Travel China and Beyond

More on JiuFen and JinGuaShi Towns - a Day Trip From Taipei City

It took me a while to get back to writing about the trip to JiuFen and JinGuaShi areas. Work has been very busy and this has had an impact on how much time I can spend on the blog. But today, Saturday, I finally got to it… So here I go:

I mentioned about going to JiuFen. Yes, this is a worthwhile day trip from Taipei. There are many options on how to get there:

* Of course your own or friend’s vehicle is a good one. Although be careful — parking in the area is quite challenging. A lot of people take the weekend drive into the mountains. There are some parking lots in the town and 4-5 hour stop will cost you around NT250-300

* Bus service from Taipei;

* Take the train — to Rueifang Station — here is a link to TRA: http://www.railway.gov.tw/index/index.aspx

What do you do in JiuFen? Well there are many options:
* Hiking — there are tons of trails some of which pretty steep (see the photos of the hills surrounding the town in this and the previous posting; You can see also Tea Pot mountain — interesting hill in the shape of a tea pot as the name would suggest;

* Visit the small museums:
- The Gold Ecological Park — in the town of JinGuaShi (next door to JiuFen), where you can see
a museum of all-wood Japanese architecture: The Four Joined Japanese Style Residence;
the museum of Gold;
The Crown Prince Chalet - associated with a strange story — the Chalet was built in 1922 during the Japanese occupation in expectation of a visit by the Japan Crown Prince (later he became emperor Hirohito) — oddly enough he did not visit, but the chalet was built nevertheless….Oh, well. Nice place to visit anyway
Visit one of the Benshan gold mining tunnels;

* Shopping: there is a pretty big shopping (ornaments, food, clothing, etc.) — here is a link to some of the shops
http://www.9sale.org/en/store_list.php

Another idea to consider is a weekend stay in the area. There are many single family bed and breakfast like hotels. I took a picture of one of them on this photo you can see the building on top of the hill on the left hand-side. This bed and breakfast place is owned by a lively 85 year old Taiwan lady who was very eager to give us all sort of pointers about the locale….

Here are some more images from the shopping street in JiuFen:

And then some more of JiuFen:

Enjoy your trip!

Visit to the Gold Ecologica Park and JiuFen area - Taiwan

This past Saturday I had the opportunity to visit an interesting outdoor museum in Taiwan.  Friend of mine and his family invited me to join them in a visit to JinGuaShi and JiuFen.  JinGuaShi is an area where in the early 1920s -1940s-1950s there was an operation focused on mining gold and copper.   JinGuaShi was a booming town at the time and also a town where today one can see remnants of Japanese style wooden houses (special type of construction) and check out old mining tunnels.   I will write more about this in a later post, but at this time wanted to at least post some photos… Enjoy.

Visit on Memory Lane — Some old pictures from HuangShan - 1989

Just this past weekend I decided to go through some old photos (from the days when digital cameras were not yet the norm ) and - Oh, gasp - use my scanner to convert some of those to a digital format.  Long story short, I came some photos from 1989 and a trip I took with friends to Huang Shan.  Huang Shan being one of the most famous spots in China of course gets lots of tourists - there were plenty of people even back in 1989.  At any rate, here are some beautiful shots from the mountain peaks and the sunrise on one of the mornings.

Looking at these photos, you can understand why this mountain is one of the frequent topics of many Chinese paintings…It is a beautiful place - enough said.  So if you have a chance plan for a trip there.  For those of you not familiar with its location - you will need to travel to Anhui province in Eastern China.  I personally got to the mountain via bus (a long bus ride) from Hangzhou.

Places to See in China / Beijing — Beijing DongYue Temple Visit

One of the less visited temples in Beijing is the DongYue (East-Mount) Temple.  This Taoist temple is located at 141 DongYueMiao ,ChaowaiDaJie in ChaoYang district of Beijing (interestingly enough it is right across the street from busy shopping malls), but often overlooked.

If you want to visit you can take a cab to the address above or use the subway.  The temple is located near by the Chaoyangmen station.

The temple has been rebuilt in multiple dynasties since its establishment in the 14th century    The stone tablets in the temple represent apparently one of the largest collection of those in China.  Some of the 90+ tablets are inscribed by famous caligraphers and date back to the centuries of the temple’s first operation.

Today the temple is a nice place to visit and both experience some very interesting architecture and get a glimpse of Taoism, as well as just to enjoy the piece and quiet of its many courtyards.   Here an older Chinese gentleman is enjoying an exercise….

Buying Murano Style Glass Jewelry in the Silk Street Market in Beijing

When I was in the Silk Street Market in Beijing last month buying some stock for my online jewelry store, Chinafinds, I noticed that there were a number of stalls selling beautiful Murano / Venetian style glass jewelry. There was no attempt to pass it off as ‘genuine Murano glass’ or ‘authentic Venetian glass’ as it was very clearly made in China. It would be hard to imagine importing the genuine art glass from Italy and selling it in a Beijing market anyway!

