, which for 35 yuan (~$5 / one overpriced bowl of noodles) is much more palatable. It is a surprisingly good museum, with lots of dioramas and scenes from how Shanghai used to be from the turn of the century up to the 70s or so. I can't believe I've never heard of this place before - while it's not going to knock your socks off, it was a very nice experience and worth the money. So yeah, if you're in Pudong, check it out after you've snapped photos of all the buildings. After, we tried to see a mosque which apparently has a good night market, but it was closed. So, off to dinner at a local pub, which was pretty busy. We ran into a bunch of old friends, which made for a pretty nice Christmas evening, all things considered.

But I'll leave it here for now. Unfortunately, Ella was sick for New Years so we stayed in. I commented that I think this is the first time I've had a chill New Years, maybe ever. I remember when I was a kid up through High School I would always have New Years sleepovers, and then through my 20s there was always a bar or house party to go to. Maybe this is a sign of getting old, not staying out drinking until 1, 2 AM, and then figuring out some way to get home. Ella woke up, coincidentally, at 11:59. So we still got to ring in the new year together, which is really all I could ask for.

But if I could be greedy and ask for one more thing, it's that travel gets back to normal in 2022. I haven't been out of the country in two years, and that's too long. While there may be some domestic travel on the table for the winter holiday in a few weeks, it's just not the same. Happy New Year, everyone!

I have something special to talk about later. But first and foremost this is a travel blog, so let's start with an outing we had recently.

You may recall (or at least, I do) a trip we made to Zhujiajiao, a water town on the edges of Shanghai. To get there, you take the metro towards the end and transfer to another suburban line, that goes quite a ways from the city. There are two more suburban lines on the metro, and we got a chance to try another to visit Lingang, a district waaaay down by the ocean. In truth, it was because they recently built the largest Astronomy Museum in the world there, and me, being a sucker for blankiest blank, was eager to check things out. In truth that was easier said than done. You can purchase tickets a week prior, but Saturday and Sunday sell out almost immediately. I had to set an alarm for the moment they went on sale to grab a spot. Out of curiosity I checked about 30 minutes later, and they'd all been snatched up.

Anyway, after two transfers and about an hour and a half of traveling, we finally got off at the last stop, Dishui Lake. This is a large circular lake at the heart of Lingang District, and I do mean large. It's hard to tell the scale on the map, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. I will say that I could barely see the opposite shore. We'll say 4 kilometers wide? Anyway, despite being the north side being "downtown", this place was very odd. I mean, there are large buildings, at least 10 stories high. And narrowish city streets with traffic lights. But the place was nearly empty. It was almost like Chinese New Year, or a scene out of The Walking Dead. Yet it was Sunday. You'd see a car pass by now and then, but the only people out were people like us, walking from the metro station to the museum. It's not unusual for China to build large satellite cities in the middle of nowhere, knowing that one day, demand will come. But it still feels a bit weird to be in one. It feels like everyone got a memo to get out of town except you, so it was kind of unnerving.

Anyway, I brushed that aside, as I knew it was just my imagination. It seems all the people in this area are here for the museum, because it was pretty busy. First going downstairs to get a snack, we were greeted with the bottom of the theater, which is a giant globe suspended over the bottom floor. Pretty cool! It does seem to just sort of float there, like an asteroid about to impact the Earth. After seeing a few smaller exhibits about Mars and Ancient Chinese Astronomy, we got to the main part. And wow is it impressive. I have to think they hired folks from Disney, because it had that polished, almost "Epcot-like" sort of feel. Lots of models of planets, with a giant Earth in the middle of it, toggling back and forth between a real time satellite view, and a time lapse from its formation to the present. You could "walk" on Titan, touch a real meteorite, and ya know, lots of other things. Later you walked through a model of the space station China just put into orbit recently, which was pretty neat as well.

 

Towards the end you looped back and walked on a catwalk of sort over top all the exhibits from earlier, with models of spaceships dangling nearby. It ended with a scale model of Voyager, and Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" speech, which was really touching. I'm a bit biased, but I'm glad they just added subtitles and let him speak, because I don't think anyone else could do it justice.

