Hong Kong

Pretty much exactly what I expected except for the lack of westerners, I somehow imagined a lot more white faces and english speakers. Hong kong is of course very different to the mainland starting with driving on the left like here and ending with having fairly open internet access and no problems with mobile phones.

Its basically not a very big place and has a lot of people and on this trip was the only place I really felt overwhelmed by the number of humans that can be packed into a market street.

As in the mainland the buildings do get dressed up at night which is clearly why they need this ---below 

Massive power station on Lama Island 

Streets and food shops as I expected 

But I didn't expect this on Lamma Island about a 20 minute boat ride from Hong Kong Harbour - an island with no cars only push bikes and the occasional quad bike. It had an oddly western feel and one of the funkiest Cafes I've seen in a long time.

Great Wall at Badaling

The Great Wall is of course the most internationally well know feature in China and with good reason - see here for Wikipedia article Great Wall

We took it in as part of a tour so it felt a bit rushed, it was very cold but as I've said before thats good for minimising the number of people to get in your way. I've seen a recent photo on the Chinese news which has a similar photo but none of the walking part of the wall is visable -

We saw the wall nearest to Beijing at Badaling and one thing I didn't realise before hand is how steep it is in places and you would have to really hand it to those early soldiers to ran up and down. Before the advent of gunpowder it would have been a formidable obstruction.

This is as steep as it looks and the step to riser ratio changes as you go up so that towards the top the step height is huge as witnessed by the need to install a hand rail in later times.

The view back down 

Inside what is left of one of the turrets

Really hard to do justice to the scale of the Wall and if we had more time we would have taken a longer wander along it. 

Terracotta Army - Xian

This and the Great Wall would have to be the most well known of Chinese historic sites with Westerners and was our sole original reason for coming to Xian.

It turned out to be the gob-smacking attraction I had expected - if you ignore the vast array of vendors selling "souvenirs" that surround many such places in China and past whom you must negotiate to reach or exit ones destination - although I can think of plenty of places in the west that employ a similar tactic.

A word of warning - we went in December (off peak) but we have been told it is very difficult to see anything if you go in peak times, eg school holidays or worse still any public holiday. It was very cold perhaps just above zero but well worth that to not have the crowds.

Have look at the Wikipedia article here Terracotta_Army (the introduction is reproduced below)

The Terracotta Army (Chinese: 兵马俑; literally: "Soldier-and-horse funerary statues") is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210–209 BCE and whose purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife.

The figures, dating from approximately the late third century BCE, were discovered in 1974 by local farmers in Lintong District, Xi'an, Shaanxi province. The figures vary in height according to their roles, with the tallest being the generals. 

The figures include warriors, chariots and horses. Estimates from 2007 were that the three pits containing the Terracotta Army held more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which remained buried in the pits nearby Qin Shi Huang's mausoleum. 

Other terracotta non-military figures were found in other pits, including officials, acrobats, strongmen and musicians.

Nothing mentally prepares you for the full scale of site(s) of the terracotta army or the sheer mammoth restoration being undertaken here.  

These look impressive but the reality is that most are broken (as below) 

There is a full time team piecing the soldiers and other figures back together - more than several lifetimes work.

Each soldier is unique and modelled, we were told, on an individual with facial features added to a number of "head moulds" .

The figures were originally painted ( as reproduced above) which must have presented a mind boggling sight, unfortunately just minutes in the air after excavation causes the paints to flake off. 

Allow plenty of time there is a lot to see.

Xian - the old walled city

We really came here just to see the Terracotta Soldiers but the city has a lot more to offer .

Main entrance to the old walled city.

There is a good description here Xian Wall

One of the few gate ways 

Rectangular and 14km around,  we hired tandem bikes and bumped our way around in about one and half hours including many photo stops. The paving is not all as good as is shown here.

I found it in many ways more structurally impressive than the Great Wall.

There are issues with the wall as seen here - it is filled with rammed earth .

Part of the moat which is 6m deep - has been restored in recent years 

Housing inside the wall

The view through the main entrance, away and to the left in this picture is the very interesting Moslem market see my piece on food. 

Ming Tombs - Close to Beijing

This is a collection of tombs from the Ming Dynasty - not many are open and the one that was I found pretty underwhelming when compared to other constructions we saw in China .

Very good Wikipedia article here Ming_tombs

On the other hand that long approach lane was spectacular .

These figures are in matching pairs - not repeated and they are big as can be seen below

The Temple of Heaven - Beijing

Essentially a temple where the Emperors would hang out and pray for good crops - there is some very interesting representative symmetry (circles and squares) and acoustics.

Check out the Wikipedia article Temple_of_Heaven

Middle row of stones reserved for the top guy 

The Summer Palace (my favourite) - Beijing

The Summer Palace (top left below) is in Beijing some distance from the Forbidden City (near the letter B bottom right) . There is a very good article here Summer_Palace.

When we were there is was close to freezing towards the end of the day,  so cold the lake was frozen around the edge but more importantly it wasn't very busy - I'll take the cold over the crowds any day.

 Below the amazingly long and ornately painted covered walkways, known as the  Long_Corridor - length 728m.

These really appealed to me for their aesthetic and geometry. To the right is the lake to the left palace buildings 

  Below just some of the decorated interior. 

Below looking in the general direction of the centre of Beijing.