Now that we're out of China, where it felt like about 90% of websites were censored or blocked (including TiggerTours!), we can let you know what the place was really like...
We landed in Shanghai, a good city to get ourselves used to the shocking heat and figure out how to spend our 23 days in the country. An evening stroll along The Bund gave views of the bright skyline, and where roughly twenty million people asked if they could take a photo of Janine.
After our first encounter with the railway network, we spent an afternoon walking around the Longmen Caves (near Luoyang, 15 hours from Shanghai). Hundreds of thousands of Bhuddist sculptures were carved into the cliffs here...
...some of which were surprisingly large...
Then just another 10 hours or so on a train and we were in Xi'an, home of the Terracotta Army.More than 7,000 larger-than-life-size warriors were buried here in 210 BC, astonishingly every single one with a different face.
As the site was only discovered 30 years ago, all three archeological pits are still being excavated. The slow process of piecing the soldiers back together continues...
However, one lucky tiger was able to get a moment alone with a restored soldier.
Another "hard sleeper" overnight train delivered us to the ancient walled town of Pingyao, with cobbled roads aplenty and red lanterns swinging from every rooftop.
With nothing to do during our stay but explore, we discovered many temples and a brighly coloured Nine Dragon Screen (only one dragon shown here).
Onto the smoggy Beijing, we embraced the flag-waving at Tiananmen...
...and stumbled across a fan dancing practice session outside of a metro station.
We spent an evening in a teahouse where we enjoyed a cultural variety show, including some superb shadow play...
...and some visually stunning (although not so good for the eardrums) Beijing opera.
An afternoon visit to the Yonghegong (Lama Temple), the largest and most important Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in the world (outside of Tibet obviously), where huge stone lions stand guard...
...and prayer flags flap gently in the breeze.
And what visit to China would be complete without a walk on the Great Wall?The wall is over 4,000 miles long (of which we managed around 3 miles) and in places is incredibly steep. In the heat the walk can be very tiring...
...although one team member got away with being carried the whole way. 
We hope you've enjoyed the update! We'll be back soon with news from our next stop - Mongolia.Love,
Team Tiger
x
1 comment:
tres interesant. i didn't realise you were going to china, we are thinking of going there too altho will be olympics so trying to decide if thats makes things easier or harder. I also didn't realise there were two tiggers! bizarre! love you all! xxx
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