Goodbye to China

From: Garry Hicken <garry.hicken@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Apr 28, 2016 at 6:41 PM
Subject: Goodbye to China
To:

  This will be my last email about China. I've probably written more about China than any other destination that Joani and I have been to, but it's a big country and we did a lot of traveling in it. All told we visited 8 cities and I don't know how many towns. We had one main travel guide and one secondary guide who both went everywhere with us. We had10 local city or town guides and 3 different drivers who took us on more bus rides than I can remember. We also took three internal flights totaling I don't know how many kilometers and one long river cruise. It was a massive, exciting, educating, tiring trip.

 I've attached some of my favorite overall photos, the last three were taken during our two days in Hong Kong.

I hope you enjoyed the stories and photos or at least weren't bored.

Garry

The Great Wall

From: Garry Hicken <garry.hicken@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Apr 28, 2016 at 8:43 AM
Subject: The Great Wall
To:

This will be my second last Email about China, but for me my most exciting. After two weeks of buses, planes, a ton of gardens, palaces, rice and other strange foods, we finally got to the day that I had been waiting for, for the entire vacation. To be more exact I had been waiting most of my life for this day. The Great Wall has been on my bucket list since I was a kid. I woke up in the morning thinking....I'm going to the great wall!!!! Breakfast was tasteless, I was blind to the morning scenery, I couldn't hear what our guide was saying. I kept hearing this whisper in my head. "The Great Wall, The Great Wall."

 It was a 45 minute drive out of Beijing and I think the other passengers were very lucky I wasn't driving or we would have hit Warp Speed! Every corner we went around I looked out the window straining to see if I could catch a glimpse of it. When it finally came into view I wasn't sure at first what I was seeing, but when I knew for sure, it was another one of those moments I get when I'm traveling that makes me feel like a little kid. There it was, snaking across the mountain like a giant piece of history unfolding before my eyes.

 When we finally got to the place where we were going to park the bus I was in complete hyperventilating mode. Things were taking too long. The guide had to get passes, the other people on my tour (including Joani) had to use the washroom. People had to be told how much time we had and where we would meet after the visit and I wanted to scream! Hey, this is the The Great Wall and I gotta go climb it".

 We were told that the section we were brought to was an arduous climb and to take it easy and not feel bad if we didn't make it to the top and I was thinking, "give me a break and just let me go" When they finally released us I bolted to the entrance like a racehorse, looking back impatiently at Joani (I'm glad she loves me because I know the look I gave her screamed of impatience).

 I started off up the stairs as if I was going to run all the way to the top and if you haven't guessed already, let me tell you. That sucker is tough, tall and long. I got about 1/4 way to the top of the section we were on and was puffing and panting like a race horse and my legs were screaming at me as if I had just run a marathon. I looked up and realized that sprinting up the wall wasn't an option. Walking up without taking frequent rest stops wasn't an option. I needed to pace myself if I intended to see the top of the mountain this section was on. So I waited for the wiser Joani (who had been pacing herself from the start) to catch up, and started again with far more humility and patience. I would make it to the top or our tour bus would be leaving without us!

 Every section of the wall has lookouts or gatehouses spaced regularly along the way and we used these as rest points and to monitor how far we had to go and eventually we made it to the top. What an exhilarating feeling that was!  "Top of the world Ma!!"

 Just to add to the challenge, about 2/3 of the way up there was a gift shop which was actually kind of humbling in a way when we realized that the staff in this gift shop had to make this climb twice a day every day. But we thought that like every thing else they probably were accustomed to it. Anyway, I was determined that any Great Wall souvenirs that I bought, would have to come from this shop to make them more authentic. I carried down 4 T-shirts, a hat, and 2 little ceramic sections of the wall. If you think that makes me crazy, you're probably right.

The pictures attached were of different moments in this great day. The first is early showing the huge task we were about to undertake.

The next three, were shots while we were climbing.

The next two, were us at the top.

If we looked tired in them, it's because we were beat!!

The last shot was the wall snaking off in the distance, as I said already... a piece of history waiting for any or all of you to visit.

We got back down to the bottom and I was sitting at a table, drinking a beer, thinking that this was the culmination of a dream and  another great moment in my life. I'm glad I got to spend it with Joani.

 Garry

Beijing

From: Garry Hicken <garry.hicken@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 5:56 PM
To:

 Good Morning

 It's 4;30 in the afternoon and I've just woken up from a midafternoon nap, although for my body it's 4:30 in the morning. I have the next 5 days to get used to the time change. We were exactly 12 hours ahead in China, so if you're going to visit there I recommend you give yourself the extra time on your return trip to allow your body to catch up. 

