Category Archives: Art

Day 473 In Beijing: Trip To Xian: Terracotta Warriors, Part 3.

By | | , , , , , , , ,
Leave a comment

 

Soldiers at attention.

Soldiers at attention.

It was time to for Jill and me to see Pit 1.

We went in a side door as we were continuing our backwards trip and therefore we entered into the end which was not nearly as busy as the main doors.

It was actually a wonderful way to start/end this visit as the crowds near Pit 1’s main entrance were incredibly deep and people were pushing and shoving a lot.

Now, pushing and shoving is very common in China but Jill and I just get sick and tired of feeling like you have to fight someone just to stand where you are.

It is honestly something we will not miss when we leave and one of the most aggravating issues with crowds in China: people just have no sense of space or respect for other people who are near them.

It is a cultural issue that I will never get used to, and honestly, don’t intend to because if I did that in the USA, or pretty much anywhere else, I’d get beaten up.

Therefore, going in the back way, where it was almost empty, was incredibly relaxing and a relief.

We also wandered against the flow of people which allowed us to stop and see what we wanted and not be pushed along by the masses.

Pit 1 was absolutely amazing.

It is as simple as that.

It is massively long and incredibly wide.

They have done a wonderful job rebuilding the warriors and making them as realistic as possible, again without the painted armor and wagons, and it is very powerful to see them lined up and ready for action.

Jill and I walked all the way around the pit and asked an Australian gentleman to take our picture so we could show that we were there and have some wonderful memories.

We talked to both he and his wife, and they were on a one month tour, and they were retired.

He lived about 1 hour north of Melbourne and had run an organic farm that was very successful and now just relaxes, enjoys life, and they travel for about 1-2 months a year.

This year they chose to visit China.  They said that they had enjoyed their trip but are ready to get home to some peace and quiet and fresh air.

As I lived in Melbourne, back in 1990, for one month, I absolutely understood and envied them.

Living on the beach, in fresh air, and with quiet, is something Jill and I are very much looking forward to sometime in the future.

They told us that they generally aren’t tour group people but decided to do one because they’d heard traveling in China is tough.

They had booked a tour through an agency in the USA and ended up with 35 North American tourists, 1 Canadian and themselves.

They said it had been fun to meet all these North Americans, and the one Canadian, and it was a very different experience than it would have been with just Australians.

Just another reason I love to travel, meeting so many people, having so many different experiences and view points, and allowing themselves to be exposed to life in a different way.

This is exactly the life Jill and I want to have, and are having, at this moment.

We are incredibly grateful for the ability to live this life, have these experiences, and go places that many people will never go.

Such is the life of an expatriate.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Day 472 In Beijing: Trip To Xian: Terracotta Warriors, Part 2.

By | | , , , , , , , ,
Leave a comment

 

A view of the larger area in Pit 2.

A view of the larger area in Pit 2.

Jill and I continued on our way to Pit 2 and found it to be tiny compared to Pit 3 but much more personal and powerful.

There were many more Terracotta Warriors, and their horses, in this pit and it is was much more excavated than Pit 3, which they believe was the command center.

Pit 3, from what we’ve seen, is one of the newer pits to be excavated and is still quite unexplored at this time.

Pit 2 was much more developed, clean, and we had a very clear view of the statues.  It is full of the cavalry and infantry units.  There were supposedly war chariots here also.  It seems to have represented the military guard.

The horses, by the way, all used to have wagons made out of wood.

It seems that they people either burned them or they rotted with time according to the signs and information around the pit.

We were not able to see any descriptions of what the wagons looked like but I’m guessing they were very ornate and incredibly beautiful.

Speaking of beauty, the terra cotta warriors were originally even more beautiful as they were painted in bright blue, orange and other colors that have faded with time.

There were a few pictures of what they probably looked like and it would have been an incredibly impressive army to see set into the ground.

Not to say that this army wasn’t impressive enough but it would have looked like an army of warriors in rainbow colored armor.

By the way, the warriors were found by some farmers that were trying to dig a well and had been lost to history until that time.

Can you imagine just trying to dig a well and happening across the beginning of this massive army underneath your land?

I can’t.

By the way, Qin Shi Huang was the emperor that had these all built for him before he died at the age of 50.  He united all of China while being the first emperor of China.

Oh, in case you feel a little inferior at this point since this guy did all that, just add to his resume that he was the one that started the Great Wall of China.  And survived over 3 different assassination attempts.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Day 471 In Beijing: Trip To Xian: Terracotta Warriors, Part 1.