So yeah, overall, great experience. I don't know if it's worth traveling so far out of town if you're in Shanghai for a few days, but for me it's absolutely a win. But we didn't come so far to only see this. There's another massive museum down here, the Maritime Museum. Sadly no sea shanties, but the building looked pretty neat from the outside.

And unfortunately that concludes the good things I can say about the Maritime Museum.

 

I kid, but it was a bit... meh? Actually a lot "meh". They did have this old wooden ship you could get on, that was cool. But it was only a small part of the deck, and then what? Well, you can see little models of navy ships that you could buy in any hobbyist shop. Or see all the porcelain recovered from a shipwreck, which when tidied up, just looks like porcelain. Or see a lots of pictures of stuff, and a little info card telling you what you are seeing. In short, I think a Google Image Search would be a better use of your time. Aside from a few somewhat interesting actual things (like the oar of a ship that's like, 1000 years old), there's not much there. So I would say take a pass for this place, unless you're an old salty dog.

Not wanting to sit on a metro for another 1.5 hours straight, we decided to break up the journey to stop off at a new fancy schmancy mall that just opened. It's pretty nice, with even a running track on the roof - one that can track your speed/distance if you want. But it was pouring rain, so that wasn't happening. Its main claim to fame I suppose, is The Cheesecake Factory, only the 3rd to open to China. The other two are bonkers busy, so this was a chance to try it without a giant queue. We got a piece of cheesecake to go, and wow. Does all cake taste this good in America? Has it been that long since I had one? Each bite feels like a billion calories, but wow, it's a nice change from the very light, airy cakes of China.

Anyway, my last update wasn't too long ago, so that's about it for travel. Of course it is Thanksgiving, so I did want to have some turkey. You can buy whole birds, or plop down at least $30 for the spread at a restaurant, but I wasn't up for that much time/money. But then Ella did some searching, and turns out, you can just order turkey on Meituan (think Uber Eats/Doordash, but reasonably priced). And that reminded me that turkey was a thing in Taiwan, and something I ate pretty frequently after I discovered that fact. So we found a Taiwanese place sells turkey with rice, as well as soy sauce and ginger turkey. Not... exactly traditional, but it was turkey, and I really dug it. Taiwanese turkey and rice usually has caramelized onions and a side of pickled radish thrown in for good measure, and it really tasted like life back in Taipei. Which btw, the caramelized onion bits are a big win, and I think we should steal that tradition. Also in true Thanksgiving fashion, I ordered way too much so there would be leftovers. Yet again, my amazing wife saves turkey day, and I get to have more for breakfast (and dinner).

But the main reason I wanted to post today, is that the time around Thanksgiving (specifically the 26th), is a very important anniversary for me. In fact, other than getting married, it's probably the most special anniversary in my life. Ten years ago today, I got on a plane and moved to Asia.

In truth, I had no idea what would come of it at the time. I knew my life was kind of in a "rut" and needed to change. Maybe I'd just do the Asia/teaching thing for a year, or maybe even a month if I couldn't handle it. Instead, it's been a decade. A decade since I completely changed my life, started down the path to a new career, marriage, and everything else. And most importantly, I'm a lot happier. I don't think it's Asia specifically, but it's more that I got to live in cities where things happen, got a chance to re-invent myself, got to meet lots of people, got to travel to several countries, got to have a rewarding career, got to have job security, got to have almost zero worries in comparison to life in the US, and most importantly, got to meet my wife. Anyway, I could talk all day about how important this decision was for me, but I think you get the idea. It's probably more fun if I post a few of my favorite photos. It's an impossible task, sorting through thousands and only picking a few. But, here's my best shot, which is still way too many.

Married!

On The Great Wall

Pura Mengening, Bali, Indonesia. One of the coolest places I've visited.

Hoi An, Vietnam

A happy Ella in Macau

India had so much delicious food and things to see.

How I miss Thailand's night markets!

Looking like video game characters in Yunnan, China

Singapore is the Disneyland of cities. Love it!

The twin towers of KL, Malaysia are really beautiful.

Bagan, Myanmar is a really special place. My favorite place I've ever traveled.

