Home ·· News Room ·· Prints ·· Licensing ·· Gallery ·· About Us ·· Contact Us ·· Articles ·· Services China stock photography trip report, October 4, 2004 to October 21, 2004 Updated April 20, 2006 Page 1 of 5 Next page
	(Note: This trip is as I wrote it, with only spelling corrected; grammar is out when on a photo trip.) Click here to download the whole China report in Acrobat PDF   China October 4-21, 2004 Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Guilin, Xi'an (Exchange rate: 8 Yuan/RMB for $1US) © 2006 Aaron Linsdau Click here to see the China Gallery Tuesday, Oct 5, 5am What a wild start to the adventure in China. We had a very hard landing at the airport on our 747. A few luggage racks even popped open. None the worse for wear, though. Landed well in advance of our planned time which was fine. Met Ingrid from Germany and Ralph from the US on the plane. They were in China to study the language and had already done so for a year. They were kind enough to give us a guide card so we had the names of places. Upon exiting the airport customs area, we were accosted by taxi touts. One guy wouldn't go away and followed us for 1/2 hour. We made the mistake of acknowledging him and then he became persistent. We go into a cab they were trying to negotiate 200-380 Yuan/RMB (Y). Ha! That's ridiculously high. We went back into the airport hall, hid with some American tourists waiting for their guide and they gave the advice to pretend those people weren't there. Completely ignore them. Hiding past the outside gate 13 by the toilets, we collected our wits; we found the price should be 85Y in the guidebook. Okay, the trick is to walk past the pimps and to the middle three lanes were the long row of taxis are. Green uniformed military guys are there. Black, nice vehicles will cost 130Y plus 10Y airport fee to get to Tiananmen Square. Make sure to point to "Go fastest route" in the language book, otherwise the driver drives very slow, milking you for every Yuan. Go to Tiananmen square about 7am after crossing under the street. This place is huge! Tons of Chinese tourists, 50 meter long kites, people hawking junk like postcards, stamps, Mao books, kits and such. Dong (my school friend) was right - people stared at us intently. Even caught a uniformed guy who was marching around staring at us. Apparently we stood out. But then, he caught himself and quickly looked back at where he was going. There is a public toilet to the east of the square, near the Olympic countdown sign, under the museum. It's free. Patty had her first trauma of the no doors, hole-in-the-ground toilet. She made it okay but it was a new experience under the belt. We have come during National/Golden week, so there are tourist things in Tiananmen square that normally aren't here. Quite a sight. Everyone here snacks on massive bread loafs. One lady couldn't keep her eyes off Patty. Haha! Had another taxi tout episode. "50Y meter, 40Y no meter", said the driver. What a load of baloney. We got a ride to the Hilton Beijing from Tiananmen square for 23Y. Don't even bother trying to negotiate; even Chinese get ripped of doing it as I was told by a Chinese lady at work. The driver laughed when I handed him a 100Y to break. The ATMs here put out 100Y notes. You need to break those suckers down quickly otherwise it's like going to McDonalds and buying small fries with a hundred dollar bill. Got to our hotel room early. Found out that "Hilton Honors" club saved us a lot of money. We changed, showered and struck out for a meal. We ran into some communication challenges immediately. I was asking about the pricing of a dish of duck livers (I don't know why) and accidentally said "Okay" to Patty about something else and ended up ordering a dish of duck livers. If the waitress types something into the computer when you're talking to someone, you've just ordered whatever you said "Okay" to. Pay attention!! The server also stands by the table the whole time waiting for you to order, so don't feel pressured. I think that was our mistake. It was about 68Y ($7 US). I should have found "I'm very sorry" in the phrase book. We made the mistake of insisting that we didn't order something which embarrassed the waitress, not allowing her to save face. She became mad, threw the plate on the table and stormed off. That was probably her days wages sitting right there. We quickly finished off our meal and left. We won't be able to go back there and I won't get my fried scorpions now. Got pulled into an artist hall inside the Hilton and got the tour. Small paintings were $25/200Y. We bailed, even though we saw paintings we liked. Don't want to haul those around China! The smog in China. Wow. The smog here is crushing. The sun is orange, even