Beijing and Xi'an, China
China is one of my favorite places I've visited. There is so much to do and see in China and each city is an adventure in itself. I'll have a few posts to cover China since there is too much for one post. The first will cover Beijing and Xi'an. You can easily get to Beijing from the US on multiple airlines and from there you have a few options to get to Xi'an. It is a great combination trip when visiting China. Let's start with Beijing!
Beijing
1. Great Wall of China - First and foremost when visiting Beijing is to go to the Great Wall of China. The Great Wall of China is almost 4,000 feet long, so there are multiple places to see the Wall. However, it is very easy to get to from Beijing. When I visited in 2012, we went to the section of the Wall called Mutianyu. This section is 70 kilometers (about 43 miles) from Beijing and taxis will easily take you there, wait while you explore, and then bring you back to Beijing. Simply negotiate ahead of time with the driver (highly recommend the use of your hotel's concierge to translate for you) for the whole trip and you're good to go! You can also take guided tours to the Wall through websites like Viator (more info on tours here).
The reason we chose (after lots of research) Mutianyu was based on the fact they have a cable car that will take you right up to the Wall. I'm a sucker for a cable car (I basically ride them whenever it's an option), plus it meant we didn't have to climb/hike to the Wall. Another thing our research indicated was that if we left Beijing early in the morning, we would get to Mutianyu right when it opened and avoid the crowds. The tour buses usually arrive mid-morning, so you want to get there before they arrive. As you can see from this picture, there were only a few people there super early like us:
By the time we left to go back to our taxi, the Wall was so crowded you could barely walk without bumping into someone. So get there early!!!
Be sure to watch your step!
2. Olympic Green (Beijing Olympic Park) - If you watched any of the 2008 Summer Olympics you saw the very unique buildings that Beijing created for the events. The two most well known are the Bird's Nest where the Opening Ceremony took place and the Water Cube where the swimming events took place. In addition to these two structures there is a food hall serving lots of different food dishes, the Olympic Torch, and there is now an Olympic Park Observation Tower. While we were there before this was built, it sounds pretty awesome. The Olympic Park Observation Tower consists of five circular roofs are meant to represent the Olympic rings. You can go to the top and look out over the Park and Beijing from each platform. The platforms range in height from 610 to 797 feet. If there are no events taking place while you're at the Park, it is still worth visiting to see the unique architecture.
3. Bell and Drum Towers - The Bell and Drum Towers are large structures located 330 feet apart. These structures were built in 1272 and were used as musical instruments. Later, they were used for telling time with a morning bell and a dusk drum. Since there was no way for people to keep track of the time back then, the bell and drum sounds were a way for the people to keep on schedule. We only visited the Drum Tower, but it is easy to visit both. The Drum Tower is 153 feet tall and you can climb the stairs to the second level where you can watch a drumming exhibition. The drums are beat quickly 18 times and then slowly 18 times. There are three rounds, totaling 108 times to represent one year in ancient times. You can also walk along the deck and see the city. The drumming exhibition was really interesting and a great cultural experience!
Be warned: the stairs are EXTREMELY steep!
4. Jingshan Park - Jingshan Park is an imperial park spanning 57 acres on the north side of the Forbidden City in the Imperial City area of Beijing. There is an artificial hill known as "Prospect Hill" in the center of the park. Here, you can take in great views of the Forbidden City and greater Beijing. The park is also filled with gardens, walking paths, stone tablets, playgrounds, and pavilions. We spent quite a bit of time just walking around this park and exploring (reminded me of Central Park in New York). We entered at the opening across from the North Gate of the Forbidden City and it was beautiful. The ornate details were amazing and the lions (male and female - with baby!) were very cool. I'd highly recommend entering here to see the detail for yourself.
BONUS: If you walk from the Drum Tower to Jingshan Park you will pass Houhai along the way. Houhai is a lake and it was so pretty!
5. Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square- The Forbidden City is where you will find the former Chinese imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty, which houses a total of 980 buildings. Today, there is the Palace Museum which you can visit. From 1420-1912, the Forbidden City was the home of emperors and their households as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government. The Forbidden City is surrounded by a wall measuring 26 feet high and a moat measuring 20 feet deep and 171 feet wide. Meridian Gate is the southern and largest gate of the Forbidden City. Here you can enter without having to purchase a ticket. For us, we chose not to go into the Palace Museum and just went in through the Meridian Gate and looked around. If you continue south out of the Meridian Gate, you will come to Tiananmen Square. This Square is most famous for the Tiananmen Square Massacre in June 1989. You will also find a large portrait of Chairman Mao.
Xi'an
We went to Xi'an for one reason and one reason only: the Terracotta Warriors!!! I learned about the Terracotta Warriors in an art history class in college and from that moment I couldn't wait to see them in person. If you're not familiar with the Terracotta Warriors, they are part of what is known as the "Terracotta Army." The Terracotta Army consists of over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots, and 670 horses. These terracotta sculptures were created to be buried with the First Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang (approximately 210 BC). It was believed that if he was buried with his army, they would protect him in his afterlife. What is fascinating about the Terracotta Army is that while it was built in 210 BC, it was not discovered until March 29, 1974! Farmers in the region were digging a water well when they discovered fragments of several life-sized clay soldiers. Chinese archaeologists were brought in to excavate the land and it was then that the Army was discovered. No two soldiers are the same, with each having its own unique facial features. Can you imagine being a farmer and discovering something not only so old, but so significant to your country's history?! It amazes me that it took over 2,000 years to find this, which goes to show how much detail was put into the creation of the tomb.