One of our first outings, to Bang Pa In.

Laos has the friendliest locals I've ever met. Really miss that place.

Angkor Wat with good folks!

The white temple in Chang Rai, Thailand is really out of this world.

I didn't love Chang Mai, but I liked these kids celebrating Songkran.

When an ice cream driver gave me a lift and his hat.

A traditional Chinese workout in Shanghai.

A lot of my time in Taipei was spent at Maokong. I love that place.

Still can't believe I went to North Korea, or I thought that beard was working.

Got in the local newspaper for teaching. Hope those kids are doing well.

The first picture I took of China (minus the airport), near my home in Hangzhou. I had no idea what was ahead.

Too cute!

Last we left... me, I wrote about our trip from southern to central China, ending in Xian. Hard to believe that was 4 months ago. I wish I could say that I've done a lot since then, but honestly I haven't been. As always, Ella is studying for something so we've mostly stayed put. There are a few places in Shanghai I want to check out - probably during Christmas. That's the one day of the year where I am sometimes off work while kids are still in school, so I'm going to use that to my advantage. Disney maybe? Or the brand spanking new Shanghai Planetarium, which is still impossible to get tickets for. It is the largest in the world, and I'm certainly a sucker for that.

Anyway, I guess I should talk about my new job. I had previously written that my old job wasn't terrible, and I was willing to stay on. But a new gig came along that offered a higher salary. I told HR "Hey look, I have another offer, if you can come even close to it, I'll stay." Instead they offered a token increase,  so, their loss. Speaking to my old colleagues there, it does seem to have gotten slightly better, as honestly the previous year I was a bit overworked - although the previous previous year was a cakewalk, so I didn't put up a fuss. I say this with a healthy amount of privilege, as I feel incredibly fortunate to be teaching in Asia. I've said before how I consider myself to be semi-retired with the standard teacher workload, and I stand by that. Maybe for some it's too much, but when I consider the hours I put in when I was working in IT... yeah it's no problem.

Balloon cars for science class

So, the job itself. I teach a lot more than just English now, also doing science, humanities, writing (which I guess is still English), and an elective course. Overall it's a little less work than I had last year, but something I really like about this place - it's a standardized US curriculum. I know exactly what I'm going to teach from now until the end of the year, which I can assure you, is not the norm for ESL teachers - Chinese run schools seem to be "seat of your pants" operations, with little info more than a week or two out. And of course, things can change with no warning, so there's not much point in planning far ahead. Here, you can always work on the next week, or next next. I've been burning myself pretty hard early this semester while I have motivation, and now I am about a month and a half ahead of schedule. That's pretty awesome, and I hope to have the entire semester finished in about a week or two. That means easy coasting until the midterms, which sounds really nice. In general, that's always been my attitude with work - hurry up and finish so you can go do the things you like. This is just the first chance I've ever had to do that long term.

But still, this is a departure from my past experience of teaching English, because I'm a regular Grade 5 teacher in an American system. While I can scarcely remember my Grade 5 experience with Mrs. Hall, I do remember her being one of my favorite teachers from my primary school days, so I hope I'm doing as well of a job as she did. It's a different sort of responsibility than I'm used to. In the past, I would show up for 40ish minutes, upload English into kids' brains, and then move on to repeat the same process with another group several times. I was sort of like the class uncle, where I come in and play some games, but I leave the big responsibility to mom or dad. Now, I am dad. I'm the manager of 22 kids, and it requires me to more frequently be the adult in the room than I'm used to. I see them and only them for most of the day, so we've gotten to be close very quickly. Honestly, I feel pretty lucky because all but one are great people. That one... well, they have some anger issues they need to work on. I guess they think that throwing a tantrum will get results, and maybe it does at home. But after having many years experience seeing 100+ different kids each week, believe me, I've seen it all. For him, I can't help but laugh and think, "Is that all you've got?"

Maybe that's why experience demands a premium. It's not that you're better at your job, it's just that you're jaded enough to roll with things.

