tbaroundtheworld

I arrived in Beijing early afternoon and it was pushing 3PM by the time I made it to the hotel. This was more than likely my last visit and there was one more thing I wanted to do. A tower stands on the far northeastern corner of the Forbidden City, overlooking the moat and I’d seen pictures of that spot which always struck me as pure China – mist on the water, a long stand of willows, the carmine paint and intricate roof of the imperial building. I’ve been to that spot many times before but always under a blazing afternoon sun. And while the pictures I’d seen were almost certainly taken at dawn, I figured the early winter dusk would do just fine. So I grabbed the subway and headed to Tiananmen Square. It was Sunday and so the area around the imperial palace was heavy with tourists. And this of course meant the sharks that prey on them were out in numbers too. I wasn’t ten feet out of the station when the first one hit – “Hello, where are you from? I am an art student; would you like t...

While Sichuan has untold historic and cultural treasures, there is one stop that is a must for every visitor. You cannot fully appreciate the nature of this region until you make a trip to see the Giant Pandas. While China is a country that evokes dozens of images – The Forbidden City, red lanterns, ornate opera costumes, Terracotta Warriors – I can’t think of anything more iconic than those big black and white fur balls. And on this my last day in Chengdu and on perhaps my final trip to Sichuan, the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Base was the obvious way to spend the morning. The word “base” evokes anything but an animal farm in English. I hear it and I think “military” as I imagine most people do. That or baseball. When my friend Ben used it as the descriptor I figured it was a subtlety of translation. But no, that is the name for whatever reason they chose it. We left my hotel after breakfast and headed across town. The weather was once again completely overcast, the little bit of sun...

The prospect of another late start – my traveling partners had things to do – meant that I had the time to take a more leisurely stroll down the river. I could see what appeared to be an old tower on the far bank, perhaps a half-mile away and so I set that as my destination. Crossing the road today was much easier and I was on the tree-lined promenade in no time. True to form, the sky was almost completely opaque although the sun did peep through when the passing clouds offered a momentary break. On these rare occasions it was reflected in the lead colored river water, a reminder that it was there above all that bad air. On my previous walk I had seen what appeared to be a long skein of colorful prayer flags spanning the river in front of a gray stone bridge just up ahead. Due to a long shared history and physical proximity, there are a lot of shared cultural aspects between here and Tibet or Xinjiang as it’s officially known and so their presence would not be unexpected. As I got clos...