At any rate, the quality of many of the items that I saw was quite good and the prices were much, much lower than those of the real Italian Murano glass items that I have seen. I had seen Chinese Murano style glass jewelry in the markets in previous years, but the amount was smaller and the quality was not nearly as good. Clearly, the Chinese manufacturers are perfecting their techniques.

Buying Cloisonne Jewelry at Hongqiao Pearl Market in Beijing

Still on Day 2 of my recent trip to Beijing—my daughter and I headed back to Hongqiao Pearl Market after lunch and a bathroom break at the hotel (for those of you who have never had the pleasure of visiting Beijing, a visit to the hotel bathroom is generally infinitely preferable to using the (un)sanitary facilities when one is out and about!). This time, we were in search of cloisonné jewelry. Like cinnabar, cloisonné is an ancient Chinese decorative art. To create cloisonné, wires are first arranged on the item to be decorated in the desired design and then the spaces in between are filled with successive layers of colored enamel. Finally, the item is fired and polished. Cloisonne can be used to create decorative plates, bowls and ornaments as well as jewelry, but today we were only interested in its jewelry applications.

The large central area of the third floor of the Hongqiao Pearl Market is devoted to pearls and to get to the place where cloisonné, cinnabar and other traditional handicrafts are sold, you have to go to the far back reaches of the floor. There you will find a multitude of items other than cinnabar and cloisonne—wood carvings, rugs, stone carvings, Christmas ornaments, Chinese seals (chops), decorative boxes, glass spheres with carvings inside them, hairpins, writing pens, writing brushes, ink sticks, wall hangings and more! Bargaining is, of course, essential. We finally found a few places selling good quality cloisonné bracelets. One of the vendors, who was selling cloisonné of higher quality than those in the neighboring stalls, was particularly informative about the different quality levels of cloisonné. She showed us the difference between cloisonné items that were lighter weight and had a rougher texture and those that were heavier and had a smoother, more polished texture. From what I understood of her explanation in Chinese, the former used a less expensive four-step process in its manufacture and the latter used a lengthier and pricier six-step process. I may not have understood her all that clearly, but I was impressed with the quality of the items I purchased from her. There was clearly a difference between the two types of cloisonné and the six-step process simply produced a higher quality product. We purchased both cloisonné bangle bracelets and hand-knotted cloisonné bead necklaces from her and then returned back to the hotel to collapse in our comfortable room.

Buying Cinnabar Jewelry at the Hongqiao Pearl Market in Beijing

On Day 2 of my recent trip to Beijing, I rose early from my comfortable bed at the Holiday Inn Temple of Heaven, urged on by my nine year old daughter who was worried that we would miss out on all the good stuff at the complimentary breakfast buffet if we didn’t arrive sufficiently early. After quick showers and a long breakfast (the breakfast buffet really was quite tasty and all the good stuff wasn’t gone!), my daughter and I got into a taxi and headed over to the Hongqiao Pearl Market.

The market is located right beside the beautiful Temple of Heaven, so it is quite convenient to do both of them in one day. However, we had already had several pleasant outings at the Temple of Heaven in the past, and today only shopping was on our agenda. We entered the Hongqiao Pearl Market through a side entrance as it appears to be undergoing some sort of construction facelift, leaving the front entrance not easily accessible, and went straight to the jewelry section. To do this, we had to march determinedly past the first floor vendors selling scarves and knickknacks and electronic equipment, evade the second floor vendors as they tried to sell us shoes, clothing, luggage and purses, and go right up to the third floor where all the jewelry is. This morning, our objective was jewelry made from carved cinnabar. Cinnabar jewelry has an interesting history; originally, it was made from a tree sap lacquer that was colored by the beautiful but toxic mineral cinnabar (otherwise known as mercury sulfide). The resulting red lacquer was painted onto an item in multiple coats, letting the item dry between each coat, and then the resulting layers of lacquer were carved by artisans in decorative patterns. Obviously it wasn’t known at the time that the mineral cinnabar was dangerous and any poisoning that resulted was probably low level enough never to be noticed. Today, Chinese cinnabar products contain no actual cinnabar—the classic red color associated with cinnabar is provided by a harmless red dye.

Cinnabar jewelry, our objective of the morning, comes in many forms. One of the most common is the cinnabar bangle bracelet. Carved with a variety of traditional Chinese designs, these bracelets come in various widths and sizes. Some aren’t even red—I encountered pure black cinnabar bracelets on this visit for the first time. There are also cinnabar bead necklaces, cinnabar pendant necklaces, and cinnabar earrings. My daughter and I managed to buy a good quantity of each type of cinnabar jewelry and came back to the hotel laden with loot. Our next objective would be cloisonné, but that could wait until after lunch!

