Xi'an, China

On to the next lag of my trip to China - Xi'an (pronounced 'shee-ann')!! Xi'an is an old city rich in Chinese history. 1300 years ago, it was the original capital city of China and the starting point of the famous Silk Road. You could feel the difference compared to Shanghai just by driving through the city. It simply felt much older and you could almost feel the history in the air.

Here is a picture of one of the gates to get into the walled part of the city. The city wall is very modern compared to other parts of the surrounding area - it was built only 600 years ago! LOL It always made me laugh when they referred to various aspects of "more modern" construction because most of the "more modern" structures are more than twice as old as my country!

The city wall and various look-out towers are lit up at night and are beautiful! :)

As are the original Drum Tower and Bell Tower used to signal alarms and communicate with the surrounding area!

We hired a car, driver and guide for the day to take us to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and the Terra-cotta Warriors. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda was pretty neat. It stands just over 7 stories high and was built in 652AD by Buddhists to store their religious writings. There is still a functioning monastery on site with about 100 practicing monks. However, they now apparently all have cell phones and satellite dishes. Very different from the monks of the past! LOL This is a statue of a famous monk - Xuanzang.

So there's an odd legend for the origins of the name.....apparently there was a sect of Buddhism that used to eat meat. One day the monks simply had no meat so they prayed that Buddha would provide for them. Suddenly, as a flock of wild geese were flying overhead, the leading wild goose broke it's wings and fell dead to the ground. They believed Buddha had granted them their request, so they built a pagoda there and named the temple after it. Oh and they stopped eating meat after that too, the legend goes. LOL

I hiked all the way to the top to take a picture - awesome view! :)

The monks still light and sell candles for practicing Buddhists who visit the site to light and offer prayers to their Buddha idol inside the temple - you can kind of see it through the door.

This cool looking tree was just outside the temple on the terrace with the candles, so I snapped a shot of it. LOL

From the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, we drove another 40 minutes to the one of the coolest sites in China - The Terra-cotta Warriors! Personally, I think the Great Wall was THE coolest, but the Warriors were a close second! :)



Ok, the site is divided into 3 main pits. Between the 3 pits, there are over 8,000 statues. Pit#1 is by far the biggest holding 6,000!! Buildings have been built around and over the pits so visitors can view them and the air temperature can be controlled. It was REALLY cold inside Pit #1! It is HUGE!!!! I was stunned at the enormity of this pit. I had seen pictures of it before, but they really didn't do it justice. It seriously is ENORMOUS!

It really hit me what an undertaking it would have been to have all these statues made back in the day. They were built during the Qin Dynasty (246BC) to honor and protect the Emperor Qin Shi Huang in the after-life.

The channels were filled with these life-size warriors and then logs were placed overtop to protect them before being covered up with earth. They were modeled after actual soldiers of the time and no two are exactly alike! I loved looking at all the faces......they really are all different!

Pit #2 - Much has still not been unearthed yet, as they are waiting for technology to catch up before they take the buried warriors and horses out. Each of the warriors was painted in bright colors, but the color fades and completely disappears within 3-6 minutes of exposure to the air. The Warriors are impressive just as they are, so I couldn't imagine how amazing they would look painted in the vibrant colors they were decorated with!

Pit#3 - Is the most 'powerful' pit as it is a military command center. The highest ranking officials are only found in this pit as well as the honor guards. Emperor Qin didn't fool around when it came to strategically burying things! He was fully prepared to enter the after-life with all his men there ready to fight and protect.

The site was found only 36 years ago, when some local farmers were digging a well in 1974 and found broken "pottery". I actually got to meet the farmer who discovered this site, and he signed my book on the history of this place! :) We weren't allowed to take any pictures of him though and he couldn't speak English, so that was kinda funny. LOL Here's a picture of where the well was dug (by sign marked 1).....had they dug a few more feet back, who knows if they would have even known this massive terra-cotta army was there!

Here's a pic of the "Kneeling Archer". He is considered to be lucky because he was the ONLY member of the Terra-cotta Army that was found completely whole and intact without anydamage or broken pieces. The detail on the armor and even the shoes was incredible.....couldn't imagine how they were able to construct all these guys and how long that would have taken!