By | | , , , , , , , ,
1 Comment

 

Many more soldiers being excavated.

Many more soldiers being excavated.

Jill and I interrupt this trip to Turkey and Greece for a short sojourn into China.

In case you didn’t realize, I tend to write my blogs after the event has happened.

Obviously this is a necessity because if I wrote them before they happened it would just be fiction and this is a, in as much as possible, a non-fiction blog of Jill’s and my journey through China and other countries that we will visit as we live in Beijing.

With that in mind, I want to jump into our trip to Turkey and put up some posts about our trip to Xi’an.

This actually happened just a few days ago, unlike our journey to Turkey and Greece which ended over a month ago at this point.

I could wait to write about Xi’an, and keep things strictly in chronological order, but this was a very short, yet powerful, trip.

Jill and I heard about EACHAM (European/American Chamber of Commerce) through our friend, Mike Shaw.

EACHAM sets up expatriates for 2 or 3 day trips, to major industrial conferences and expositions, and pays for our transportation, hotels, and meals.

Basically the expos want to have foreigners there and this is where we come in.

It is a heck of a deal, for us, because we get to see a different part of China and don’t really have to pay much for it other than some added extras of going to see things that aren’t on the tour.

This is where the Terracotta Warriors made our decision regarding going to Xi’an a very easy one.

We’d both seen lots of pictures of the Warriors and had set seeing them as a “must do” before we leave China.

When we were offered an all-expenses paid trip to Xi’an, about 1 hour from the Warriors, we jumped at the chance.

EACHAM paid for an overnight train to Xi’an, which took about 11 hours, and there were 4 bunk beds in our cabin.  We shared the cabin with a mother and her adult daughter and had a very nice time other than the beds being pretty hard.

We also met some of the other expatriates going up to Xi’an for the same conference and talked about life in China.

After we arrived in Xi’an, we set out to hire a cab and get out to the Terracotta Warriors.

It took about 1.5 hours to get there, as traffic was bad and there was a lot of construction, and $60 USD, but it was well worth it.

After exiting our taxi, and making sure the driver knew we wouldn’t pay until we returned to Xi’an (something we’d been told to do by others that have done the trip because the taxi drivers tend to leave if they get a better offer) we walked to the entrance of the attraction.

We saw that we could get a ride on a little electric tram and hopped right in to save time.

There were 3 different buildings to choose from and we decided to see the last one first (Pit 3) as the other two seemed incredibly packed and we were hoping they would empty a little bit before we visited them.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Day 469 In Beijing: The Grand Bazaar, Part 2.

By | | , , , , , , , , ,
Leave a comment

 

People mingling and rugs hung on the wall outside The Grand Bazaar.

People mingling and rugs hung on the wall outside The Grand Bazaar.

Jill and I kept walking around, feeling like we were in Wonderland, and starring at all the beautiful creations that humans have made and have on display.

However, there is something that we noticed after living in Beijing and traveling to massive cities.

We get worn out.

I guess we are getting older, Jill at 41 and me at 45, but I don’t think it is that.

If it was, we definitely couldn’t deal with Beijing, and we can deal with it pretty well, all things considered.

We just realized that we wanted a little down time and a little quiet.

We’d seen so much in the past 2 days, after flying for 12 hours, that we would need a break.

So, we didn’t stay as long as we would have usually stayed but we still felt quite satisfied in what we saw at The Grand Bazaar.

It is an amazing place and one could easily spend a full day in it and just get lost wandering around, talking to the salespeople, and seeing pretty much anything one desires, on display.

Speaking of salespeople, that is another thing we are tired of after living in China: Bargaining.

It is also what happens in Turkey and we just aren’t fans of it.

Just give us a fair price and we will pay it.

It just becomes so tiring to bargain for something, especially when you just want to look and take your time, and the salespeople jump on you and start telling you prices when you don’t even want anything.

I’m sure they make a lot of money but, for us, it just makes us want to leave and not even look at something we might want to buy because we don’t want to deal with the drama.

That is another reason we didn’t spend a lot of time in The Grand Bazaar since all the salespeople immediately call to you and start telling you to come in, try their goods, and whatnot.

It is just tiring.

So, we ended up taking off after about 1 or 2 hours.

It was still amazing and definitely worth the trip.

