Shanghai

Shanghai -- the city of the future! It has the largest population in China (take that, Beijing!) within a small amount of space, thus making the squished together high rise apartments necessary. It reminded me of a scene from Fifth Element (yes, I know it's modeled after New York... sue me).

Not a very good illustration of the architecture, but check out the smog! 

The Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an

Leaving Beijing behind us, we traveled onward to Xi'an to see the famous terracotta warriors. How they came to be is quite interesting -- The Emperor Qin Shi Huang finds out about a sorceress, Zi Yuan, who knows the secret of immortality. He sends General Ming Guo to bring her, but those two fall in love. The sorceress casts a spell on the Emperor in Sanskrit, but when he discovers the love affair between her and General Ming, he stabs her in anger. The sorceress knows better, and transforms his army into the Terracotta Army.

Okay, so maybe that was the plot of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

The Great Wall and Ming Tombs

Day three of Beijing was a trip to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China, the portion that served as the barrier to the north against those evil "minorities" (as our tour guides liked to call them) and also one of the best preserved and older (originally mid-6th century) sections. A fun fact is that you can get down using a toboggan, though our guide said it was closed due to an untimely death. There were also various warnings because apparently people literally die here.

On to the artistic photographic attempts of yours truly. 

Beijing!

So I know this blog is entitled, "Kelli in Japan", but for the next three entries you may as well add a subtitle that says, "Except For the Bit About China and Oh Yeah the Other Post About Korea" or perhaps something less clunky. Knowing you are mostly my relatives and friends, you are contractually obligated to enjoy my verbose description of my venture into the land of communism.  Heed the great words of Chairman Mao to his successor, relax and think to yourself, "With you in charge, I'm at ease."

My mom and I took a guided tour through three cities (Beijing, Xi'an, and Shanghai), and although it was probably not necessary we enjoyed having a sponsored, actual Chinese tour guide. She took us to only the most reputable and government sponsored tea houses and silk factories. It also helped having a native Mandarin speaker, but I am proud to say I now know how to say hello ("ni hao") and thank you.

To make this a little less long, I'll divide up the blog entries by city -- so enjoy your internet guided tour through Beijing!