www.theblisspages.com - travel: China
www.theblisspages.com - travel: ChinaI have been lucky enough to have travelled to China half-a-dozen times on business and had several weekends free. I have been there in gloriously warm and sunny weather, and have also experienced the winter season - minus ten centigrade, but very dry. I was grateful for the silk long johns I'd bought in the state shop.
These department stores were cornucopias of exotic goods, with ridiculously cheap souvenirs jostling with exquisite but morally indefensible ivory carvings costing thousands. I bought a goose-down anorak, which is still in occasional service over fifteen years later. On one memorable Christmas, I caught it on a train door handle as I weaved down the carriages post-party, leaving white down snowing down on fellow travellers.
I also have some healthy balls - no, I'm not boasting - these are made of stone or lacquered hollow metal, designed to be rotated in one hand as a form of shiatsu massage.
I bought some bamboo and paper kites, which I've flown at the annual kite festival at Falmer - near Brighton - held every June.
I also bought some silk dressing gowns in black with dragons and flowers embroidered on the back - very sensual and decadent.
One purchase I haven't fully explored was a book. Called "Keep fit with self-massage", one exercise called 'swinging the sandbags' starts off by tying some sandbags onto one's scrotum. I'm sure it's very healthy, but the only healthy balls I want to keep in a box are my stone and metallic ones!
Beijing is very flat, and there were some cars, but millions of bikes. The tinkling of bells was all-pervasive, and cycles dominated the roads. In my opinion they are the best way to explore the city. They are easy and cheap to hire, and there are huge bike parks everywhere.
It is amazing how much you can fit on a bike.
Often there were whole families fitting on one bicycle, but the most amazing sight I witnessed was a bridge. Yes, an entire metal bridge, about twenty feet long, carried on three bikes.
In the dry winter season, on every street corner, I saw cabbages: huge piles of cabbages. The smell was ubiquitous and I felt sorry for the mass of humanity that obviously subsided on them through this long season.
I was lucky enough not to have to partake - I'm not a huge fan of green vegetables. The food in the big hotels and in restaurants catering to foreign visitors was superb.
I enjoy Chinese food - particularly Peking duck, and had it several times.
The best French meal I ever had was in Beijing - nine courses over four and a half hours, with live harp music. Bliss!
See the poem I wrote celebrating my favourite restaurants round the world.
On one weekend, I was taken to see the Great wall at Badaling.
Badaling is located at Yanqing County, about 70 kilometres north-west of Beijing. It is a mountain pass, and at a thousand metres, is at the highest point of the north end of the Guan'gou gorge. Historically, the function of Badaling was to protect the Juyongguan Pass. The section of wall at Badaling is 3,741 metres long with an average height of 8 metres, with the highest part being 15 metres. The wall is wide enough to allow five horses to be ridden abreast.
Badaling was strategically important between the Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC - 476 BC) and the Warring States Period (476 BC - 221 BC). Badaling was the earliest section of the Great Wall to be open to tourists and 130 million tourists from China and abroad have visited it.
I got there reasonably early in the morning, and outpaced other visitors, so could experience the solitude and appreciate the fantastic views, before it filled up later in the morning with local and foreign tourists.
Beside the Forbidden City and Jingshan Park, in the centre of Beijing City, is an imperial garden called Beihai Park. Initially built in the 10th century, it has a history of over a thousand years, including five dynasties: the Liao, Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties (916-1911). The Park occupies an area of more than 700,000 square meters, and water covers more than half the Park. I often wandered around this huge park.
I spent a couple of days in total exploring the Forbidden City. It is absolutely huge, and it takes quite a while to come to grips with the scale. Lying at the centre of Beijing, it is called Gu Gong in Chinese. It was the imperial palace during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Now known as the Palace Museum, it is to the north of the infamous Tiananmen Square.
It is the world's largest palace complex, covering 74 hectares. Surrounded by a moat six metres deep and a red, ten metre high wall, are reputed to be nearly ten thousand buildings. The wall has a gate on each side, and towers at each corner, giving views over both the palace and the city outside. Its base is 8.6 meters wide reducing to 6.66 meters at the top.
The bricks are made from white lime and glutinous rice while the cement is made from glutinous rice and egg whites. Apparently, these materials make the wall very strong.
Opposite the Tiananmen Gate to the north, is the Gate of Divine Might (Shenwumen), which faces Jingshan Park.