We just needed a little quiet and thought it would be nice to go back to our friend, Andac’s apartment, enjoy some yummy Turkish white cheese, bread and wine.

And we did just that.

And it was nice.

Just as we guessed.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Day 468 In Beijing: The Grand Bazaar, Part 1.

By | | , , , , , , ,
Leave a comment

 

Shops, people and things for sale at The Grand Bazaar.

Shops, people and things for sale at The Grand Bazaar.

Jill and I both agree that calling it The Grand Bazaar is an understatement.

It truly is more than grand.

It truly is more than bazaar.

In both terms of that word.

And, therefore, it is more than just The Grand Bazaar.

But, that is what they have chosen to call it, so that is what it shall be called!

The Grand Bazaar started around 1455 or 1456.  It continued to grow, and become a cover bazaar, through the next 300 or so years.

Then, in the 1900s, when the textile production exploded, it had another massive growth spurt and became primarily the bazaar we can visit presently.

There have been a number of fires, earthquakes, and other issues, but the Grand Bazaar refuses to die and is a fantastic event to visit if you ever go to Istanbul.

One of the amazing sites of the Grand Bazaar are the carved metal display dishes, the furniture for sale, the handcrafted rugs, of course, the incredible jewelry.

There is some silver but it is, as you can see in the pictures, primarily gold.

And more gold.

And more gold.

And even more gold.

It is breathtaking and amazing.

The Grand Bazaar shines with a gold tint when you walk near the jewelry area and it is fun just to look at all the different designs and styles of jewelry that are on display.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

 

 

Day 466 In Beijing: Topkapi Palace Harem, Part 2.

By | | , , , , , , , , ,
Leave a comment

 

Jill and me at the Harem.

Jill and me at the Harem.

Jill and I continued to meander through the Harem and continued to be overwhelmed by the beauty and style.

It is so disconcerting, in a positive way, to walk from a city that is fully engaged in the 21st century, with trains, cars, phones, and other “necessities” of life and then go to a place that is so quiet, tranquil and calm.

Well, other than the 20,000 or so other tourists in the palace as we walked around it.

Maybe that is an exaggeration but there are a lot of people and they do an excellent job of keeping the lines moving and making sure that tourists can see the exhibitions and not feel rushed at the same time.

It is so different from the tourist areas in China, which are overwhelmed with people, because so many people go on vacation at the same time.

Just to give an example: During the Spring Break vacation, here in China, 150,000,000 people travel within one week.

One Hundred And Fifty Million people.

That is half the total population of the USA who would be traveling, in one week, to a destination.

And back to work during that same week.

And many of those destinations are inside China so the transit system is totally overwhelmed.

It also is a sign of the times and how families are split apart since so many of the parents are working in massive cities, like Beijing, and only go home to see their children during these times.

There is an excellent movie, Last Train Home, that I would recommend to anyone that would like to get a feeling for what 150,000,000 people trying to get home, and then back to work, in one week feels like.

We had to deal with it when we visited the Great Wall, one time, and we will never do it again.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Day 465 In Beijing: Topkapi Palace Harem, Part 1.

By | | , , , , , , ,
Leave a comment

 

One of the many spectacular domes in the Harem.

One of the many spectacular domes in the Harem.

I had a lot of nicknames in high school:

Aram Scare ’em.

A-ram.

Sogs (my last name is Sohigian so it sounds about the same)

and, in no way connected to my horrible dating prowess, Aram’s Harem.

I actually visited a real harem and, trust me, it was nothing like my room.

The Topkapi Palace Harem is amazing.

It takes about 1 hour to walk through it and we could have spent a whole day in it.

The harem is inside the Topkapi Palace but needs its own blog entries because it is so magical and different.

The harem has over 400 rooms in it and seems like a maze that we could have followed for days.

The harem, back in the day, had around between 600-1000 eunuchs there (yes, they had been castrated and therefore couldn’t do anything) and many concubines.

All of the eunuchs and concubines were slaves and had no choice in their being included in this type of service.

The Queen Mother and the Sultan basically had total control and were able to do whatever they wanted.

I’m not so sure I would have liked to live in those times, since there seemed to be very little freedom, especially if you were a slave, but the buildings they made, and the amazing architecture, is truly impressive.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Day 464 In Beijing: Great Palace Mosaic Museum.

By | | , , , , , , , , ,
Leave a comment

 

I love me a griffin eating some freshly caught prey!

I love me a griffin eating some freshly caught prey!