in mid-day. The photos with blue sky that I have seen must be after a rain shower.. You can't even see the sunset from the hotel, Hilton Beijing, 15th floor. And we face west! It looks as though there is a nearby forest fire. Buildings right across the street look hazy, as though they are three miles away. Need to go buy the train tickets to Shanghai! We found it easier to ask the hotel to write Chinese characters for directions to tell the taxi where to go. We got a card to take us to the Oriental Plaza at the base of the Hyatt. In the food court there, a dizzying array of foods was available. You go buy a debit card to purchase food here, say meat with noodles and then go get the change off the card. Neat! It cuts the money handling down to one place. The food is good here, not too spicy but very rich. A small coke was 4.5Y, about $0.50. For a filling meal, it cost 23Y ($4) for food and drink for the both of us. The guards at the gates of Tiananmen Square shove people out at 10pm with the little guys in green military uniforms doing the pushing. The military guys walk up, say "Hello!" loudly and then cram you along like cattle. The square is actually quite beautiful at night, as it's extremely well lit. Crossing the street here is a dance with death. Bikes, cars and busses disregard stop lights incessantly. The fountain in the middle of the square is beautiful in the evening. We took a taxi back to the Hilton, 24Y, washed the clothes and crashed out asleep. Wednesday, Oct 6, 2004 After great fiddling with clothes and such, we head down to what we later discover is a Chinese Kentucky Fried Chicken for breakfast. You wouldn't know by the menu but only by the color and graphics used on the small sign outside the place. Even Col. Sanders is made to look Chinese. Quite funny but there is no crispy chicken to be had at this place. The food we chose was a little strange for breakfast but it worked. As we walked back north toward the Hilton, there was a big hubbub around a canal we crossed over. Just as we began crossing the bridge, Patty got a good look at a floating dead guy in the water. I missed it because we were getting directed away from the scene by police. We stood and gawked for a few minutes and then headed back to the hotel. Caught a taxi around 11am to the Forbidden City east gate through a gauntlet of people to buy the ticket out of busses used as ticket booths. We ran in and saw the first few temples. You can't go in them but can only view them from behind a large fence. Too many people were crowding in I guess. There were huge urns, maybe 5 feet tall, all around the place to hold water in event of fire in the ancient times. Each urn had a fire ring below it to keep the water from freezing in the winter time. The day was rather warm, probably from the smog, and felt like 80 degrees. Summer here would be unbearable if it's hot like this in October. We checked out the Imperial jewelry exhibition. You can to pay extra for that one. The actual exhibit was small but the collection was impressive. Even the sword labeled "The Sword of Mystical Sharpness" was funny to see. The Forbidden City is as large as they come. It makes Versailles look like a doll house. As you're walking along, everything is name the "Gate of -blank-". I commented that we were going to find the Gate of Forever Walking next. Hahaha! You DON'T want to come here when it's hot - you'll suffer greatly. The air is stagnant and smoggy. Had the biggest cup of noodles ever for 6Y just east of the jewelry exhibition. The little market even has hot water for you. A bottle of water is 4Y. Got ripped off for postcards at 24Y ($3) for 10. Later discovered that those generic card packs can be had for 5Y or less. Never pay more than 5Y for those things. Visiting the Forbidden City entails massive walking; more so than any other place because everything is on such a grand scale. Yes, there is probably just less than the speculated 10,000 rooms in this city. To dispose of junk hawkers, catch their glance, put your hand up in their face to stop and keep walking. Just don't let your glance linger. That works 70% of the time. But, saying "Okay" means "Yes, I want to buy that." In America, "Okay" just means acknowledgement of communication. Not in China! It's funny because people also loudly say "Hello" to you a lot. Quite funny. Tourist areas are loaded with people, regular streets are not. We have been approached four times now (2nd day) to view someone's calligraphy or art, even at the Hilton. These people usually say they are practicing their English and you are coaxed into another gallery. We had dinner at the Oriental Plaza under the Grand Hyatt. Good food again but very spicy. Dinner for both of us was 16Y ($2) and