Blog Posts from our Family Tour to China
Global Family Travels dedicates this blog post to our wonderful tour Chinese tour guides, who became our extended family while were traveling in China. We were very fortunate on this tour to have a fabulous primary guide, David Qi, who accompanied us to each destination and shared his in-depth knowledge of China’s history, and we also had three different local guides in Beijing, Xi’an and Chengdu who provided detailed information about their respective cities and the sights we visited. From both our guides and from the interaction we had with many of the locals in each city, the food we ate, the sights we saw, we all learned a tremendous amount about this amazingly rich and historical country. Please enjoy our family's China travel experiences on this blog page!
Day 1 in Beijing
We enjoyed our first morning in Beijing by beginning with a stop at the Gate of Heavenly Peace, or Tiananmen Square (the “soul of China” some call it), which has an assortment of communist-style buildings and monuments, including Chairman Mao’s memorial. Next, we did a walking tour of the 78 acre Forbidden City, home to Chinese Emperors since it was built in 1421. It is said to be the world largest existing palace complex with 999.5 rooms. While walking in the Imperial palace, you can retrace 500 years of Chinese history from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. The palace is adorned with dragon and phoenix motifs, denoting the emperor and empress, respectfully. There were very few westerners visiting the Forbidden City today and many of the Chinese people carried beautiful fans or umbrellas to stay cool.
The highlight of our day was lunch at the Liu family’s house, where we learned to make our own dumplings! Mr. Liu’s wife taught us the art of dumpling making and after lunch, Mr. Liu showed us the art of calligraphy and paper art (double happiness symbol). Interestingly, Mr. Liu is a Kung Fu master and professional Kung Fu coach. His family has lived in their home for over five generations (120 plus years). The family pets included coi fish, a few birds and a very large pet cricket.
In the afternoon, we explored by rickshaw Beijing’s hutongs, traditional alleyways and courtyard homes which once covered the city. These ancient, pedestrian corridors offer visitors some colorful insight into how the majority of Beijing citizens once lived. Many grandparents were tending to little ones in these alleys and there were several games of mahjong taking place. We ended our day with a visit to the 13th century Drum Tower, where you can get a view of Beijing. The Drum tower was used once to tell the people of Beijing the time of day by the number of drums being beaten.
Day 2 – Our visit to the Temple of Heaven Park and the Great Wall of China
We started our active day by getting up early and joined the locals in the Temple of Heaven Park. In the park, where they were participating in various activities, such as Taiji, ribbon dance, sword dance, Chinese hacky-sack and water calligraphy. The Temple of Heaven was the prayer palace for good weather and bountiful harvests of the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Next, we drove to the Mutianyu part of the Great Wall, which was built and restored in the early Ming Dynasty (1368 –1644) on the remnants of a wall originally built in the Northern Qi Dynasty (550-577). After taking a gondola ride up to the wall, we hiked this beautiful section of the Wall and and enjoyed a fun toboggan ride down to the bottom!
Days 3 & 4 – Xi'an and the Terracota Warriors
After arriving in Xi’an, once the starting point of the Silk Road, we explored the Muslim Quarter, a colorful area filled with street vendors selling local food and dried fruit. In the evening, we enjoyed a shadow puppet show in a local courtyard.
The next morning, we visited the world famous Terracotta Warriors, a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. The figures are the size of actual humans with very life-like features. They are a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210–209 BC, whose purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife. The warriors were discovered in 1974 by local farmers in Shaanxi province.
In the afternoon, we returned to the city and visited the City Wall, one of the oldest and best preserved City Walls in China, which we had fun exploring by bikes on the wall.
Day 5 - Travel to Chengdu
In the morning we flew from Xi’an to Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan province in southern China. We took a one hour flight from Beijing to Xi'an and upon arrival, we were greeted by our local tour guide, Gary and bus driver, Mr. Liu would will be accompanying us in Sichuan province for the next week. We traveled in a comfortable bus to Ya’an, a small village 2 hours south of the Chengdu. The contrast of leaving the city was interesting, as at first there were many fancy cars traveling the highway and light manufacturing on the outskirts of Chengdu, and then the further south we traveled we began to see many agricultural fields, filled with corn, squash, pole beans and rice paddies. In each small town we drove through, there were tiny industrial stalls with all kinds of wares.
Day 6 - Working with Pandas
Today we traveled to the Bifengxia Panda Reserve, where we volunteered at the Bifengxia Panda Center where 85 of these beautiful creatures are housed. We were given a brief orientation and we each doned a jumpsuit and were paired by family with a volunteer manager who assigned us our tasks for the day. We spent a good part of the morning cleaning the enclosures, including left over bamboo shoots and other leftovers. We fed the pandas multiple times during the day, since on average, they eat 40-50 kilograms of bamboo a day. At the center, they get extra treats, including bamboo shoots, carrots, and a bread consisting of ground wheat and bamboo with honey mixed in.
Day 7 & 8 - Onward to Dafo, the Biggest Buddha!
Day 7 was another travel day to Leshan -- “Happy Mountain” city, south of Chengdu, where the big Buddha is located which we will visit tomorrow. We made some friends with some of the vendors on the street selling fruit and garland necklaces of jasmine flowers. One of our unplanned stops was the Leshan ebony museum, which displayed intricately carved pieces of ebony depicting scenes from four different dynasties, local deities, and relics from different eras. Ebony is basically petrified wood which has many healing properties to the Chinese. We made a few purchases of ebony items, including some chop sticks and Buddha and Quan Yin pendants.
