For some reason, I have always felt gifted when I travel abroad, at least when it comes to weather. There are numerous times, that I was en-route to a distant land, and the weather forecast called for rain or snow, basically unenjoyable weather, for me to only find a nice sunny day, upon arrival. The streak continued when I arrived in Beijing and was told that I was very lucky to arrive the day I did, as just days before had unbearable heat and humidity. Of course, to be funny, I replied that I had brought this weather from Sunny Southern California, and expected to bring it with me, where ever I went, as for this trip and this year: I am officially skipping winter. That is when Karma hit, and brought the monsoon to Shanghai, just a day after I arrived. Well, so much for another streak. But to be honest, I have been quite lucky with the weather till now. I have always preferred the heat to the cold, the dry to the wet, and during my travels through Europe, I can only remember a couple wet days, one of which was very wet, as the group walked through the streets of Berlin, which I guess was the first official day that my power over the weather failed me 
So, after waiting out the monsoon in Shanghai, I left in hopes of finding a place to hide out before the start of National week, where basically the whole country (remember there are over 1.3 billion people) is on vacation and traveling between October 1st through 7th. With just one week before the holiday, I took an overnight train to Huangshan Shi/Tunxi and spent a few days there, visiting the historic villages of Lucen and Hongchon, and hiked/walked up Huangshan (Yellow Mountain). This marked the first nature type activity or site that I visited during this trip. Whereas, many people center their whole trip around trekking the mountains and seeing nature, mine has been almost the exact opposite, as I have been more fascinated by the people, the culture and how the landscape of the community/cities and the people have and are changing, more than the landscape of the terrain. Of course, knowing that the natural beauty of the world and virgin territory are constantly disappearing, I decided to add some natural sight seeing to my itinerary. Huangshan, was mentioned to me, by a few people I met along the way, while in Beijing and Shanghai, there is supposedly a saying: There are many (hundreds) of mountains in China, but if you see the four sacred/beautiful mountains, than you can skip the rest. But, if you see Huangshan, than you can skip the four sacred mountains as well. By now, you may have had a chance to see the photos on Flickr, and they were right, it was truly amazing. The most captivating thing, was that any moment you would walk along a large cliff and look out into a sea of fog, but if you just stood there and waited a few minutes, the fog would dissipate, and any unimaginable natural beauty would just appear before you. Made me think, how many jaw dropping scenery, I may have walked past because the fog layer was so thick throughout the day. Between those two days, I must have walked close to 30 km, with most of it including steep steps up and down. Needless to say, when I returned back to Tunxi, I washed up and immediately found a foot massage parlor, which cost 50 yuan ($1 USD = 7.5 RMB aka yuan) for an hour, and that was steep for a small city, but it was the cleanest one I could find.
With half a week to go, before the start of National Week, I was on a mission to go see the Terracotta Warriors, before the mass/sea of Chinese tourist hit the streets. So I took the train to Nanjing, a previous capital of China (actually on two separate occasions), with the original intent of a short layover, before switching to a night train to Xi’an. But while en-route, I read about the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, which documented the infamous war crimes of the Japanese-Chinese War, late 1937 – early 1938, in which the Japanese killed as many as 300,000 Chinese (Nanjing citizens) in just a six week period, including the committing of such un-imaginable atrocities, I rather not discuss. I actually have a real weak stomach for this stuff, but felt a personal obligation to learn more, as I never learned much of Asian history growing up, and this incident helped explain the resent that some Chinese still had for the Japanese, and I in some strange way, I feel that it is my duty to understand the three countries/nationalities that I represent: One, I am American, as a person, culture and nationality; Two, I am Chinese, by birth, race and history; and Three, Japanese by name and often mistaken as such, by those that do not know me personally. I am actually very proud to have such a unique situation, and is the reason that I usually use all three initials: RCH, each representing the three nationalities/cultures (R, my American given name; C, my Chinese surname; and of course H).