That's it on Xi'an for now! Onto Beijing........:)

Sites of Shanghai!

The bridge we crossed to get from the airport into Shanghai

Ok, my latest adventure to China started off by taking a 13 hour flight from Kuwait into Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, China! Bill, Joe and I had explored the desert months earlier and had talked about how cool it would be to travel to China and see some of the sites - 3 months later we landed in China with another teacher, Tom. He actually has a position next year teaching at a school in Shanghai and wanted to go and check out everything, so we decided to join him!

We stayed in Shanghai for the first 3 days and filled them with lots of walking and taking in what this booming city had to offer. Our first stop was the Yu Gardens Bazaar!

This is a more modern area, but was constructed using the old traditional style of architecture. While we were walking around, this sweet 77 year old man, Mr. Kong, walked up to us and started chatting.

Joe, Mr. Kong, Bill, Me and Tom

It turns out he was an English teacher for the past 30 years and had recently retired and spends his days walking around this area of town. He said he would love to show us around and was very adamant about doing it for free - he said he was just grateful to speak some English and have something to do! So he showed us all around the Bazaar and took us to a cool tea ceremony...

Us drinking our special types of tea!

...the silk museum....these are the machines that take the threads from the silkworm cocoons and unravel and wind them onto spools......I had no idea how this worked before! Super cool! :)

And this is an actual cocoon that will later be hooked up to the silk winder to be unravelled! Definitely bigger than I expected!

I was ecstatic to find a Starbucks tucked away down one of the streets! :)

We also took a stroll down the famous Bund, the heart of colonial Shanghai......but due to Expo 2010 opening up in Shanghai May 1st, it was all ripped up for reconstruction and renovations. We were disappointed, but I guess that's what happens when a world event comes to town!

Here's a dorky pic of me with the Expo mascot.....LOL!

This is one of the lions in front of the Shanghai Pudong Developmental Bank along the Bund. They say it's good luck if you rub the paws or head of this lion!

We spent one day at the Shanghai Museum, which was very cool!

They had LOADS of ancient artifacts on display and lots of old coins that had been dug up in more recent years. The statues outside the museum were really neat, as was the structural architecture inside.

The streets of Shanghai were very busy with lots of traffic, but what surprised me the most was that in a modern bustling city, there were just as many bicycles and carts being pulled by men as there were cars, taxis and buses!

While we were in Shanghai, we also had a chance to attend the Chinese Acrobatic Show. It was pretty amazing what some of these people could do with regards to bending and balancing! My favorite part was when there were 5 motorcycles driving inside this fairly small metal caged ball!

Because we traveled from Shanghai to Xi'an to Beijing to Shanghai, we had another day to site see in Shanghai at the end of our trip before we flew out at 11:30pm that night. We took a nice stroll in the People's Square park! Back in the day during the 1930s, it was a famous horse racetrack.......it has now been redone into a beautiful park. This is a pic of the infamous Park Hotel. Apparently during WW2 the Nazi's frequented this hotel and partied hard there!

The park itself is beautiful and is quite literally a breath of fresh air in the middle of the city!

On our way to the airport on our final day, we decided to take the Maglev - the Magnetic Levitation Train! It can run up to 430km/hour.......the fastest it got up to during our trip to the airport was 301 km/hour. It took 7 minutes to go the 30km distance! I tried to take a pic, but the vibrations messed up the focus function on my camera! This was the best I could get!

Ok, I think that's it for details on our Shanghai shenanigans! Shanghai is indeed a very new and modern city in comparison to the other cities of China. I'll post pics and info from Xi'an in a couple of days! :)

Back From the Latest Adventure......China!

Well, I have just returned from my latest source of adventure - the People's Republic of China! After flying almost 13 hours from Shanghai to Kuwait, I am tired but had a lot of time to think back over my trip and I have to say, China met and greatly exceeded all my expectations!! :)

This is Bill and I waiting for a taxi outside of Pudong International Airport shortly after our plane touched down in Shanghai.......

The last 12 days were spent exploring, traveling within this giant country and seeing some of the world's coolest heritage sites. We started out in Shanghai, then to Xi'an and on to Beijing before returning to Shanghai to fly back home to Kuwait.

