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.

It's summer holiday! And that means travel.

Truthfully I've been getting stir crazy lately, what with most of the world closed or effectively closed because of the massive inconvenience. Which means it's domestic travel time! Not that I'm opposed by any means, there's a lot to see in China that I haven't. But to start, it's back to Yunnan to see the parents. 

Truthfully, there's not much to say about trips to Yunnan, because we don't really do anything. Go on errands. Eat. Sleep. That's about it. But honestly, that was exactly what I needed. It was a whirlwind of activity up until the day before we left. Ella was cramming for a teaching certification test. And I was helping her, taking care of life, and on top of that working a gig a friend recommended to me. Basically, I recorded videos in front of a green screen for a university in the US. So, sorry to those students, but I'll be the idiot welcoming them to Unit 1, and telling them all the exciting stuff they'll be learning in their MBA. Anyway, point being, the day after we arrived was the first full day I had off in a while, so doing nothing sounded really nice.

And that was it for about 4 days, before moving on to travel. Our first stop (with mom and dad) was Chongqing. Which, is a place people should be more familiar with. Everyone knows Beijing, Shanghai, and maybe Guangzhou (aka Canton). But Chongqing is a monster city as well, and actually the largest city in the world. That is kind of cheating though, because China defined Chongqing city as the size of Austria. So outside of the downtown core, a lot of the "city" can be pretty rural. Also, this has completed a stupid record, that by any measure of the most populous blank, I've been there:

Country - China
City proper - Chongqing
Metro Area - Tokyo
Area - Pearl River Delta
Densest City - Manila
Densest Region - Macau
Densest District - Mong Kok, Hong Kong

Chongqing is one of the 4 areas directly managed by the central government, the others being the aforementioned Beijing and Shanghai, as well as Tianjin. (I've not been to Tianjin, but it's pretty close to Beijing and has basically been its port as far as history goes. It doesn't have a great reputation for tourism, but maybe one day.)

Chongqing overall, I think is one of the coolest looking cities in China, and maybe the world. Maybe because Beijing and Shanghai are as flat as pancakes, but Chongqinq's massive hills make a big impression. Someone compared it to Hong Kong, which is fair but I don't fully agree. Hong Kong is hilly yes, but if there is a hill at most Hong Kong may turn it into a park or nature trail. Instead, Chongqing says "No reason why we can't build a 30 story building into the side of that cliff." It's a very twisty, vertical city, which gives it a Blade Runner sort of vibe. The insistence to build everywhere feels as if the only reason to build up is because there's no choice to build out, like a zombie apocalypse is beyond the border. It makes it a nightmare to get around, because a place that's 100 meters away on the map might also be 100 meters above or below you. So get used to stairs and having to take a super roundabout way to get wherever you want to go. As someone on holiday I loved it, like it was a puzzle to figure out, where you're rewarded with a neat coffee shop. But if I lived here it might get old fast. Still, having a local knowledge of "Oh, to go there, take an elevator in this building, get out on the 16th floor, then cut across this business's lobby" would be really cool, and make you feel like you're really part of the city.

Speaking of the city, there's a fair bit to do. And I was honestly a bit surprised by that, considering how many travel agencies there are around. I suppose most of the travelers are domestic. With our first day almost done, we only had time to go to Hongyadong, a sort of shopping center in a cave. Or I guess, a cliff with a cave they built a shopping center around? It's honestly really cool, and although touristy, really leans into Chinese architecture to look super neat. There's not much to do but take photos, shop, and eat, but it's unique enough to be worth it. 

With sleep and full days ahead of us, there was quite a bit on our list. The Chongqing Art Museum, which is not my thing but the entire Yang family are artists, so that's their jam. The building is my thing though, it looks like a house made of chopsticks. After was Luowen Temple, which I'm happy to say, is one of the 1% of temples in China you SHOULD see. It was super cool! They had a giant hall full of colorful statues in weird poses, so, check. It was just pretty overall, double check. And being in the heart of downtown, the contrast of "giant shiny building" towering over the temple was triple check. Definitely worth a visit.

After we took a car up to the mountains to see Chiang Kai Shek's mountain headquarters. History time - CKS was the head guy for the Nationalists, the group who ruled China until the Communists in 1949. They're the group still in charge of Taiwan. During WWII, Chongqing was the capital of China, after the Japanese took over Nanjing. CKS directed the war from here, basically just a little collection of cottages on the mountain. The Japanese never found him, so I guess he chose correctly. Honestly there's not much to see, but it's only a 20 minute taxi ride from the city, and is really cool how you can quickly go from crazy metropolis to mountain forest. And I do mean mountain, Chongqinq's high hills and low valleys give an amazing view on the way up, not unlike Hong Kong's Peak.

Another destination was Ciqikou, a traditional folk street with lots of shops and food. Similar to other places in China, they're kind of cool, but this one seemed more authentic than those in Shanghai, so it was worth a look. Along the way we took the metro, which has some unique things worth mentioning. One, it's a genuine bonafide electrified monorail. Second, and this is too cool, it has a station that is INSIDE an apartment building. I thought I'd be the only one that cares how weird and awesome that is, but turns out no, there were lots of people standing around talking photos. Supposedly the apartments above have a lot of sound proofing. As much as I like metros, I have to admit I would really like to live in this building. Like, imagine catching the elevator to a monorail? So cool. In fact, I liked it so much, I got two videos - one from the ground, one from in the train.

Speaking of things only I find cool, one day Ella and the parents were feeling tired, but I still had some energy. I went to The Flying Tigers Museum, which means more of history lessons! During WWII, a group of American pilots volunteered to come to China and help defend it. They had a base in Chongqing, and now there is a house-sized museum about them. It was really moving actually, and I think worth the trip, despite being light on memorabilia. While I was coming in, a foreign language student was coming out, and the museum curator wanted to have her ask me some questions after she found out I was American. Not about The Flying Tigers, I guess about me, because I don't think they got a lot of foreign visitors. Anyway, after the museum, I decided to climb up the mountain behind it. Actually this was part of the plan, because while not the tallest hill in the city, Erling is right in the middle of downtown, so I thought it would have a great view. But oh wow, what a climb! You didn't walk up the stairs, as so much climb them. About midway up the trail intersected with the road, and I decided to rest on a bench. And who did I see but the foreign language student, who insanely had a rolly suitcase she just brought up the same trail. She told me she is traveling with a friend, who she is meeting at the airport after climbing. And since she already checked out of her hotel, the bag is with her. I thought she was crazy for at least not taking a bus or taxi close to the top. But she and I were going the same way, so I helped her lug her stuff to the top. Fortunately it was along a road, so we could roll the bag. At the peak there was an old Australian embassy she wanted to see, but had no internet in climbing the 10 story observation tower. Her loss, because it was a cool view.

And that was about it for Chongqing. There was a lot more I didn't mention, some museums and historical sites, but none of them really stuck out as noteworthy. One of the last nights there we took a river cruise, which in typical Chinese fashion was pretty crowded and overbooked, but in the end we did get some nice views of downtown at night. Mom and I really liked it, at least. Anyway, we're keeping the travels going by taking a train to Chengdu, Sichuan province. Home to pandas, spicy food, and hopefully fewer stairs.