Actually, that reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend the other day - it was his birthday, and I asked him what he hoped to accomplish in the next year. After, he turned it back to me, which I wasn't prepared for. Grasping at straws, I said I hope to be more chill. He laughed and said that I'm already very chill, so there's not much to improve on. I appreciate the sentiment, but I explained that, like everyone, I have things that upset me. Then these things live rent free in my brain for a while, where I'm usually mad with myself for letting them happen, and just in general it occupies all my thoughts for the next however much time. When I was younger, it was probably measured in hours, and on rare occasions days. But eventually, after mulling it over, I always have a breakthrough moment where I take a mental step back and think "Alright, this ruminating isn't getting me anywhere - how do I solve this?" I've noticed as I get older, the time to get to this breakthrough moment has gotten shorter and shorter, and now it's rare anything upsets me for more than a couple minutes. But I'd still like to get that down to seconds. Maybe that's just something that comes with experience - sort of like a kid who doesn't get an ice cream thinks their world is ending. And we think "Ha, you've seen nothing yet." I guess over time, life just tempers you by throwing bad stuff your way, and you either A) learn how to deal with it, so the next time isn't a problem, or B) experience worse things that make others seem not a big deal in comparison. Hopefully my next year leans more towards the "A" side of things. But both seem not great, so I probably should have come up with a better answer.

Maybe finish a Taco Bell 3-person set by myself. That would be more fun.

Now, it may seem like this would be the end of the blog, and it was for about a month. But it was still too boring to publish, I felt. It needed something exciting like a trip somewhere. But instead something else happened.

This bonkers story begins when we came home one day after work. Walking upstairs, we heard "Meow! Meow!" We thought it was just one of the stray cats outside, except when we get home, there is a black cat parked right in front of our door. None of the strays we know are black. Why our door? Why the big fuss? I have no idea. But we have video evidence of our first interaction thanks to Ella.

 

So my thought is that someone left the front door open downstairs (happens pretty frequently). This stray got in, came upstairs, got hopelessly lost, and is now freaking out. So our plan was to shoo this cat out of the way, get her some food, and then send her back outside. Not wanting to get scratched, we gently nudged her with the door, and she just casually moved out of the way. "Oh right on, this cat is chill!" But then she decided "Nope, I want to be in there." and made a beeline into our apartment. This was followed by a lot of cursing, as she quickly ran to the laundry room where we have some junk from the previous owner.

This has just turned into a thing.

So this terrified cat is in the corner behind an old disassembled bed. We're trying to coax it back out. So I'm standing on a chair, trying to annoy it enough that it will leave. I'm trying to push it with a broom, which I guess is not the best choice. Because as I'm trying to push, the bristles are sliding over her. She seemed to enjoy that a lot, closing her eyes and pushing her head into the broom. Okay, Plan B - we tried leading a trail of kitty treats towards the door. Which she was all too happy to eat the closest of, before running back to her corner. Arrgh! Plan C. I learned that while she was down with kitty broom massages, her butt was not. So I kept poking her around the tail with the other end of the broom. We also removed hiding places, blocked off routes, and eventually, EVENTUALLY, got the thing to go back out the door. We shut it, breathed a sigh of relief, and took a breather to think what to do next. Because of course, she was outside meowing her little head off. For one, we were worried about her, and also, there's no way we or the neighbors would get any sleep if we didn't solve this.

Alright. Next stage. We can do this. Carefully, ever so carefully, we open the door, and with brooms, gently begin to nudge this cat downstairs and back outside. We're making progress, pushing her downstairs one floor at a time. She seems to not love it, but was remarkably polite about the whole thing, all things considered. Well, she wasn't hissing or putting up a fuss at least. As we round the corner to the other set of stairs, we pass by the neighbor's. Who apparently had their door open a crack.

Oh no.

So the cat also sees this, and deciding "unknown new place" is preferable to "two humans with scary sticks", dashes inside. I am gobsmacked. This did not just happen. All the lights in the apartment are off, and nobody seems to be at home. Well. Congratulations to our downstairs neighbor. They now own a cat.

Realizing we're totally out of our league, we left to tell the apartment security guard about the ridiculous series of events that just occurred. While he is quite old, he appears completely unfazed. Apparently, this was not his first (cat) rodeo. He comes back with us to check, and yeah, nobody is at home (but they left the kitchen light on? Weird). During this time we noticed our neighbor had a cat scratching post in their living room, so, good news! They apparently like cats, now they have another one!