View My Adventure in China! in a larger map

We were told on one of the many tours we took, that there are three main cities that represent different time periods in China. Xi'an represents China's past, with buildings and various artifacts dating back as far as 5,000 years. Beijing represents China's present with old history mingling with new. Shanghai represents China's future and this can be easily seen with all the new and modern structures, the push for investments and the drive to be a "world" city with Expo 2010 starting up there in May. These 3 cities are almost equidistantly apart........about 1400km give or take. We did travel to each of them within this Chinese triangle, and saw and did almost everything there was to see and do!

The People

Communicating was not as hard as I thought and had been told it would be. I did have all our hotels' addresses and the places we wanted to go translated into Mandarin before we left Kuwait and that definitely helped out, but overall the Chinese people seemed to be very used to English speakers using hand gestures and facial expressions to get their message across! Most people we had to speak to for tourist purposes did not know ANY English, but we were still somehow able to communicate.

I did not expect to be met with such open kindness and a willingness to help regardless of the language barrier. In all three big cities, we met amazing people who just wanted to help us find whatever we were looking for, practice their English or proudly show us their country and culture. I have many email addresses, business cards and pics of the people we met and have already received emails from them! I guess to sum up the general impression of the people of China - genuine and sincere. So often in North American culture we take someone's number or email and say we'll contact them, get together or whatever, but never follow through or really mean it. This doesn't seem to be a prevalent action in Chinese culture. If you say something, you mean it and WILL follow through. :)

The Weather

It was COLD!!!! Shanghai was a very damp, bone-chilling cold with all the humidity and being located on the coast. Xi'an was more of a dry-cold, and was far more comfortable than Shanghai with regards to the temperature. Beijing however, had a record breaking cold snap with temperatures dipping below -10 Celsius and SNOW!! For this girl who has been used to living in the desert for the past 5 months, that felt insanely COLD! Everyday we went out walking around for hours, exploring different parts of the city and surrounding countryside and every evening I had to take a very hot shower and or bath to warm up. I'm sad to admit my strong Canadian cold genes seem to have disappeared from my system these past few months. What have I become!?!? LOL

The Government

Considering the People's Republic of China is run by the Communist Party, you would expect to see a lot of evidence of this and a general feeling of oppression, at least that's what I expected to find in China. Oddly enough, it was quite the opposite feeling! There didn't seem to be much evidence in the various cities we traveled. The odd time something would strike me as being "communist" such as all the ministry sanctioned tourism workers, or the fact that the Chinese government has banned and blocked all access to Facebook, Blogger and Youtube. Apparently these sites aided in the recent political unrest in some of the more southern provinces, so the government blocked them in order to exercise control over communications. Other than that, the feeling was one of efficiency (in Shanghai), cultural integrity (in Xi'an) and a desire to show the world their history (in Beijing). Promoting their image in a positive light is a main priority, and I guess that alone makes sense considering the government. I don't know though, it's hard to put into words, but I just didn't expect to feel that comfortable in a communist country. Granted, I didn't get any opportunity to discuss religious rights and freedoms(or lack of them) with anyone and perhaps that may be where one would see the great divide. There was a definite police presence in the cities, but again it wasn't a threatening one, at least not to a Western visitor. The parts of China I experienced definitely left a good and positive impression on me. However, I would love to see more of the rural countryside and visit the smaller villages and farming areas to see if my feelings of comfort would change.

Alright, so I know people are looking forward to seeing some pictures and I am currently trying to figure out how to go about sharing them as I have almost 1,000 pics to go through! I will try to do it in a few posts, going in chronological order of the trip, starting with Shanghai. Please be patient as I go through the ridiculous amount of pics and decide what to write in my posts during the next week! Hope you enjoy them! :)

Random Tid-Bits...

