Fallen Empires – Halcyon

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Was visiting my borther over the weekend and decided to go hiking during the first snow shower of the season. Was totally unprepared for the trip … no gloves, no grips and no hat. Somehow managed to slip and slide about 3/4 way to the falls before calling it quits. Managed to sneak 2 shots of the creek along the path on the way back.

Random pictures I took while walking around Chicago

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Panorama assembled from 20 pictures. Handheld so some parts are slightly blurry.

Just roaming around Huntington Beach with some friends.

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While in Xian, I visited a theme park of sorts based on the building construction of the Tang dynasty. Here are some pictures I took in the evening.

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I had an amazing time in China this year. My friend Yue and her cousins in China helped me plan a very compressed 2 week trip to all the major cultural and historical places and despite my inability to communicate in Chinese beyond some basic words, I had a great time. I used Nanjing as my base from which I traveled to Beijing, Shanghai and Xian.

I landed in Nanjing and spend a few days there visiting the Confucius temple and the shopping areas along the river. I found it almost impossible to understand anyone speaking Chinese here because of their speed and accent. It took me about 2 weeks to get used to it slightly and by then my vacation was over :-p The weather here was very comfortable and there was no noticeable pollution (atleast during my visit in October). Nanjing city itself is quite nice. My host family made me very welcome and treated me to a lot of very tasty and exotic food and kept filling up my plate even tough my stomach was about to explode. While walking around the rest of the city I actually found it funny when people were staring at me at various places presumably because they don’t get to see a lot of Indians roaming around the place.

From there, I went to Beijing for 2.5 days and 2 nights and went on 3 tours ( (i)Peking duck, (ii)Great wall and (iii)Forbidden city, Temple of heaven, Summer palace). I also managed to stop by the Olympic stadiums. I arrived too late to get in but just in time for the lights to be turned on and got some amazing shots. People in Beijing were a lot easier to understand and I was able to use some rudimentary Chinese to get around. The Peking duck dish was amazing and I could have probably finished the whole duck My favorite place here was the great wall. I went on a 1.5 hr hike along the wall and climbed up some steep sections. I was very lucky with the timing of my visit as the number of tourists at a minimum. It was just after the Chinese 2 week holidays and most of the domestic tourism has died down.

I stopped by to rest in Nanjing again for a night to rest up before heading out to Shanghai. I met up with one of my friends and then headed to take a boat tour to see the skyline of Shanghai. Since I was only here a day or so, I didn’t visit any other locations.

After Shanghai, I headed to Xian. The city of Xian has a bell tower in the middle and the east-west, north-south roads depart from here. The core city is also surrounded by a city wall 14 or so km in circumference. The city also has an amazing museum of history with has artifacts dating back to the earliest ancestors of humans (pre homosepian). It also contained many amazing and sometimes wierd cultural artifacts. I took an audio tour of the museum and spent about half a day there. I also spent some time at the Tang Paradise, which is a theam park built using the same architectural style as the Tang dynasty. The next day I headed to the site of the terracotta soldiers on a tour. The tour itself was great but the food stop on the way was terrible. Viewing the terracotta soldiers made me forget all of that. It was amazing, basically a huge field of thousands of solders stood there. The amazing part is that the displayed section probably only exposes 1/8th of the actual solders. Most of them are still buried and preserved for future generations to excavate. This was definitely the highlight of the trip. I also visited the night market behind the bell tower near the center of town and has some good food. Xian has a relatively big Muslim population so a lot of the dishes here were cooked using lamb instead of pork. My favorite being the lamb kabob equivalents (not sure what they are called in Chinese).

The traffic in China took some time to get used to but I eventually found a pattern:
(i) All green lights allow for unprotected left and right turns.
(ii) It is the pedestrian’s responsibility to get out of the way. No one will stop for you. This also means that the pedestrian crossing sign and zebra crossings are completely pointless.
(iii) Chinese drivers are insane and will take whatever route necessary to be in front of everyone else. That being said, the biggest vehicle has the right of way.
(iv) Always ask for a receipt from the taxi driver and know how much above the meter reading you need to pay for the city you are in.
Follow these rules are you will live

Below are some of the highlights from the trip. If you would like to see any of the pictures in higher detail, let me know and I will send it to you.

Nanjing (南京)

Nanjing literally means southern capital. Its a city that served as the capital of china during Tang, Qing and the first part of the Ming dynasty. It has many historical sites from both the ancient and republic ages of China.

37 Photos

Beijing (北京)

Beijing means the northern capital city. It has a very long history and many amazing cultural sites to visit. The biggest ones being the Great wall and the Forbidden city.

50 Photos

Shanghai (上海)

Shanghai means above the sea. It is a massive port city in the east part of China. I didn't get to spend much time here but the skyline from teh river was beautiful.

6 Photos

Xian

Xian was the eastern termination of the ancient silk road. It has many historical sights including the Terracotta soldiers.

32 Photos

Hong Kong

1 Photos