 Anyway on with my thoughts on Beijing. It's not as populous as Chongqing with only 21 million. (only 2/3 of the population of Canada) But whereas Chongqing includes in its population all the outlying areas similar to the GTA (i.e. Mississauga, Oakville, Oshawa, etc.) the 21 million in Beijing is just the city proper population. This makes it the 3rd most populous city in the world. You could spend 2 weeks in Beijing and still only scratch the surface of everything there is to see. We had 2 and 1/2 days. We saw Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, The Summer Palace, an evening performance called "The Golden Mask Dynasty ", and of course, The Great Wall.  I'm going to devote a separate email to the visit to the Great Wall because it was almost the main reason I went to China. This email will talk about the other things we did and saw.

 The first photo is of Tiananmen Square.

With all of the political strife that we in the western world have heard about in the last few years I expected to see or feel more, but to tell you the truth, it's just a big concrete plaza and seemed kind of boring.

The Forbidden city was much more interesting to see and although we didn't see it all, we were told it housed a thousand rooms! Imagine the decadence and extravagance. I have attached a dragon photo because they were always used to symbolize the emperor and this guy was huge.

 The next three photos were from the evening performance we went to. Each photo has it's own little story.

 #1: Early on in the show this woman came out and started contorting her body in ways that were unbelievable. In the attached shot she is face down with her back stretched out over her head. She did things much more extreme, but this is the best photo I got of her.

 #2: Performing Peacocks. I kid you not. These large birds perched on the dancers heads and bobbed and moved along with 12 woman's movements and at a prearranged moment they all flew solo across the stage.    " Exit stage Right".     Who teaches Peacocks choreography?

 #3: As the show was in it's closing moments, the stage expanded out along the sides to surround us and water started rushing out of everywhere. Joani was so startled she jumped. I think she thought the arena was flooding. I'm not sure what I thought, but I was too dumbfounded to move. All in all, it was quite an extravaganza!

 The last photo was of the Summer Palace. A sort of getaway an Emperor built for one of his consorts. Imagine having the power and money to build a summer getaway for your girlfriend, comprised of 2.9 square kilometers of sculptured gardens and lakes.

Impressive!! I hope she was impressed.

 Garry

Chongqing

   Hello from home

  This is the weirdest trip yet as far as the way I’ve blogged. I couldn’t get an email out of mainland China so I sent 5, rapid fire emails from Hong Kong in 2  ½ days. These 5 emails took us through to the end of the Yangtze River which left Changqing, Beijing, and Hong Kong. I figured I would wrap things up in 2 more emails but Joani and I are just now, sitting at home drinking tea and going through photos and with the pictures I’m seeing, I want to write 4 more stories. For anyone that’s finding it boring or tiring, remember the delete button is a great option.

 When we left the Yangtze River we traveled through a city called Chongqing which I hadn’t even heard of before heading for China. The wonder of that, is that it is one of the largest cities in the world with an encompassing population of over 30 million people. To put that into context, the entire population of Canada is slightly over 36 million!!

 We only had one day in this enormous city but our guide wanted to show us as much as he could in a short time. I have attached a few photos that I found fun and/or interesting.

 The first one is a panoramic shot of the city from a elevated viewpoint.

Then a couple from inside the city,

Next a shot of Joani and me with a couple of Peacocks which was very fun!

And then there are three from a market our guide took us to. The first shot is just to show you how crowded the market was.

 A funny little story about the second last shot. As usual I wanted to see everything, so I dragged Joani down this side street which turned out to be a back street to nowhere!! We ended up in a sort of sketchy area, almost lost and happened upon this old man,  playing the violin.

( Very well I might add, Joani donated to his cause). It took us a while to get back to the market, but an interesting side trip.

 The last shot was of people dressed up in costume to honor the year of the monkey.

Very fun!

 Garry

On The Yangtze river

After 4 crazy days of bussing and flying around China we were sort of hoping that our time on the Cruise ship would be a little slower and it was……sort of.

The scenery was beautiful.

On each day there was one regular tour which was part of the cruise and an optional tour that had an extra fee. Both Joani and I had already discussed the fact that we would probably not be back to China so I was determined to see as much as I could see. To be honest though, the first morning we woke up to tsunami type rainfall so we were both very happy that the morning tour was the optional tour and took the opportunity to rest a bit.

