We were in Xi'An, China! Today, we visited the Terracotta Warriors Museum. This was on our 'bucket list' coming to Xi'An, so we were definitely excited. After all, this is arguably the most important reason why tourists visit Xi'An in the first place!
Feeling adventurous, we decided to take the public bus. After researching on the Internet, we realised that it wasn't difficult. You just need to find your way to Xi'An Main railway station (not to be confused with Xi'An North High Speed Rail station). Unfortunately, there wasn't any metro stop near the main railway station, so we took a taxi from our hotel (Sheraton Xi'An North). The ride didn't take too long, about 15 minutes.
After alighting at the taxi stand, it was a short walk across a public square to a bus bay, where there were many tourist buses waiting. There were several companies, but they bring you to the same destination, i.e. Terracotta Army Museum, albeit some have slightly different stops. The bus fare was 7RMB or 8RMB per adult each way (7 or 8 depending on the company you take). You can pay the bus conductor in cash.
The ride took about an hour. Once you get off at the bus terminus, it was quite easy to find your way to the visitor entrance (just follow the signs). Buy your tickets and get yourself in!
The video below shows you from the time we arrived at Xi'An Main railway station. We got on a bus (it was blue in colour) and made our way to the Terracotta Army museum. En-route, we did stop at another tourist site, but that's for another blog post.
The Terracotta Museum itself was huge. Apparently, the crowds can get overwhelming (just look at the size of the entrance, and the barricades). Fortunately, it wasn't that crowded when we were there. We got our tickets easily (very short queue) and made our way in.
Pit 1 is the most famous pit. Take all your pictures there!
Some photographs to follow. After buying our tickets, this was the main entrance. Quite intimidating isn't it!
A photo of my ticket. We paid in cash.
From the main entrance, you still had to walk about 1KM to get to the main museum proper. There was some electric cart buggy you could ride (for a fee of course), but I think the ride wasn't worth it. The ground was very flat and it was an easy walk. The vast majority walked.
Inside the main Terracotta museum grounds, there are essentially 3 pits that you must visit. You can find all the detailed descriptions of these pits when you google, so I won't repeat them here.
As many of the reviewers have noted, Pit 1 is the most awesome and most famous. This is what it looks like. The scale is mind-boggling. Terracotta Army Pit 1 is an east-west rectangular pit, measuring 230 meters (252 yards) long, 62 meters (68 yards) wide and 4.5 to 6.5 meters (15 to 21 feet) deep. It is said to contain 6,000 warriors and horses.
Another view of Pit 1.
Yet another angle. You can see the soldiers all lined up. Obviously, when they uncovered this gigantic pit in 1976, it wasn't so neat. Hey, after being buried for 2,000 years, it ain't going to be so neat.
Take all your photos here, because Pit 2 and Pit 3 have far fewer warriors. Here is Pit 2 - also very large, but they are still excavating.
And pit 3 - which is supposedly a command pit. Pit 3 is the smallest, by far. Built in the shape of the Chinese character “凹”, the Terracotta Army Pit 3 measures 17.6 meters (19.2 yards) long from east to west, 21.4 meters (23.4 yards) wide from north to south and 4.8 meters (15.7 feet) deep. It can be divided into three parts: chariot and horse chamber, northern wing room, and southern wing room. It is thought that the northern wing room was used to pray for victory and the southern one for collecting military tactics. A total of 68 lifelike terracotta warriors were excavated from this pit, 42 from the southern wing room and 22 from the northern one. Sadly, many of them are missing their heads. The archaeologists also found a lot of well-preserved bronze weaponry, as well as gold, stone and bronze decorations, inside Pit 3. A distinctive chariot equipped with four horses was discovered inside the chamber of the pit. https://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/shaanxi/xian/terra_cotta_army/pit_3.htm
It doesn't really take that long to do the Terracotta Warriors museum. If you want to speed things up a bit, you could hire a driver, or get a taxi, instead of the public bus. Obviously that would cost you more.
Today was Day 2, we leave Hangzhou! Before that, we had a nice buffet breakfast at the Holiday Inn, and the video is below.
