Xi'an, China's heartland

Xi'an, located in the heart of China, is likely best known for the army of thousands of terracotta warriors that were unearthed northeast of town back in the mid 1970s. Once the end of the Silk Road, Xi'an is surrounded by old city walls, about 8.5 miles in length, 36 feet high. The photo above shows the Bell Tower, as viewed from Pacific Coffee Shop while I enjoyed an extra large mug of hot Chinese green tea during my first evening in town.







There is a very large muslim quarter in downtown Xi'an, a great place to wander around -- especially at night when it's a wonderful riot of noises, smells, and colors.


An acquired taste?


Caveat emptor! -- Even though I own a pair of New Balance, try as I might, I could not tell these are fakes. Even the boxes AND bags are excellent copies. There was one giveaway though (aside from the fact they're being sold from a table set up out on the sidewalk). On the label inside the shoes the English is strange, e.g., "Keep shoe away from vehiculars."


During my past 2 weeks of travels in China I've been seeing these Oba Mao memorabilia. I've asked sellers why Obama is being portrayed as a Maoist, but they just shrug and say people like it. Then again, a quick check on Google shows that some far-right Americans (i.e., wingnuts) actually believe that Obama is a Communist.

Just after seeing Oba Mao T-shirts in the Xi'an market, I came across this entirely different take on Obama.

Pingyao, China's ancient walled town

Heading from Beijing, southwest, to Pingyao is no problem on one of Beijing's high-speed trains -- reaching speeds of up to 240 mph(!), the journey takes a mere 4 hours (green tea and snacks are complimentary).


Pingyao is said to be the best preserved of China's ancient walled towns. For about $20, you can buy a 3-day pass that will get you into 20 historical sights (museums, mansions, temples) and allows you to walk around the town on top of the wall.


This is the Harmony Guesthouse, within the walled town. After looking at 3 rooms, I chose the one upstairs, right side, overlooking the courtyard. The room (plus breakfast) costs about $33/night.


When traveling in China it's often difficult to find people who speak English, and many of the translations you see are pretty rough.


Luckily there were no fires during my visit to that particular building.

This band was part of a funeral ceremony, if I'm not mistaken.

Taffy maker inside the walled town

A typical Pingyao street inside the walled town

Beijing

The above photo and the two below were taken at Beijing's imposing Forbidden City, the largest collection of ancient buildings in all of China.


I took the above photo and the 2 below at Beijing's 700-acre Temple of Heaven Park.



The photos above and below were taken at the Summer Palace, "former playground for emperors fleeing the summer torpor" of Beijing.



Above photo and the one below were taken at Beijing's Lama Temple, "the most renowned Tibetan Buddhist temple outside of Tibet."



Photos above and below I took at Badaling, the busiest section of the Great Wall, about 90 minutes northwest of Beijing. The leaves are changing now which brings out the leaf peepers.



Restaurant near my hotel, eastern Beijing

No news is good news?

I arrived in Beijing several days ago, and will spend a week here before traveling around by train for 3 weeks visiting other places in China. Several things of note right off -- Beijing is a lot more developed than Manila, the air's none too clean (to put it mildly), and there is strict government censorship. Currently more than 2,700 websites are blocked in China, including Google.com, Facebook, You Tube, Twitter, and this one -- Blogspot.com.(I am able to blog from within China, however, because I've set up a VPN, virtual private network, for about $13 for one month in order to get around China's Great Firewall.) At the hotel where I'm staying in downtown Beijing, it's possible to get BBC and CNN on the television. It's interesting that every time these stations report on the protests in Hong Kong the screen suddenly goes black, yet the news reports on the terrible smog during the Beijing Marathon yesterday were not censored.Smoggy day in the city -- afternoon view from my Beijing hotel room.

Photo from earlier today at the Great Wall

Big fish story -- Perhentian Islands

The Perhentians are 2 small islands off Malaysia's northeast coast, up near the border with Thailand. For about $12, you can go out on a 7-hour group snorkel tour -- well worth the money. I've been snorkeling for about 10 years and this was my best trip yet.






Me and my snorkeling partner





The shark photos were taken by our Malaysian snorkel guide at a rocky area just offshore called Shark Point.











A Nemo lookalike



Three days at the Perhentians marks the end of our 5-week travels in Malaysia and Singapore -- time to return home to Manila via Kota Bharu and Kuala Lumpur ...

Kota Bharu

Kota Bharu is located in northeastern Malaysia, up near the Thai border.

Nine of the Malaysian states are headed by traditional rulers. Every five years these heads of the royal families convene to decide the new monarch for the country of Malaysia.





One evening a procession of about a dozen vintage VW Beetles pulled up in front of the hotel where we were staying and various dignitaries got out, solemnly lined up, then paraded into the hotel lobby and up the stairs to the second floor.