Neither Jill nor I had ever heard of the Mosaic Museum before this trip.

We actually didn’t hear of it until we were on this trip.

We bought a 3 day pass that allowed us to see a bunch of different sites and the Mosaic Museum was one of the attractions.

We decided to check it out, since it was free, but we didn’t expect much.

We were blown away.

The Mosaic Museum is about 1000 meters behind the Blue Mosque and a hidden treasure.

It is hardly noticeable from the outside, and if we hadn’t been asking directions, there is no way we would have found it.

There was a guard/ticket agent and he seemed somewhat surprised, and happy, to see us.

For about half of our visit, we were the only people in this amazing structure.

The mosaics seem to be from Emperor Justinian’s reign, which was about 527-565 AD.  They were found by two Turkish archaeologists in the 1930s and 1950s.

It originally covered an area of about 3500-4000 square meters and now is about 1900 square meters.

It supposedly has over 400,000 stones that were used to make the mosaics.

In other words, it is one massive mosaic.

Some are in excellent condition but most have seen the wear and tear of time.

Jill and I were, once again, very moved by this bit of history and art that has been found and restored.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Day 463 In Beijing: Topkapi Palace, Part 2.

By | | , , , , , , , , , ,
Leave a comment

 

A gorgeously designed room and ceiling.

A gorgeously designed room and ceiling.

Jill and I both realized that Turkish, unlike Mandarin, is actually quite easily to learn.

Their written language sounds exactly like it is spelled, unlike Mandarin, and we were able to have minimal conversations with people within a few days.

Nothing more than “hi”, “thank you” and a few other comments but it was definitely easy not to have to try to figure out the tones and indecipherable written language.

I lived in Japan, back in 1996-1997, and I was able to get along after 2 years of college Japanese and some time there.

The written language there, which is quite similar to the Chinese written language (I’m not going to start an war about who used it first) was much easier, in my mind, because the kanji was the first part of the word and then there were two other written alphabets that let you know the rest of the word.

Being that there were three written alphabets, it would seem much more complicated but it wasn’t.

This is because you only had to learn about 2,000 kanji, and the two other alphabets that were “add ons” and you could know everything.

In Chinese, it seems like there are around 14,000 written characters and that is just way too much.

Especially when they become something totally different as they are lined up and added onto each other.

I just don’t have the time, or energy, to figure it out.

Call me lazy.  I don’t mind.

The reason I bring this up is the “i” in Topkapi is actually pronounced like “uh” so it sounds more like “Tope-kap-uh” if it was pronounced correctly.

However, I actually never heard it pronounced that way so I’m guessing, since there are so many tourists that pronounce it, “Topkapi” that the Turks have started to do the same.

I could very easily be wrong, and probably am, and it would be interesting to find out.

As for the palace, it was built in 1460 and finished in 1478.  It takes up 700,000 square meters.  It was turned into a museum in 1924 and is one of the largest museums in Turkey.

It is truly impressive and Jill and I would like to spend more time there the next time we go and just sit and relax.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Day 462 In Beijing: Topkapi Palace, Part 1.

By | | , , , , , , , , , ,
Leave a comment

 

My love and me.

My love and me.

Topkapi Palace is huge.

It is stunningly beautiful and it is also hot as heck during the summer months.

This may or may not be obvious, from the shorts and tank tops we are wearing, but just to make sure of it, it was boiling.

That is why so many of the Turks go on vacation and the city is more empty than usual.

It still has around 14,000,000 people in it, which is a lot, but it seemed quite easy to navigate and take mass transit without being crowded and knocked over all the time.

When we hit Athens, it was similar but when we hit the Islands, they were packed because of everyone being on vacation and getting out of the cities.

It was an interesting experience since being “packed” in Greece meant about 1/1,000,000th of what we’ve become used to as being “packed” here in Beijing and China.

We could move easily, not have to deal with much traffic, and people seemed much more content to take their time and be courteous to each other.  It is the island lifestyle, I guess.

As for the Palace, there are a number of different buildings and exhibitions.

The Crown Jewels, for example, you are allowed to visit but you are not allowed to take pictures.

We probably saw more gold, and jewels, there compared to anywhere else we’ve been.

Maybe, in my case, the Vatican would have an equal amount but I don’t quite remember.

Either way, it was stunning and breathtaking.

We also had a light snack overlooking the Bosphorus and enjoyed that immensely.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.