Today we would be using the same driver from yesterday, who met us punctually at the agreed time. It helped that we had WeChat and could communicate with him. The ride to Wu Zhen took more than an hour, but time flew by as we were playing mobile games on our phones.
Wu Zhen 乌镇
Wuzhen is one of the six famous ancient water towns south of the Yangtze River. It’s within the triangle formed by three top tourist cities: Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Suzhou. It has charmingly restored architecture and canals. Though some people complain about its commercial atmosphere, restored buildings, and the crowds, the charm and the elegance of this ancient water town is undeniable. We first toured Wu Zhen East. It was crowded! Check out the scenes in the video below.
There were many tour groups, of local (Mainland China) tourists. I found the signage below to be funny. This was called an Ancient Tree of Wu Zhen East District. But the age is merely 45 years? Maybe that is ancient by Chinese tree standards. Anyway....
From East to West 乌镇
From the East, we headed to the West. The drive took about 15 minutes. The Western part was much bigger, with boutique hotels. People stayed for 1 or 2 nights here. Before you entered the Water Town proper, you had to go through these gates. We had bought a combined ticket earlier (when we visited the Wu Zhen East). A combination of modern and ancient, made this place feel a bit like a theme park. We used the toilets before we entered. They were large and clean. Very good.
Wu Zhen Video
Video of our exploratory walk of 乌镇 Wu Zhen West. When we entered, I didn't realise that there was a free ferry (human powered) to bring us across to the otherside. We followed the footpath, but that turned out to be a good thing because we got to see the impressive Wu Zhen theatre. Check that out in the video below. The video also shows us taking the free ferry on our way out. It was a purely human powered boat. Two men using long bamboo sticks to punt. One more using some type of rudder cum paddle at the rear.
Lunch at KFC
We walked around a bit, but as it was lunch time, and we couldn't find any place to eat that we liked, we decided to cut short our walk (after seeing enough of the place) and get back to the entrance. Kids wanted lunch, and the safest place to bring them for lunch was KFC. So we headed back to 乌镇
East and settled our lunch at a KFC there.
Transfer to Courtyard Marriott Shanghai
The full name was Courtyard Shanghai International Tourism and Resorts Zone. It is located at the outskirts of Shanghai, about 20 minutes from Pudong International Airport. The reason for us staying here was Disneyland! We would be here for 2 nights. The transfer from Wu Zhen to Courtyard Marriott took about 2 hours. This time round, all of us took a nap, while our good driver drove us safely to our destination. The roads were very smooth, and most of the time we were on the highway. No speeding. I figured that my driver would get a speeding ticket if he went too fast. Cameras were everywhere! Elegant sign. Our check in was very smooth and easy. The hotel didn't seem full.
Peppa Pig Room
We had a very good laugh when we walked into our "Camping Room". Here is why. It was hilarious! We tried fitting into the tent. Didn't work very well (legs sticking out), but they, it was fun.
Some more pictures of the room. A nice touch was that the Mini-Bar in the hotel room was complimentary. Granted, there wasn't much in there, but still, a nice touch.
What was in the Mini-Bar? Pepsi, Seven-Up, some nuts and Coconut Juice. Coke, Seven-Up. The Coconut Juice wasn't the clear type we had in Singapore. It was milky. I would call it Coconut milk.
What to eat?
Now we had an issue. It was close to dinner time. What to eat? The immediate vicinity of the hotel did not have anything. It was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, no shops, no restaurants, no malls. The hotel itself had a restaurant (or two) but we were sure that the prices would be quite steep, so we didn't even check them out. The hotel website said that this place was 900M to Shanghai Disneyland, but that is as the bird flies. Going by vehicle, it was quite far (you had to go up a bridge), and the distance was probably more than 2km. So we decided to take a taxi. My wife used her DiDi app to call for a taxi. Yeah, she's quite amazing, she has all these Chinese apps loaded.
Shanghai DisneyTown
From the taxi stand, it took about 5 minutes to walk to DisneyTown. Good atmosphere. Decided to walk around to check out the various eateries. Found out that they had a BreadTalk which was co-located with ToastBox. Food Republic, a Singapore Food Court operator, also had a sizable presence there. Check out the video below.