I wasn't sure what exactly to write about this week as my trip to China is four sleeps away and I don't have a lot of spare time between marking 93 grade 9 English mid-terms and attempting to pack for my trip! So, here are a few little tid-bits to post from the past week! Short but sweet! :) LOL

This is Rachelle, Gillian and I getting ready to see Avatar in 3D at the Imax in the new 360 Mall. These are some HOT glasses, eh? LOL Seriously, these are the biggest 3D glasses I have ever worn! LOL After the movie I had indents on my nose for like 2 hours! The large set of special-effect spectacles were definitely worth it though, as I couldn't imagine seeing that movie any other way than in 3D. Great movie, although large amounts of it were cut out......possibly close to 30 mins in total. Any reference to Eywa's (the god of the blue people - can't remember their name at the moment..) power and the belief system of the people was cut out. Good thing we had Gillian with us, who just returned from a quick trip to Canada a week ago! She saw Avatar in Montreal in its entirety and was able to fill us in on all the parts that were cut out. I think the funniest part that was cut out was the scene when they were getting in SEPARATE hammocks and going to sleep - I guess technically they were "sleeping together" although in completely different hanging hammocks. LOL Still makes me laugh, because you could see someone's hand come down and cover the projector until that short clip was over. LOL! Gotta love Kuwait and their random censorship! ;) Anyways, excellent movie - was super skeptical when going to see it, but walked out LOVING it! If you are a doubter like me, go watch it!!!

On to other things....on Saturday I was tutoring early morning in Salwa, a district southeast of Hawalli along the Arabian Gulf, and we kept getting distracted by the loud military aircraft that kept flying directly over the house. It was almost constant for about 30 minutes! No idea what that was all about, but they were heading south so figured it was fine. Had they all been heading north, I would have been a little more on edge about it. After all, Iraq and Iran are VERY close to Kuwait and both are just north of this teeny country! We tried to get a picture of them, but they literally flew directly above the house so we couldn't! We did manage however to video three of the helicopters as they flew by......3 out of about 12 that flew overhead in a span of 5 minutes. We thought they looked pretty cool and they were definitely really loud! :)

Alright, I think that's about it for this week! I need to go start packing for China......my itinerary will be pretty busy for the 12 days I am there. I will be flying out of Kuwait on Thursday evening and into Shanghai for 3 nights, then flying to Xi'an for 2 days, hopping a sleeper train to Beijing for 5 nights, hopping another train back down to Shanghai for 2 more days before flying home to Kuwait! Will definitely have more detailed blog entries when I return. I can't wait to see what my next adventure holds! :) Until then - "masalaama"! :)

Kats of Kuwait

Welcome to the latest pictorial journey through the exciting district of Hawalli, Kuwait! This is in response to the constant requests from my mother to post some pics of the random and numerous wild cats wandering the urban jungle we call Hawalli.

We begin our journey, just outside the doors of the American Creativity Academy Teacher Housing Complex........

Now, here in Kuwait there is an overabundance of wild cats roaming the streets. Apparently, their original and sole purpose was a heroic one - to attack, eat and exterminate the ridiculous amounts of rats that had moved in during and after the Iraqi Invasion of 1991. Well those wonderful beasts imported from Egypt did their job well - one doesn't find rats here anymore! However, it appears the powers that be didn't consider what to do with these heroes once the rat population had been decimated. They continued to repopulate themselves while living off the over-flowing garbage bins and refuse lying around. See Exhibit A......

and Exhibit B..........

From a distance, they may look like cute and cuddly little creatures of delight, but beware - they are feral!!! They carry all types of disease that make them walking beasts of death! No, you cannot pet them or even get close to them because they will suddenly attack you. Here is a story to show you their lunacy.

One night, my friend Gillian and I were enjoying a nice meal sitting outside at a restaurant along the Arabian Gulf. We were deep in conversation when we heard a rustle in the nearby bushes and a low, deep throated growl accompanied by a vicious hiss. Our conversation halted as we looked towards the unearthly sound........there on the ledge, 2 feet away from us sat this angry, mangy cat! It had scruffy, black fur that was missing in places and had a gray patch on its hindquarters that looked as though it was possibly white at one time. Its eyes had this wild, glowing, crazed looked in them and they were unevenly set in its face. We quickly averted our eyes, but it stared directly at us as it continued to utter demonic howls. It stalked along the ledge, back and forth, viciously whipping its crooked tail while waiting for us to toss it some food. It finally passed from our table and went on to another poor, unsuspecting victim, attempting to intimidate them into surrendering their delectable meal. Now, the one rule regarding the wild cats here = DO NOT make eye contact with them!!! Whatever you do, do not look directly at their eyes, or these psychotic beasts will attack, sending you to the hospital for innumerable shots and possibly, even certain death.