But now, this is where I (think) the story took shape. We live right above these neighbors. They probably left for the day, and forgot to close their door. Their cat gets out, then wanders around. Realizes it's lost. She thinks our door, one floor up, is home. Locked out, she starts freaking out. So when we open the door, she dashes into what she thinks is home. She then quickly realizes "Oh my god, everything is different! AHHH!" and hides in a corner. When we pushed her downstairs, to the correct apartment, her kitty brain snaps back to reality and thinks "Oops, that's right. I actually live here. Bye humans!" And then I thought, to top this all off, the owner would come home later that night, completely unaware that their cat has put us in this ridiculous situation. (Alternatively, they come home and are completely confused as to why they have an extra cat.) Anyway, there's more videos on Youtube of the saga if you want to take a look.

Regardless, the cat will probably just take a nap. After that fiasco, I need one too.

Xian is not my favorite place. It doesn't deserve all the blame, but ever since we came here it has been one travel disaster after another. Some of that has to do with the flooding in Zhengzhou and the typhoon in Shanghai. And not to diminish the tragedy of those, especially Zhengzhou, but they have added to a mess of a holiday.

It began before we left, that our train was cancelled despite us not going to the flooded area. But the train would after, so bye bye train, hello frantic last minute rebooking. And then after arriving in Xian, our hotel said despite saying so online, they don't allow foreigners. I know that sounds weird, but some provinces make hotels require foreigner certificates to accept them. Most places have them, maybe 75% or so. Except in Shaanxi Province apparently, because we spent about an hour calling around before finding a not-so-great place.

I'm complaining too much, so here's a cute cat.

Now calling a car to get to our new place, our driver was kind of nuts. I think he was having lunch when we got on the app, because his GPS didn't change for about 10 minutes, which he said was traffic. Then he drove crazy aggressively, which we would learn is par for the course for everyone in Xian. I'd be concerned for my safety if the traffic didn't keep the top speed to about 30 kph. That put us off from Didis, but the metro is only marginally better. You have to scan a QR code every time you go in for a health check, and they're intense about checking you actually did it. Shanghai does this too, but uses phone towers to keep track of things, so it's pretty seamless. Xian's just creates bottlenecks of people at every check point you have to fight past. Ugh, just move to the side until you're ready to walk through.

The mess doesn't stop there, but let's put a pin in it to talk about the city. We were pretty excited to see the Shaanxi  History Museum, as it is apparently one of the best. I have to assume that is so because they have no tickets available for weeks. <sigh> We had lots of other stops scheduled around the city though, so we spent the whole day out and about. And honestly, I'm not that impressed. We tried the Xian Museum (meh), the Xian Art Museum (actually quite good, but very small), the Xian Provincial Art Museum (just bad... sorry artists) and the Xingshang Temple (actually pretty good for a temple, but it's a temple). After a day of being fairly disappointed, we called it early to rest up for the Terracotta Soldiers the next day.

So, here we go, the big sight to see in Xian, and perhaps all of China. The Terracotta Soldiers are about 2 hours away from downtown, which we took the metro to get 80% of the way. When you get out at the closest station, the touts are super aggressive to get you to hop on their bus. We had read stories online of those buses going to a fake Terracotta Soldier museum pretty close to the real one. Which is objectively terrible to scam people on their holiday, but also sort of hilarious that such a thing can exist. If not for how scummy it is, I'd almost like to see it. But to avoid any doubt we got our own car for the remaining 5km. The place was crowded, but honestly not bad. Everything moved pretty smoothly, and was no sweat. The compound has 3 pits, the first one being the super big, stadium sized place you see in all the photos. Another is about a quarter the size, and the final about the size of a house. We got a guide, which did help a little bit to appreciate some stuff I never knew. The first is that the site is very much a WIP. The statues they have are pieced together from fragments, which I imagine is quite a laborious process. Also, all the statues are (were) painted. Except that when they dig them up, the paint cracks and falls off a few moments later. To top it off, old writings say the crazy Emperor who organized this thing decided his tomb should have rivers of mercury, because of course it should. Turns out they might be right, because and they've used radar to find underground caverns with higher levels of mercury. So all together, they've kind of decided to just stop digging up new things, until they can figure out a way to safely preserve what's there. Which I do appreciate, but I also think they should be more up front with that, I guess? But my thoughts on the whole thing are pretty similar to The Great Wall - it's an amazingly impressive place. But more so than any one object, it's the scale of things that is noteworthy. Up close, the statues are fine, I guess. This madlad made so many of them though, it's hard to not appreciate them.