Dinner at DonDonYa
After a brief walk, we settled with DonDonYa, an eatery selling Japanese inspired food. They had sets for 65RMB, which looked to be of decent value. So we had 3 sets and then went over to Food Republic to buy some Shanghai Dumplings (takeaway). We took a taxi (from the official line) back to Courtyard, cost was 20RMB.
This ends Day 2 of our tour. We would have a good rest this evening, and head out to Shanghai Disneyland tomorrow! Thanks for following along!
China. They are so advanced when it comes to cashless payments! You got to visit China to see it for yourself, just how widespread WeChat pay and Alipay are used. These days, the Chinese don't need cash, don't need debit or credit cards. It is all about paying using their WeChat wallets or Alipay wallets. Fantastic.
In China, they all use smartphones. Even the elderly. See this video taken on the Guangzhou Metro.
At the Guangzhou Bus station, you can buy tickets using the QR Code. They put up all the QR codes on the wall. No more ticket booths. No more ticket lines. Your phone becomes your ticket booth. Your phone gets the e-ticket (no more paper). Amazing stuff.
Even the vending machines accepted mobile payments. In this video, we pay for our vending machine drinks using the WeChat wallet. It was so easy and convenient! No need for spare change!
The alarm clock woke us up and we had breakfast at the 4th Storey cafeteria (too much to eat!). After that, we went up to the 21st Floor Club Lounge to get some bottled water, and I was surprised at the buffet spread available for breakfast. They even had a live noodle station. Impressive. Here is a video.
The Plan
Today, we hired a private driver. His name is Simon and he runs his own company - http://simon-service.com/photo-gallery/ My family had used his services before and all was good. He met us at the driveway at 10AM (as agreed) and he would drive us to Mutianyu and Ming Tombs today.
The drive to Mutianyu Great Wall took a while, I think about 1.5 hours. The distance was more than 70km.
Along the way, I was watching the cars. Many nice cars on Beijing Roads. I commented to Simon that many of the cars I observed on the roads were larger cars (i.e not compact), and many SUVs, Mercedes, BMW, Audi. Simon confirmed that the Chinese (Beijingers) loved nice cars, especially the Audi. He said many of these car manufacturers have set up factories in China and most of the cars I saw were made (or at least assembled) in China. He also said that getting a license to own a Beijing car was like striking lottery. There was some lottery system and when you got the right to own a car, people tended to splurge and buy the nicest car possible. Still, given that so many nice cars were widespread here, I could only conclude that people in Beijing were getting rich. Towards the end of this car watching video, I even spotted the new Tesla SUV.
Mutianyu Great Wall
The visitor center at Mutianyu Great Wall looked rather new. Simon told us that far fewer coaches and large tour groups go to Mutianyu, as compared to Badaling. Well, the latter is older and more established (having been opened since 1957) and the Wall was very well preserved. However, as you will see in my following pictures and videos, Mutianyu section of the Great Wall is pretty awesome too! Another important reason why almost all tour coaches go to Badaling was because there were plenty of these Chinese shops there. Tour companies will often make it compulsory for the groups to visit some shops or shopping village. They want you to spend money. Simon said there were not that many large shops near the Mutianyu Great Wall, which in my opinion made for a much quieter and more pleasant visit.
We arrived and we were blessed with a brilliant day to visit the Great Wall. Bright sunshine and good temperatures (around 15 deg). Very light winds. Awesome.
We bought the tickets and decided to have some food before we ascended up via cable car. Reason was that it was close to lunch time, and even though we had a late breakfast, it was better to fill up on some food before we do the walk. Since we were so full, we just shared a Whopper Junior Meal from Burger King, and changed the drink to hot milk tea (which was good!)
In this video, we arrive at the Mutianyu Visitor Center, buy our tickets and head to the Burger King nearby to have a light meal. Then we take the shuttle bus from the visitor center area up to the area where there were cable cars. In the latter area, you could either take a cable car up to Tower 14, or chair lift up to Tower 6, or walk. Our route today was to take the Cable Car to Tower 14, walk downwards towards Tower 6, and take the Toboggan back down.