Construction of the palace complex began in 1407, and was completed fourteen years later. It was said that a million workers, including one hundred thousand artisans, worked on it. Stone was quarried from Fangshan, a suburb of Beijing. It was said a well was dug every fifty meters along the road in order to pour water onto the road in winter to slide huge stones on ice into the city. Large amounts of timber and other materials were freighted from faraway provinces.
Since yellow is the symbol of the royal family, it is also the dominant colour in the Forbidden City. Roofs are built with yellow glazed tiles; decorations in the palace are painted yellow; even the bricks on the ground are yellow. However, there is one exception. Wenyuange, the royal library, has a black roof, because it was believed black represented water and could extinguish fire.
The Forbidden City is divided into two parts. The southern section, or the Outer Court, was where the emperor ruled. The northern section, or the Inner Court, was where he lived with his royal family. Until 1924, when the last emperor of China was driven from the Inner Court, fourteen emperors of the Ming dynasty and ten emperors of the Qing dynasty reigned here.
One weekend, I was taken to the Summer Palace, and enjoyed it immensely.
Located in Haidian District, some 12 kilometres north-west of the city centre, the Summer Palace is the largest imperial garden in the world. It is a museum of classical Chinese garden architecture.
The initial construction of the Summer Palace began in 1750, commissioned by Emperor Qinglong as a gift for his mother's birthday. The construction took 15 years. It was then called Qingyi Yuan (Garden of Clear Ripples). Disturbances in 1860 destroyed most of the buildings, but they were renovated about twenty years later by Empress Dowager Cixi, who was said to have embezzled the funds of the Imperial Navy for this purpose. After China's revolution, the garden became a park and was renamed as Yiheyuan (Summer Palace).
The Temple of Heaven is also well-worth visiting. It is much bigger than the Forbidden City though smaller than the Summer Palace with an area of about 2.7 square kilometres. The Temple was built in 1420 AD during the Ming Dynasty to offer sacrifice to Heaven. It is enclosed by a long wall. The main buildings of the Temple are aligned north south. The most magnificent buildings are The Circular Mound Altar (Yuanqiutan), Imperial Vault of Heaven (Huangqiongyu) and Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest (Qiniandian). Almost all the buildings are connected by a wide bridge called the Vermilion Steps Bridge (Danbiqiao) or Sacred Way. The Circular Altar has three layered terraces of white marble. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368 AD - 1911 AD), the emperors would offer sacrifice to Heaven on the Winter Solstice. This ceremony was to thank Heaven and to pray for the future.
The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest is a big palace with a round roof and three layers of eaves. Inside the Hall are 28 huge posts. The four posts along the inner circle represent four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter. The 12 posts along the middle circle represent the 12 months, and 12 posts along the outer circle represent 12 Shichen (Shichen is a means of counting time in ancient China. One Shichen equalled two hours and a day was divided into 12 Shichens). The roof is covered with black representing the heavens, and a yellow and green glaze, representing the earth and everything on it.
Tiananmen Square has an area of 440,000 square meters and has become a relaxing place for people to fly kites and walk. On a holiday, the whole square is covered with fresh flowers.
To me, and I'm sure, to many others, this square also symbolises the repression of freedom symbolised in the sacrifice of the lone student who stood in front of the tanks forcing them to stop, on 05 June 1989. Some believe he was executed for his beliefs. I visited the square before and after the tanks, and could see the marks left by their tracks. See wikipedia for more information.
After leaving Beijing, I visited Shanghai once.
Shanghai, called "Hu" for short, is a bustling metropolis located at the mouth of the Yangtze River. Connected with Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces in the west, the city is exposed to the East China Sea in the east.
Many buildings, constructed in various styles, are well preserved in the Bund area, and the streets resemble those in European cities. This blending of eastern and western styles has given the Bund a reputation as a "World's Fair of Architecture." Many buildings from the 1920s and 1930s have also survived in the Old City section of Shanghai.
I went for a run with the Hash House Harriers, an expatriate running group you find in many countries. We ran through fields, and along local paths, much to the bemusement of the locals, who watched us curiously us we puffed past.
I had a very vigorous massage in the hotel with a small but very strong male masseur. It was quite painful, and although I'm sure it was good for me, it was not a pleasurable experience.
I remember with affection, a leisurely Sunday brunch at the Hilton, a supremely decadent affair: A full fry-up, the likes of which I can only dream of post-Diabetes.
The Jade Buddha Temple, located in north-west Shanghai, is the most popular Buddhist temple in this city, drawing both worshippers and tourists. It is famous for two jade Buddha statues, one of which is reclining and the other seated, and I enjoyed visiting it.
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: © Mike Bliss 2008