One of my students went to pet one of these beasts that live by her house and it bit her. She quickly came down with a raging infection and was rushed to the hospital where she was kept for 5 days! When doing a "My Biggest Fear" writing assignment, over 20 students stated that their greatest fear was the wild cats that roam the streets!

So the moral of today's frightening tale......beware of the Kats of Kuwait as you never know what dangers lurk beneath their fuzzy exterior.......

Now, on to a rant.......we seem to have a problem with the cats in our specific block due to "some people" (I will avoid using names at the risk of sounding "catty" hahahahah........) feeding them everyday!!!!

Please!!!! For the sake of everyone's physical and emotional health - stop feeding the wild cats!

Because of the constant food supply, these beasts lurk around the building and stand watch for anyone who looks weak enough to give in to their deceivingly sympathetic looks. I have seen up to 6 cats outside the doors at one time! **shudder** The other day, we pulled up to the building and as I got out of the car I was confronted by 3 of these rufians giving me their devious look. My scream somewhat startled both the cat gang and my friend, but alas my fear of them was greater than their fear of me and they stood their ground. Finally, by dashing around 4 parked cars I was free of their glares and safe in the foyer of the building. A tragedy was narrowly averted that day. Tomorrow, I or some other unsuspecting victim may not be so lucky........

My New Toy!

Yay, for fun new toys!! :) My girls at school were extremely happy today as I unveiled my latest purchase and apparently the key to being "cool" in Kuwait youth society - owning a Blackberry. LOL I had expressed interest in buying one of these during the last couple of weeks and was met literally everyday with "Have you got one yet?" "Miss!! When are you getting your Blackberry?" and then when I brought it to school today, squeals of "Oh my goodness Miss, you finally got one! So nice and cool!" and "Oh Miss, you are so Kuwaiti now!" I just laughed, because even though I did indeed think it was a cool little mobile device, I really only wanted one to be able to instant message for free my friends and family who have Blackberries back home! The added "coolness" factor actually surprised me. When I took it out and showed the girls, they were very excited and had to check it out and was asked, "Miss, can I have your PIN!?" the entire day. Obviously, I had to say no, but it was super cute and meant a lot to see them so excited for my new purchase and to "add" me to their network. LOL :) I love these girls! :) They have made sure I know the locations of the best Blackberry accessory stores in Kuwait and some have even offered to take me there whenever I need to go. :)

Now, as you can see in the pic below, almost EVERY girl in my school has one of these little beauties. We thought it would be fun to take a pic of us and our Blackberries! :) Mind you, this is just ONE class of grade 9 girls. The other 3 classes of girls all have their own as well.

There are 19 girls plus me in this pic.....I should have bought stocks in

Blackberry, that's for sure!

I have discovered that it truly is a status symbol over here. I recently had them write a journal entry on what distinguishes a Kuwaiti girl from say a Saudi, Iraqi or Bahraini girl. Almost all 97 entries (I teach 4 grade 9 English classes) mentioned that the way to pick out a Kuwaiti girl in a crowd is by seeing their decked-out Blackberry attached to them, as well as their RayBan sunglasses and A&F shirts. It was shocking really! Then when I did a poll in class of who actually owned these new mobiles (they don't refer to them as cell phones over here), almost every hand in every class shot up. Apparently this is the biggest must-have item in a Kuwaiti girl's accessory bag. This of course just makes me laugh, because for those of you who know me, you know very well that I am not and have never been "cool", "trendy" or owned anything that was "hip" and "cool" at the right time. LOL :)

Alright, with all that said about the importance of these to Kuwaiti youth and the discovery of my instant new notch on the popularity pole, I absolutely LOVE my new Blackberry! I can see very easily why they have the nickname, "crackberry" - I literally can't put it down. The best feature about it is the Blackberry Messenger. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, it's a sweet instant message feature that is specific to Blackberries and is also known as "pinging". It's free between Blackberry owners, no matter where in the world you are! Definitely a plus, as some of my friends and family back in Canada have them, therefore the text messaging costs will not require the sale of my arms or legs! :)

So really, the only question that now remains is...........why did I not get one of these things sooner!?!?