The cable car ride up was fast. Not many passengers today. This was the low-season, and also at Mutianyu, you don't get the huge hordes of people that you may see at Badaling, well at least not during low season! The views when we got up the Wall were breathtaking! We even spotted a Chinese couple take wedding photos. I can understand why.
In this picture, you can barely make out the Cable Car station in the distance. Watchtower Tower 14 is at the top of the ridge, slightly to the right of the Cable Car station, followed by by more towers. I think I was already near Tower 7 or 6 from this angle. Trust me, it was breathtaking.
In this 5 minute video, you will see snippets of our walk from Tower 14 to Tower 6, which took us about an hour. Stop to take plenty of photos and videos! Beware of the steep steps. You will see that the steps were very steep at times. So, come to the Wall while you can still manage steep steps, up and down! Otherwise, it could get challenging. Mutianyu Wall is definitely NOT disabled friendly.
At the Great Wall, I saw a photograph of Michelle Obama taking the Tobbogan, and coming back home I found it on the official White House website. Here it is. (Official White House Photo, 2014) The guy in black sunglasses following closely behind can't be the odd tourist! (I am guessing USA Secret Service).
"Today we drove about an hour north of Beijing to a village called Mutianyu to visit a section of the Great Wall of China, which was simply breathtaking. The scenery on the way there was beautiful – a wide vista of mountains and trees – so the car ride alone was a treat. But then, running along the highest ridges of the mountains, you see it: The Great Wall – one of the great marvels of human history.
"In its entirety, the Great Wall stretches from east to west across more than 13,000 miles of Chinese countryside (that's about four times the length of the entire United States from Maine to Oregon!). It is not a single, uninterrupted wall, but rather a series of smaller walls which sometimes overlap and run parallel to each other.
"Certain sections of the Wall date back as far as the seventh century B.C., but the majority of the Great Wall we know today – including the section at Mutianyu – was built between the 1300s and the 1600s.
"To get to the Wall, we rode a cable car up a mountain (and we later rode back down on a long slide!). The section we visited is one of the more popular parts of the Wall for tourists, and it’s easy to see why. At Mutianyu, the Wall is roughly 20 to 25 feet tall and full of stairs, and there’s a watchtower every 100 yards or so. Those watchtowers serve as a reminder of why the Wall was built in the first place – to defend against attacks from armies descending from the north. Throughout its history, the Great Wall has gone through decades, even centuries, of ruin and disrepair. But it has always served as not only a physical barrier, but a psychological one to intimidate potential invaders.
"During our visit to the Wall, I couldn’t stop thinking about what a massive undertaking it must have been to build it. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and peasants were given the dangerous, painstaking – and often fatal – task of carrying ton after ton of granite, brick, dirt, and wood through the forests, up over the hills, and down through the valleys to create this incredible structure. They did this year after year, decade after decade – and it’s because of their hard work and sacrifice that the Great Wall remains standing today."
Upon reading Michelle Obama's blog (after I returned to Singapore), I realised that we had followed the same route to the Mutianyu Wall! First, Cable Car up to an area near Tower 14, then walk down, reaching the Toboggan near Tower 6, and taking the Toboggan down. Awesome.
So, if the First Lady of USA (obviously that makes her a VVIP) could take this ride, I figured it would be safe enough for mere mortals like myself to try. So I decided to make sure I documented my Tobbogan experience. Check out the following videos. First, I arrive at the Tobbogan area.
The cost for a one way downward ride was 80RMB. So be it. And, here we go! The ride was relatively long (almost 4 minutes) and at times, you could go quite fast, if you didn't want to apply the brakes. They stationed men along the way, especially at the sharp turns, which was a good sign, though some of them were snoozing under the shade. Fun ride and well worth it! Be warned though, no helmets provided. If you are a speed devil and try to take the corners at 100MPH, mind your head.
That was fun! After the ride, we took another short break at the same Burger King (shared some food), and it was time to make our way to the next destination - Ming Tombs! The ride took about an hour as it wasn't that near, and there wasn't a highway to get there.
The Ming Tombs are a collection of mausoleums built by the Emperors of the Ming Dynasty. The following write-up from Wikipedia.