Also, as a sidenote, when learning about this place for the trip, I found out that 15 years ago, a German art student studying in China dressed up as one of the soldiers, jumped down in the pit, and played the most hilarious game of hide and seek ever. Turns out he was not deported or arrested, and only got a stern talking to.

Just thought you'd like to know.

The last bit of stuff to see in Xian was the Muslim district, walking streets more akin to something out of India than China. Crazy, hectic, noisy, and packed full of food and trinkets, it was a cool place to get lost in the various alleys. We ate a lot, walked a lot, and even climbed bell and clock towers. We topped it off with a walk along Xian's City Wall, which surrounds the center of the city. It's actually pretty cool they kept that wall there, because it and the area around it serves as a park and recreation area. And this is no small thing either, it's a square around the perimeter of the city, about 4km on each side. They do marathons on it, and you can even bike around the whole thing. At night it lights up, which is pretty, but in the end, it's just a park. And that, "It's okay, but..." kind of summarizes my opinion of Xian. True it was soured from the start, but I found it a bit less interesting than many other places in China. I'm glad to have seen it for myself to tick it off the list, but... meh. I'd rather be somewhere else.

But Xian had other plans.

As we've learned, me complaining = cats.

With an early train in the morning, we were just getting to sleep when we learned our train was cancelled due to the typhoon. We quickly tried to find another, but learned that wouldn't be an option as all train and plane service in Shanghai was cancelled. We thought about taking a train partway, and then spending a half day in some other, more interesting place. But everything was all booked up. With the following day also cancelled, we were stuck. We got a train 2 days later, which means 2 more days killing time in a city neither of us were really thrilled about.

But finally, our luck was to turn around. We found a hostel nearby which is one of those amazing hostels where you meet lots of interesting people and have a great time. Also it had Settlers of Catan and two cats for Ella. To top it off, some friends of ours were going back to Shanghai the same day we were. But they got diverted for two days to... yup, Xian. So we had some company to sit around and wait with, and honestly the two days flew by. Hilariously, the curse of Xian wasn't done with them, as right around bedtime the night before leaving, their train about an hour before ours was cancelled. Who knows why, but they managed to get a flight. Now that our train is moving and I'm writing this, I finally feel at ease that I escaped Xian. I'm definitely ready to go home.

My last blog predicted pandas, spicy food, and fewer stairs. I'm happy to say all those are true.

Chengdu calls itself the panda city, and oh my god they mean it. I started counting pandas the first full day we were here, and I gave up at 30. That doesn't count the gift shops every 100 meters selling panda dolls, hairbands, bookmarks, key chains, underpants, particle accelerators, you name it. If I did that, it would be in the thousands. It's pandemonium over here.

(Ba-dum tssst)

It's only an hour or so train ride from Chongqing, but we left late enough that we just went out to one place, Kuanzhaixiangzi. It's an old street, not unlike others in China. This one has a bit more personality though, and, this is key, there was a 5G, AI-powered KFC food truck. Yes the future is here in Chengdu, where you can get all 12 herbs and spices by jacking into The Matrix.

To be honest, the first day or two I wasn't really vibing with Chengdu. It didn't have anything interesting that really jumped out to me. We went to the big tourist sights, which are mostly temples, gardens, etc.. Like, one was home to a famous poet called Du Fu, who lived around the year 700. I'm sure he wrote great poems. But I didn't get anything out of it. One place I did get something out of was Wuhouci, a garden devoted to Zhuge Liang. Unless you're a fan of Chinese history, or, like me, play the Romance of the Three Kingdoms / Dynasty Warriors games, you may not be familiar with him. Chengdu was the capital of Liu Bei's empire during the 3 Kingdoms era, so it was kind of cool to see stuff about them. 10 year old me could never have predicted I'd one day visit "Lee-ohh Bee-ee's" city.