 By the afternoon the rain had let up a bit so we donned our raincoats and went out in a steady drizzle to see what was, at the time built, the largest dam in the world; “The Three Gorges Dam”. Our guide explained that since it’s completion two other dams have been built that are larger but this one still produces the most electricity in the world. We were given an explanation of how it worked and how much electricity it produced but I had left my engineering degree at home so didn’t really understand much. On the other hand, I was really interested in the locks system

 being as how our liner would be going through it later in the night. Somebody I met showed me how to set my camera for night photos (should have brought that ENG. Degree) and I have attached a photo of us in our large cruise ship snugging up behind an even larger transport ship carrying new cars.

It was really cool using these water locks to rise up to a higher level in this large river. Five locks in all. Very, very, cool!!

 The next day I did both outings while Joani skipped the optional as she thought it would be a good idea to conserve energy for the final week of our trip. The first outing was going out in smaller boats to “The Shennong Stream”. The first portion of this was done on a smaller boat that only carried about a hundred people and we all stood out on the foredeck and got unbelievable shots of smaller gorges,

and then were shuttled on to small wooden canoes. Twelve of us per boat being rowed by four men with one pilot steering. Our Guides were local girls who all looked like teenagers to me but were actually all older married woman with children. They sang folk songs to us in their native dialect,

cheered on the rowers of the individual boats (who seemed to find it a thing of honor to try to race the other boats) and gave us a complete rundown of the history of the Gorges. It was terrific.

The afternoon outing was the one I did without Joani and it was a trip to the “White Emperor City” with another child guide. 

 To be honest with you, the two most memorable parts of it were, that it was built on an almost island with only one bridge to access it, and after crossing the bridge, there were close to 400 steps leading up to the city. Now since a lot of the people on this tour are of an advanced age you can imagine how well that went over. I consider myself fairly fit and my legs were burning by the time I got to the top.  Some of the group with me hired sedan bearers to carry them up the stairs, which is a story unto itself.

 I know this is already getting to be a long email so I will end by telling you that the last day on the Boat we both only did the regular tour which was an excursion to “The Shibao Pagoda”. The Pagoda was cool, 

but what was best about this day was, for the first time we got to wander freely in a smaller town shopping and haggling with local vendors. We picked up some great souvenirs and had a fun day.

 Tonight it’s the “Captain’s Farewell Banquet “and tomorrow we fly to Beijing.

 Rest time is over!!

Wuxi to Hangzhou to the Yangtze River

 Hello All

  I have to be honest with you. We’ve been moving around so fast that it’s getting to be a blur. We woke up in a hotel in Wuxi, had breakfast and were immediately whisked off to see a freshwater pearl farm. We were given a demonstration of how they introduce irritants into baby oysters and grow multiple pearls in every mollusk. They then pitched us with the multiple uses to be made from pearls. You thought it was just jewelry, and they do make bracelets, rings, necklaces and pendants, but they also make creams and lotions and a few other things that I am forgetting. (I think I might have fallen asleep in the middle of the demonstration.)  I’ll admit, I bought something for Joani. (We celebrated our anniversary over here.)Then it was on the bus with Charlie #1 and we headed for Hangzhou. If you’re keeping track of all the cities you’re doing better than me, as I’ve already said, it’s getting to be a blur.
In Hangzhou we toured a tea plantation and took a boat ride on the” Serene West Lake” Our heads were spinning like Linda Blair in the exorcist. Where to next, Charlie?
 We spent the night in Hangzhou, woke up the next morning, had breakfast and Zoom, Zoom, back on the bus headed for Shanghai, said goodbye to Charlie # 1, and grabbed a flight to Yichang.( Yes, another city).
 I’m simplifying the very idea of grabbing an internal flight in China. When we got to the airport in Shanghai, the first thing we noticed, was that all departures were either delayed or cancelled. I was worried that we might be spending a night in an airport in China and there was absolutely no information being given out by airport officials as I’m sure you could Imagine. We were never given any explanation but our tour guides lobbied the officials relentlessly and even though we were more than an hour and a half late, we finally flew out to Yichang (one of the very few airplanes allowed to leave the whole day), and at almost midnight we boarded “President 7”, our cruise ship for 3 days and 4 nights of floating on the Yangtze River.
 Are you keeping up because as I’ve already said, our heads were spinning by this time.  I need a rest from my vacation.
 This was again a very interesting day but not a lot of great photos. So for the people who were wondering what I would be eating over here, I thought I’d add some Chinese delicacy photos for you foodies that are reading this.

Two kinds of chicken, black and white,

 some octopus with greens,

grasshoppers,

and scorpions on a stick, Yum, Yum!!

 Assorted varieties of fish which are breaded and grilled before serving.

And last but not least, starfish, baby scorpions and seahorses all also grilled on a stick.

I bet it makes you hungry just looking at it.

 Garry