"The first Ming emperor's tomb is located near his capital Nanjing. However, the majority of the Ming tombs are located in a cluster near Beijing and collectively known as the Thirteen Tombs of the Ming Dynasty (Chinese: 明十三陵; pinyin: Míng Shísān Líng; literally: "Ming Thirteen Mausoleums"). They are within the suburban Changping District of Beijing Municipality, 42 kilometres (26 mi) north-northwest of Beijing city center. The site, on the southern slope of Tianshou Mountain (originally Huangtu Mountain), was chosen based on the principles of feng shui by the third Ming emperor, the Yongle Emperor. After the construction of the Imperial Palace (Forbidden City) in 1420, the Yongle Emperor selected his burial site and created his own mausoleum. The subsequent emperors placed their tombs in the same valley.
"From the Yongle Emperor onwards, 13 Ming dynasty emperors were buried in the same area. The Xiaoling tomb of the first Ming emperor, the Hongwu Emperor, is located near his capital Nanjing; the second emperor, the Jianwen Emperor, was overthrown by the Yongle Emperor and disappeared, without a known tomb. The "temporary" emperor, the Jingtai Emperor, was also not buried here, as the Tianshun Emperor had denied him an imperial burial; instead, the Jingtai Emperor was buried west of Beijing.[1] The last Ming emperor buried at the location was the Chongzhen Emperor, who committed suicide by hanging (on 25 April 1644), was buried in his concubine Consort Tian's tomb, which was later declared as an imperial mausoleum Si Ling by the emperor of the short-lived Shun dynasty, Li Zicheng, with a much smaller scale compared to the other imperial mausoleums built for Ming emperors."
So, what's the point of going to see Tombs? Well, apparently this entire place was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2003. Why? The grandeur of these 15th Century tombs is a symbolic reminder of how powerful and rich the Chinese were in that era of history.
Our first stop was the Chang Ling tombs, of Emperor Zhu Di (1360 to 1424), also known as Emperor Yongle. Plenty to read about him online, so I shan't repeat that here. Interesting that his ascension to the throne was not a given and he led an internal rebellion against his own relatives and pretty much made himself Emperor. This was the Jingnan Campaign, a civil war that lasted 3 years.
In this video, you will see the large numbers of Chinese domestic tourists. People and more people! So many tour coaches in the parking lot!
After Chang Ling, we headed over to the Ding Ling Tombs. Located in the southern foot of Tianshou Mountain in Changping County of Beijing, Dingling Tomb is the mausoleum of Emperor Zhu Yijun (1563 - 1620) of Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644) and his two empresses, Empress Xiaoduan and Empress Xiaojing. Zhu Yijun was the thirteenth emperor and occupied the throne for 48 years, the longest among all of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty. Built over six years between 1584 and 1590, the tomb, which covers an area of 180,000 square meters (44 acres), is of great historical value, attracting millions of tourists from home and abroad every year.
At the Ding Ling tomb, you had to walk in a fairly long way and then you could literally walk down many floors (via steps) to the underground Palace. A very interesting experience. Check it out!
We stayed at the Ding Ling Tomb area museum until closing time, which was 5pm. On the way back to the carpark area, we came across this steele on a turtle.
Drive back to Hotel
It was a rather long ride, primarily because the traffic got very heavy as we got closer to Beijing. Did some more car watching along the way. Spotted a couple of Trumpchi SUVs. Didn't know what brand of car this was. Only later did I find out that this was a local China brand (not to be confused with Donald Trump), and the car would be launching in the USA this year!
Once we reached our hotel (around 7pm), we headed to the 24F Executive Club lounge. Since there was sufficient food, we decided to take our dinner there. The lounge was pretty crowded though. Check out the video I made . !
Watch this video by a very articulate Chinese person, likely speaking on behalf or speaking on proxy for the Chinese Government. What is he saying?
Well folks, let's face it. We are in a David vs Goliath situation. As the old saying goes, Big Countries do what they want, and and small countries suffer what they must. Big China has decided to teach Small Singapore a lesson by seizing the Terrex vehicles that were transiting through Hong Kong's port. After more than a month, there is no end to this saga.