drinks were 4Y. This was real Chinese food, too. Taxis from Tiananmen to the Hilton were 23Y in a 1.60Y/kilometer taxi, as there are variously rated priced taxis. Each taxi always starts the meter at 10Y just getting in. We washed some clothes and got to sleep. Thursday, October 7, 2004 Oct 7, Morning I went by myself and tried to see the flag ceremony but got there too late. The traffic in front of the flag area and Tiananmen gate stops for it. Tons of people! So, I wandered around the back alleys to see how the other half lives. What a different world. This is where the real Chinese exist apparently. I wanted to explore more but wanted to get back to the hotel and get something to eat. Perhaps we'll see more, later. Also saw the southern most gates of the Imperial Palace/Forbidden City. These things are huge beyond belief, bigger than anything I've ever seen. All of these city gates are huge. Monstrous, even. It must be like traveling in Egypt or something. We had to pack up and get out of the Hilton, so we wandered near the Kun Lun hotel to a dumpy motel called the Home Inn with the same graphic as the Days Inn. It was 288Y ($36) night, much cheaper than the $108 per night we were spending at the Hilton. Also bought our tickets to Shanghai at the Kun Lun hotel. Even though we weren't staying at the Kun Lun, I used our room number from the Hilton to pretend we were staying there so we could use their services as the Hilton didn't provide ticket service. The tickets for a soft sleeper (4 to a berth) for an overnight ride to Shanghai were 499Y ($62). That saved an overnight stay so the tickets were effectively $30. We also hired a car and driver to take us to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall for 700Y ($87) at the Kun Lun using the same fake room technique. We took a taxi past the Hard Rock Beijing near the dead man canal to the KFC for breakfast. Quite good real Chinese dumplings. From there, we snagged a taxi to the Summer Palace for 44Y with a lot of slow traffic. There were quite a lot of tourist junk hawkers there. If you purchase the basic entry fee, you can see many things but you will have to pay extra to see some of the other sights in the palace. Since we were going to only going to spend 1/2 a day here, we paid the basic entry cost of 30Y and pay as we went, taking the "risk". Going in, we found a pond to sit next to and contemplate life. Too bad most of the pond plants were dead. We wandered around for quite a while, seeing various temples, halls and greenery before getting to Suzhou Street. Quite an amazing little city inside the Summer Palace. It's all little tourist shops but it is cool anyway. Don't fall in the water - you can't get out for the three foot wall encasing the canal and water area. Had bean cord and noodle soup for lunch, 10Y. Had to wander over the hill and way back to see the famous boat made out of marble, a crazy idea of the empress Cixi (pronounced Tserci) It's as far away and hidden as possible from the east gate. It's pretty awesome but with the dingy fog/smog, it's not as spectacular view as I've seen in photographs. Did do some shopping there. But there was no negotiating for a "discount" at these places. Weird! Apparently enough tourists pay full price here that the workers don't feel the need to discount. Walked along the lake, saw the famous 17 arch bridge through the haze and escaped through the east gate. Did run into another guy "learning English" and we called him on it so he didn't try to sell anything but was honestly chatty; maybe could have gotten an email address, perhaps a missed opportunity? He was going to a Normal School for Teachers in Beijing. Took the taxi back to the Home Inn motel after a run through the gauntlet of taxi touts. We were so tired that we didn't eat dinner and went to sleep. Friday, Oct 8, 2004 The room was smoky all night from the neighbors. We woke up at 430am to go see the flag raising at Tiananmen square. It was odd to wait for the mad 515am rush to get into the place. If you didn't hurry, you'd have to stand the entire time. However, once you've chosen a sitting position, the green military uniform guys yell at you if you try and stand up. Choose wisely. We waited until 630am for the ceremony. It was very quick, the flag went up, the music played and it was over. Then you look back and see a sea of thousands of heads as far as you can see back. Wow. This is also a good time to catch the green military guys marching. They have precision like you wouldn't believe. Some of my photos show their hands streaking the exact same distance. They even ran over a woman who wasn't paying attention. Do not get in their way. Next page
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