But I'll save you some time and cut to the chase - pandas. We woke up really early to go to the outskirts of town to visit the Panda Research center. Really early actually, around 5am - Because the place gets crazy busy, and because pandas are active in the morning. In typical rural Chinese fashion, we were lined up in an orderly manner until one group of jerks cut the line. That makes it look like there are 2 lines, which opens the floodgates for everyone to just cram into wherever, and it turns into a clusterfuck. Fortunately we were close enough to the front it didn't matter too much, but it's something I've become used to in China. Oh well. The place itself is basically just a zoo, but replace every animal enclosure with pandas. And... that's it. That's all it needs to be though, and this is the first time I've seen pandas not behind glass, so that's cool. And it turns out yes, they are quite active in the morning. We saw a little cub fighting with his mother who was having none of it, and some big one running around looking for a good tree to climb. And yes, running. Those guys can actually move really fast if they want to, and wow - on dirt, each step sounded like an anvil hitting the ground. I knew they were heavy, but being that heavy makes you appreciate that animal could completely mess you up if it wanted to. Amazing experience overall, and one I'm really glad I did. Anyway, you're here for pictures and videos of these dumb, adorable floofs, so here's a bunch are. If you want to see more, there's plenty on Youtube/Facebook.

Right when we were finishing up, a torrential amount of rain started falling. So, yeah, good time to go. We hid under a tree for about 10 minutes until it let up, then made a quick exit. Fortunately panda town is near an Ikea, which was an ideal place to dry off and enjoy the first black coffee in days. I love you Ikea.

That's it for pandas, but if you're still here, we did some other notable things in Chengdu. One was the Three Star Pile Museum, which I saw nothing about on English websites, but Ella was eager to go to. So eager in fact, when they canceled our tickets to film a documentary that day, we stayed an extra night. I'm glad we did, because this is a weird place I certainly had never heard of. Like all good archeological finds, it starts with a farmer digging and finding some jade. Years later a giant site has been uncovered, with lots of artifacts more advanced than the rest of China at the time. They used a lot of jade, bronze, and gold, but more uniquely they look sort of alien? It's hard to describe but they're sort of other-worldly. Combined with sacrificial altars (fun!), it reminded me of some occult Mayan, ancient aliens sort of thing. Worth a visit I'd say, but really unknown to foreigners as I saw virtually nothing written about it. Maybe because it's rural enough you'd need to read Chinese to navigate there, as it's actually not even in Chengdu, rather the next city over. It just goes to show you, the domestic and foreign tourist industries really focus on different things, and to get the full China experience, you probably need to know some of the language. Anyway, their loss, our gain. Here's some photos of this kooky place.

Keeping the museum train going, we went to the Sichuan Museum (fine) and the Chengdu Museum (great!). The Chengdu Museum had an exhibit on shadow puppets that was really cool, and some joker even threw in Kermit among the dolls. I noticed, joker guy, and I appreciate you. The basement had taxidermied animals from around the world, and fortunately / unfortunately, they were all really well done and did not have any examples of that beautiful, beautiful lion from the Shanghai Natural History Museum. In case you've forgotten how glorious of a specimen he is, I'll put a reminder below:

Before we separated from mom and dad, we took them out to this art exhibit in a mall. I wasn't sure if it would be their sort of thing, because it's a kind of fun-house where you can get interesting photos for your Instagram / Pengyouquan. I loved how silly it was, and to my surprise, mom and dad also were super into it. Mom especially was very excited, telling people to stand here and do that while laughing at the absurdity of it all. It was a nice finish to Chengdu, as they took a train back home to Yunnan. We're keeping summer travel going though, with one more city - Xian. Famous for my favorite Chinese dish, Biang Biang Noodles. Also Terracotta Soldiers or something, but whatever. Hopefully they sell noodles at the concession stand.