This Chinese official (obviously told to go on media), has explained it very clearly. Singapore has not given China the assurances on two very important conditions.
First, Singapore did not inform the Hong Kong authorities that such sensitive cargo was transitting through the port. Why was this?
Second, and the real reason, Singapore did not adhere to the 'One China' policy because Singapore continues to train in Taiwan. The official said that Singapore's reason that the relationship with Taiwan goes back to the 1970s does not take into account that the modern reality is different. China is not the China of 30 years ago. Back then, Singapore started training in Taiwan (with the silent backing of the USA), China could do nothing about it even though China was not happy.
Today, China has decided to do something about it. Until these two conditions are met, the Chinese official categorically stated that Singapore will NOT get back her Terrex vehicles.
Not Going To Give You Back, Big China tells Small Singapore
Poor Singapore. Kena bullied. How can an island of 5 million stand up against an emerging superpower of 1.3 billion? In Singaporean lingo, China is telling Singapore to 'wake up our idea'.
What should we do? That, ladies & gentleman, is the million dollar question. Now, bear in mind, the whole world is watching this closely, watching what Singapore would do, watching whether Singapore would cave in to China, watching whether the people of Singapore would scold their Government and tell the Singapore Government to give in.
If we give in, I'd say we are doomed. Yes, we will get back our 9 Terrexes (apparently worth $30 million or so), but what will we lose? We will lose our credibility as a sovereign country in the eyes of the rest of the world. We will lose our reputation as an independent country, upholding international law, respecting rule of law. So, give in, and don't blame our foreign friends for thinking that we are now part of China.
What We Should Do
Much as I don't like Donald Trump, I would like to quote his tweet as a possible Singapore response, in the event China simply refuses to return the Terrex. Here was his tweet,
To paraphrase Trump,
"We should tell China that we don't want the Terrexes they stole back - let them keep it!"
Tell the whole world that China is the thief, the big bully, the country that unilaterally disregards international law. They stole our good and let them keep it, so that the whole world can see for themselves who the thieves are.
As for the 9 Terrexes, we'll just build another 9 lah. After all, aren't they locally made? Create jobs for ourselves ain't a too bad an idea is it?
A young nurse has been named the 'prettiest bride' by Chinese media after trying to save a man on September 21. Her name is Guo Yuanyuan, aged 25. She and her hubby-to-be were in the midst of their wedding photo-shoot on a beach in Dalian, China.
Others on the beach spotted a man, in the sea, who was shouting for help. Some swimmers managed to pull the man in, from the waters. However, the man was barely conscious when he reached the beach. Mr Zhao, one of the rescuers, said: 'At the time his lips had gone purple and his face was going blue. It seemed like he had a sudden heart attack.' As a crowd gathered around the man, it appeared that no one knew how to perform CPR.
That is when the valiant bride-to-be stepped up and outshone all others with her valiant attempt to resuscitate the man. Check out this video footage of her trying her darn best to give this unconscious man another shot at life. It is quite inspiring, even though her efforts were ultimately futile.
It turns out that Ms Guo Yuanyuan was a cardiac nurse at a local hospital. Obviously, she was not on duty that day. The wedding photo shoot of a bride is a very important and significant milestone in her life. Yet, witnesses say that when the event occurred, Ms Guo rushed to the aid of this man, without any hesitation whatsoever, while still wearing her wedding gown. It looked like all her life-saving instincts came into play.
She proceeded to perform CPR on the man, as well as give him the 'kiss-of-life' for over 20 minutes. In the process, she ruined her wedding dress, spoilt her make-up and broke her nails.
Guo's fiancé, named as Xiao Liu, proudly revealed that his bride-to-be enjoys helping people. He also said she had run faster than him when the incident occurred.
Images of the Ms Guo saving the man quickly spread across Chinese social media where she was given the title of the 'prettiest bride'.
Guo said of the incident, 'At that time, I only remember that I was a nurse. My career's responsibilities are higher than that of a bride.'
We salute Ms Guo Yuanyuan for her selfless and valiant efforts!! Definitely a role model for most people, who prefer to just watch from the sidelines.