The last and strongest reason, for my desire to visit the Memorial Hall, even though it is said that the pictures/exhibits could be gruesome and uncomfortable, is that I needed to learn more. As you may recall, I visited Auschwitz while in Poland, which I knew about before arriving: the events, the history, the tragedies, but this would be different, as I knew only what I read from my Lonely Planet, and little that I heard about from years past. Obviously, the two can not be compared, but for some reason I felt a personal obligation to see the Memorial Hall. So, after arriving in Nanjing, I bought a train ticket for late the following night, giving me more than 24 hours in the city. Now you ready for this? After spending the night in Nanjing, walking the city and streets, I got up bright and early for a full day of sightseeing, with a good few hours set aside for the Memorial Hall, to only find out that it was closed for renovation, and was not expected to be re-open until December. First Mao’s tomb in Beijing and now this, well, when in China, roll with the punches. So, I spent sometime that morning reading about the Massacre on the internet, than hit northeastern part of the city for visits to Sun Yatsen’s Mausoleum (he is considered the father of modern China, which was more of a democracy during his time), Linggu Temple, Ming Xiaoling Tomb, and the Botanic Gardens, with a walk along the City Walls along the way (Nanjing is supposedly one the largest wall city ever built, with over 33 km of walls).
After another night on an overnight train, I arrived in Xi’an, also a former capital of China, and home of the Terracotta Warriors. It was now Friday, and probably the last peaceful (all things being relative) before the masses embarked in search of entertainment and sightseeing, so after finding my hostel, I dropped off my bags, washed up, and hit the door for a day of sightseeing. I ended up joining a tour group of 6 others, on a tour of Xi’an: which would include: the Banpo Neolithic Village (believed to date back to 4500 BC), the Terracota Warriors, the Tomb of Qin Shi Huang, and the hot springs. Of course staying true to me and tour groups, I hopped of the tour once we reached the site of the Warriors, as I read the description of the tomb and had no interest in the hot springs, more importantly, one hour would do no justice to take in the grandeur of the Warriors. Many, if not most, people are disappointed by the sight of the Terracotta Warriors, as they expected to something more magical, overwhelming, mystical, not sure what, but I was still impressed, when realizing the purpose, intent and methods as to how this sea of underground warriors and protector’s of Qin’s tomb was created over 2000 years ago. To those disappointed, I say: get over it! There were many surprises that day, in what you saw, one was the grounds, as it is fully developed, with a huge modern hangar covering the largest pit (1) containing approximately 6000 of the warriors with horses, here and there. Than there are two smaller pits (2 and 3) which contain less, and help show the condition of the warriors during excavations. The details and differences between each warrior is amazing, but the most shocking was the hostory. In short, Qin was the first emperor that united all of China, he was quite the interesting guy. He began to rule at the age of 13 and during his 36 year reign, he eventually conquered the whole country and developed a standard measurement system, common currency and writing, and started massive infrastructure projects, including canals, roads and the Great Wall. His history and legacy is not often reflected in a good light, as the writers of the time, disliked him, as he had hundred of their peers buried alive, when they criticised him or wrote against his beliefs. The topper is that he supposed had over 700,000 people (those that labored on the site/project) buried alive, after the completion of the Terracotta Warriors and his tomb, as he did not want the secrets of his tomb known to any. So, to this day, his tomb remains unexcavated, even though there is wide speculation that there are significant amount of treasures still buried below.
After a couple more days in Xi’an with visits to: the Great Mosque, the Muslim Quarter, The Forest of Stalae Museum (which has been a museum for over a 1000 years), light and fountain show at the Big Goose Pagoda, and bike ride on top of the City Walls, I headed for Chengdu, the retreat I selected to ride out National Week.
Chengdu, was a great place to hide out that week, as others there were, basically there for the same reason. Its a large city, fifth largest in China and basically the capital of the Sichuan province, and as a result, had as many people probably leaving it, as there would be arriving. The next four to five days, I just walked around the city, visited some sights and parks, highlighted by a trip to the Panda Research Camp, and a day trip to Leshan to see the World’s Largest Buddha. You can now add that to my list of the superlative tour, since I visited Chengde when in Beijing to see the World’s Largest Guanyin at Punning Temple. The decision at hand, was than if I continue, late in the week, traveling in a counter clockwise direction through China to the Yunnan Province, or go with the masses/lemmings in search of enlightenment and head for Tibet.
