China in August '11

China:
The August Trip

August 2011

 

Climbing up 45 minutes to a "wild" unrepaired section of the Great Wall.

Wild Wall

Good surprises:
1. Not much honking.
2. Shanghai art deco.
3. Many meals with eggplant.
4. Many trees in the cities.
5. Roasted duck skin dipped in sugar.
6. Ancient Chinese bells and melodies.
7. Thriving contemporary art complexes.
8. Variety of cicada and cricket sounds.
9. Cabs and metro are easy and efficient.
10. Communal openness of Shanghai alleys.
11. Many electric scooters that are almost silent.
12. Food ads with pretty moths landing on the food.
13. Shanghai bridges lined in blue neon as decoration.
14. Retirees in parks singing, dancing, exercising, meditating.
15. Communist propaganda (e.g. "Before becoming Communist, China was bourgeois and capitalist").
　
Bad surprises:
1. Lots of bad music.
2. Lots of greasy food.
3. People absorbed by TV melodramas in public spaces.
4. Men rolling up their shirts half-way to air their stomachs.
5. Deadening Soviet-inspired urbanism & architecture in Beijing.
6. Not much variety in monumental architecture between the 15th and 19th c.
7. Museum painting collections were unimpressive (Taipei apparently has the more important works).
　
Itinerary: Shanghai - Guilin city - Yulong Valley - Yangshuo town - Li Valley - Tiantouzhai village - Beijing - Great Wall from Jiankou village.  Traveled with Van for 2 weeks.