Spring Festival Holiday Part 1
大家好！ 新年快乐！
Hello everyone and happy new year!
Our new year started with our final exams but once those were finished, I had about 2 weeks to get ready for almost 4 to 5 weeks of travelling! I had decided a few months before that for the Spring Festival holiday I wanted to take that time to see as many different parts of China possible because what would be the point of living in Tianjin for 1 year and not getting to really see the strange but ultimately interesting country that is China. And I’m hoping that if I’m savvy enough with my money (aka being frugal) I’ll be able to go to a few more hotter countries before heading home in August. Fingers very tightly crossed.
So with that in mind, thanks to Suzie who insanely organised our entire holiday, I got to see 6 different cities in China and then also 2 cities in Taiwan. So in this blog post I’ll talk about the first 3 stops in China - Xi’an, Chengdu and Kunming. Have you guys heard of any of these cities before?
20/01/19 Tianjin to Xi’an
Unfortunately we didn’t manage to get a fast train to Xi’an because they sold out way too quickly! So we settled for a hard seat on the slow train, which took about 19.5 hours slowly making its way to Xi’an with some, in my opinion, unnecessary stops. Although 19.5 hours is a long time to spend on a train, it was definitely more glamorous than the train I took to Shanghai in November. Even though it was longer, at least I could actually sit down on a seat! I am 100% grateful for that seat making my legs numb as from previous experience that aisle is not the most comfortable to sleep on.
Once we arrived in Xi’an, we took that first day to just explore around the amazing city, see what food was on offer and went to the Muslim Quarter. Especially at night, the Muslim Quarter is bustling with stalls selling all types of Chinese street food, gifts and souvenirs. I definitely ate my fair share of snacks walking down that street, I couldn’t help it, it all smelled so good! It wouldn’t be a trip to Xi’an without seeing the Terracotta Army so of course the next day that’s where we headed. It’s one thing watching a documentary or seeing a picture of the Terracotta Army compared to actually standing in front of them. I would say it’s quite a surreal moment seeing just how many there are, all perfectly lined up ready to protect China’s first emperor in the afterlife. They were first discovered in 1974 when some workers were digging a well (imagine discovering one of the world’s most amazing archaeological finds of the century at work!) and even now they haven’t uncovered all of the clay statues and there’s thousands of them! It was definitely something ticked off my bucket list seeing the Terracotta Army. It’s something I never imagined I’d get to see and I’m so grateful I actually did.
We then made our way onto Xi’an’s city wall. It was built by the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty and it’s one of the largest ancient military defence systems in the entire world! We managed to get to the wall just before sunset and probably had too much fun taking pictures together. We stayed for quite some time (mainly due to the amount of pictures we were taking) and watched the sun set before walking back to our hostel at night. First thing the next day we visited the drum tower and the bell tower, each of these were first built in the 1380’s in the heart of the city. We then headed to the Temple of the Eight Immortals, which was said to be first built in the Song Dynasty and it’s also the biggest Taoist temple in Xi’an. I personally really enjoy going to temples and I thought this one had some really beautiful architecture and it just felt so peaceful. Then at night we went over to the Dayan Pagoda which was originally built in 652! It was also added to the World Heritage List in 2014 and was used to collect Buddhist materials that were taken from India using the Silk Road!
Xi’an was amazing and a great start to our month of travelling.
28/01/19 Xi’an to Chengdu
Next up was Chengdu and if you know about Chengdu you’ll understand how excited I was to go as it’s where the giant pandas are! Our first sightseeing destination though was the Wenshu Monastery and it was first built in the Tang Dynasty. It was filled with the architecture China is most famous for and then the further you walked in, the abundance of nature truly showed itself with trees and greenery everywhere and with plenty of ponds with Koi fish swimming around (it doesn’t matter how many ponds of Koi fish I see I always end up watching them swim around for ages. I didn’t know fish could be that interesting!).
Next up was what we’d all been waiting for. Pandas! And a whole lot of them. I can’t explain just how excited I was to see giant pandas in China. I’d been to Edinburgh Zoo and seen them but it’s amazing to say you’ve seen the giant pandas in China. In my mind it’s a totally different experience that I still can’t believe actually happened. I almost maxed out the memory on my phone from taking so many panda pictures/videos but I have no regrets. There’s so many of them and they’re all so adorable even if they’re just sitting back and munching on bamboo. We even saw a baby panda and it’s the cutest thing I’ve seen in my entire 19 years. I loved seeing the pandas and I stopped at every souvenir place to look at the exact same things each time but it never got old.
After the excitement of watching pandas eat bamboo for a few hours we headed over to the Temple of Marquis and the next day we got up bright and early to walk up Mount Qingcheng. This mountain is one of the most famous Taoist mountains in China as it’s considered one of the birthplaces of Taoism and is also dubbed 'the most peaceful and secluded mountain under heaven'. Although it was quite a foggy day, it didn’t take away from the beauty of the mountain. Even though I’m quite unfit and have no stamina, there’s something amazing about making your way to the top of a mountain and relishing the moment of seeing the view for the first time and feeling so accomplished with yourself and then trying to get your breath back and not look more out of breath than the 80 year old Chinese woman who basically ran up the mountain.
31/01/19 Chengdu to Kunming
The first place in Kunming we visited was The Stone Forest. Known since the Ming Dynasty as the 'First Wonder of the World', it’s pretty much the reason why you would visit Kunming. Apparently an old saying goes that if you have visited Kunming without seeing the Stone Forest, you have wasted your time. With that being said the stone forest was something completely different to anything I’ve experienced before and you may be thinking ‘how can a bunch of stones be so interesting?’ But I’m serious when I say it was pretty cool and the views were amazing.
We then visited the Yuantong Temple and then made our way to the Western Hills to see the Dragon Gate, which is an amazing gateway carved out the rock on the side of the hill. It was a great place to stand and see the view from how far we had climbed and then once we had gotten our usual pictures we then made our way over to the flower and bird market as the last spot to visit in Kunming.
The next day we then got yet another train over to Guilin, which I’ll write about in next month’s blog post!
Hope you guys are enjoying my blogs - Alyssa.