The soldiers, chariots, and horses are now housed in three buildings known as "pits." There are four pits in total, but only three of them have unearthed sculptures. There are still thousands of soldiers left to be unearthed and as you can imagine, it takes a very long time to unearth each piece. Given the material and the age, great patience and detail is taken to carefully remove all of the excess material and dirt formed over 2,000 year. Pit 1 is the largest pit which looks like an airplane hanger. It measures 750 feet in length and 204 feet in width (equaling about the size of two football fields). There are over 6,000 individual figures and 50 chariots in total in Pit 1. Pit 2 covers half size of the area of the Pit 1 and includes chariots, infantry, cavalry, and crossbowmen. Pit 3 is the smallest of the pits, with 68 figures, four horses, one chariot, and 34 weapons unearthed thus far.
I cannot recommend visiting Xi'an to see the Terracotta Army enough! It is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I look forward to going back again when I'm older to see how many more soldiers and horses (or other objects they don't know about yet) have been unearthed.
This is a model of the farm land where the sculptures were discovered.
There are other sights and activities to see in Xi'an, but for our trip (which included two more destinations in China), we only saw the Terracotta Warriors. I hope to see much more of the city when I return to this region. If you're visiting Xi'an and have a few days, I'd suggest reading more about the sites/attractions on TripAdvisor and Lonely Planet (click each for more info).
*How To Get There*
To Beijing from the US: Getting to Beijing from the US is actually quite easy nowadays. All of the major US carriers offer direct flights from several major US cities. A quick search on google shows that there are four nonstop flights per day from NYC for about $629 round trip, four nonstop flights per day from Los Angeles for about $459 round trip, two nonstop flights per day from San Francisco for about $490 round trip, three nonstop flights per day from Chicago for about $495 round trip, and two nonstop flights per day from Washington, DC for about $605 round trip.
You can also find deals on Asian carriers such as Air China, Cathay Pacific, and China Southern Airlines. As always, I suggest checking www.secretflying.com for deals to Asia. You can always look for flights to other Asian cities such as Tokyo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong and then connect to Beijing.
To Xi'an from Beijing: There is a high speed train (bullet train) that travels between Beijing West Railway Station and Xian North Railway Station which takes about 5-6 hours. There is also an overnight sleeper train that travels are between Beijing West Railway Station and Xian Railway Station. The running distances vary between 746 miles and 795 miles depending on track work and the duration can be from 11.5-17.5 hours. We chose the overnight train because it saved us from wasting half a day on a train and we didn't need to worry about another night in a hotel. The overnight train is also cheaper than the bullet train, so it is a good way to save money for other parts of your trip. One thing to note however is that most sleeper cars have 4 beds (two bunk beds), so if you are a party of 2, you will be sharing your cabin with strangers (we learned this the hard way!). You can pay more for a private room which will give you your own bathroom and privacy.
There are several flight options as well from Beijing to Xi'an. The flight is about two hours, but the airports in both Beijing and Xi'an are far outside of the cities. Basically you can end up taking just as much time to fly as you would the train when you add in the extra travel time.
*Visa*
When visiting China, you need a visa. China now offers a 10 year visa for $140 - $170 (depending on the processing time you choose), so once you get the visa you can visit as many times as you like in that 10 year period without having to get a new visa. You can visit one of five consulates in the US or the embassy in Washington, DC to obtain your visa. If you do not live near any of those cities, you can use a visa expediting company approved by China. I'll be honest here, there is a lot of paperwork and they are very particular on how you write and what needs printed out. Be sure you have everything you need before you show up at the consulate/embassy or you'll have to come back. You can read more information here.
*Where T0 Stay*
While most of China is very educated and a lot of the people speak English, not everyone is fluent. I say this only because when choosing your hotel, if language barriers make you nervous, there are plenty of US hotel chains to choose from in Beijing. We stayed at the Double Tree by Hilton in Beijing's central business district area. All of the staff spoke English and the concierge was very helpful when we wanted to go somewhere. They always got the taxis for us and they gave us a card that had the hotel's information written in Chinese to hand taxi drivers when we wanted to get back to the hotel. It is little details like that which can come in very handy when you can't even attempt to speak the language. If you want to use points for your hotel stay, having a large amount of US hotel chains gives you lots of options for using your points. The people in Xi'an were less proficient in English, so once again we stayed at a Hilton property. Overall, the comfort of knowing the staff can translate for you makes a huge difference (horror story to come in a later post on Zhangjiajie!).
Sites like TripAdvisor and Hotels.com are great tools to use because you can get firsthand knowledge from travelers. If budget is a concern, check these sites first before booking the cheapest option. You don't want to end up somewhere where you can't communicate with the staff and are unable to check in!
旅途愉快!