A Visit to the Malian Dao Tea Street Market in Beijing

On the first day of my recent trip to Beijing, I decided to take the afternoon and visit the Malian Dao Tea Street Market in the southwest corner of Beijing.   This fascinating market stocks a dizzying array of Chinese tea and tea accessories and is a cultural experience in itself.  There are a large number of stores in this area, but the one that my daughter and I went to was a four story edifice that houses a multitude of small vendors.  The first floor is crammed with hundreds of small tea stalls, primarily selling loose leaf tea but also stocking teapots, tea leaf storage canisters, tea cups, etc.  The second and third floors replicate the more crowded first floor, although the price seems to go up as you ascend to the upper levels.  (The fourth floor doesn’t appear to sell tea at all, but has unrelated stores and perhaps a restaurant—I’m not sure!) On this visit, I concentrated on the first floor and ended up buying 6 pounds of loose leaf tea—four pounds of jasmine tea and two of green tea.  The tea was remarkably reasonably priced at about $8.50 per pound and it was very good quality.  Of course the initial selling price was around three times as much, but that is to be expected in a Chinese market.  The obligatory bargaining was good practice for my scheduled visit the next day to the Hongqiao Pearl Market to buy jewelry for my online store Chinafinds.

Beijing Botanical Gardens and WoFu Temple

In the cold winter days of Beijing it is good to remember the nice sunny weather of the summer — that is when I remembered about our visits to the Beijing Botanical Garden.  The Garden is located near the West Hills in a nice wooded part of the city outskirts.  It is a nice place to escape in the summer as the garden itself has plenty of greenery, nice walk through fountains and plenty of interesting plants to see.  The complete Garden is comprised of:

• The Ornamental Plant Section
• Rose Garden
• Ornamental Peach Garden
• Tree Peony Garden
• Herbaceous Peony Garden
• Lilac Garden
• Crabapple and Cotoneaster Garden
• Magnolia Garden
• Bamboo Garden
• Perennial Garden
• Aquatic Garden
• Mume Flower Garden
• Arboretum
• Acer-Rosa Section + Coniferous Section + Tilia-Populus Section + Magnolia-Berberis Section + some other ones we did not see
• and Glasshouses
• Tropical and Subtropical conservatories
• Here you can find also examples of Chinese Penjing — which includes Tree Penjing (also known in the west as bonsai), Water & Land penjing and Landscape penjing.  Essentially all these forms of art are focused on recreating parts of a landscape in a very scaled down format.  Some of the trees grown in those landscapes are over 100 years old — quite an accomplishment indeed!   I must point out also that the art of penjing also has geographical / regional aspects.   I did not quite see all different types but from what I understood from some exhibits, there are essentially Penjing styles in pretty much most provinces of China - e.g. Jiangsu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Beijing, Fujian, Yangzhou, Anhui, Zhonzhou, and EVEN a Taiwan style.
• Another interesting part of the Botanical Garden is the WoFu Temple - also known as the Temple of the Sleeping Buddha.

At any rate, you should plan a visit to the Gardens, and spend a day among beautiful trees as well as surrounded by colorful Chinese Halls in the WoFu temple.

You can see some images from both the Garden and WoFu temple in the Photo Album area of the blog.  (Scroll to the area labeled Beijing Botanical Garden and WoFu Temple)

Air Travel Experiences - Plane Mechanical Troubles and Delays Abound

Over the last three weeks my family and I have had to travel on a number of flights and across several airlines (American, United…) for both business and personal reasons.  Between the Thanksgiving holiday and business travel for me we logged in over 18K miles each and over 6 flights.  During these flights we experienced numerous delays due to plane mechanical issues.  For example - our Thanksgiving trip included travel from Austin (TX) to Huntsville (AL).  That involved 4 flights.  Out of the 4 flights, three had mechanical trouble.  These were all on American airlines.  That resulted in delays from 40minutes to 2 hours per flight.

Then last week I had to fly to San Jose.  I arrived at the airport (for an early morning flight === for an early morning meeting in San Jose) to find out that the night before the 6:40 am flight has been canceled.  Lucky for me I was able to jump on a flight to Dallas and from there to San Jose resulting in only 1 hour delay of arrival.  The alternative was pretty bad — I was going to meet a critical customer meeting!  By flying via Dallas I was able to notify the customer and delay the meeting by one and a half hour — 1 hour flight delay plus time to get to the customer site (my original flight was to arrive early enough that I could make it to the customer’s location way before the meeting time)

Then came my most recent flight Taipei - San Francisco - Austin (just yesterday) —> the flight from San Francisco to Austin got delayed as well (by 1 hour) as the plane had trouble with the navigation system and required parts replacement while the passengers were on-board….That was an United flight.

Have I had only one or two such troubles in a short three week window of time, I would have thought — “This is just a normal / sudden issue”.  But the case here was different — I was on 12 flights in a matter of three weeks and four of the flights had issues with the planes.   Add to that the now usual time delays due to traffic congestion and you have yourself a pretty tough situation for us the travelers.

What is the lesson learned from all this — well, I do not think we can do much to change the readiness of the planes — this is the airlines’ responsibility.  I hope the airlines are taking steps to renew their fleet and / or keep the planes in better shape.  What can we, the travelers do?  One thing only — always plan your trips with the thought that you will be delayed and figure out ahead of time what your options could be.