Angkor Wat

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Nicole Schwartz

The primary reason tourists travel to Siem Reap, Cambodia is to visit Angkor Wat, and our trip was no different. We were introduced to Siem Reap by Mr. Smey, the friendly tuk-tuk driver our hotel sent to the airport for free pick-up. The open air was quite temperate and refreshing during the 15 minute trip to the hotel. Ride in a tuk-tuk checked off the list! Mr. Smey and his tuk-tuk also provided transportation around the ‘Little Circuit’ in Angkor the following day — for the low low price of $15. He dropped us at the entrances, told us where to go, and was waiting for us at all the exits. Now that is incredible service!

Angkor Wat is the largest of the many temple ruins in the Angkor Archealogical Park. ‘Wat’ refers to a monestary temple in the Khmer language, the official language and predominant ethnic group in Cambodia. The earliest buildings in the park were Hindu temples. In the 1200s, the king converted to Buddhism. Additional Buddhist temples were built at that time, and the old Hindu ones were converted to Buddhist. All the temples were then actually converted back and forth a few times between Hindu and Buddhist, finally ending up as Buddhist temples. None are in use any longer, as they really are ruins, but there are many newer covered pavilions nearby where monks can be found praying and talking.

The first day at Angkor included tours of Ta Prohm, Bayon, Baphuon Temple, the Elephant Terrace, the Liper King Terrace, and Phnom Bakheng. Exhausting just thinking about it! Ta Prohm was left in a relative state of decay and is known for the many silk-cotton and strangler fig trees intertwined with the ruins. Bayon is probably the second most famous temple after Angkor Wat, with 37 face towers, each carved with four or more faces, looking down on visitors throughout the temple.

Do you feel like you are being watched?

Ryan getting fresh with one of the faces

After Bayon, we took a walk through Baphuon and the Elephant and Liper King Terraces, before heading to Phnom Bakheng to see the sunset. Unfortunately, some rain and storms had blown in, so the sunset was rather cloudy, but we still had good views of Angkor Wat and the clouds were picturesque.

The second day was dedicated to Angkor Wat and a bike ride around the ‘Big Circuit’. Rental bike options in Siem Reap are either ‘regular’ (upright, single speed, little basket on front) or ‘Giant’ (Giant brand mountain bikes, the most popular bike in Siem Reap). We opted for the 18 speed Giant bikes, which was a good decision since the ride to/from Siem Reap to Angkor Wat and around Big Circuit totalled about 24 miles.

Angkor Wat is the world’s largest religious monument, not just a temple, but actually an entire city dedicated to Vishnu, a Hindu god. The structure has over 600 meters of very detailed narrative bas-relief carvings along the outer stone walls, in addition to carvings throughout the entire complex. We climbed to the upper level for a close up view of the towers and hunted down the only asparas (spirit) showing her teeth. In keeping with our typical weather situations, it started to pour on the way out of Angkor Wat, just in time for a nice wet bike ride to the next points of interest.

All things not to be done at Angkor Wat

At the top of a very steep staircase, upper level of Angkor Wat

Asparas showing us her pearly whites

We stopped for lunch en route and hit a few more temples/ruins, but were really out to enjoy the bike ride. The Big Circuit goes along the back side of the park, with more locals than tourists and not much traffic. We passed by a bunch of temples and ruins (they are pretty much everywhere you look), a park, some wetlands, a school, and lots of skinny cows. One temple of note was Prasat Kravan, the only known example of Khmer brick bas-relief. By that point, we were racing to get back before it got dark (riding bikes with traffic in Cambodia was bad enough in daylight), so I just ran in and snapped a few quick photos. The fast ride back took us past a group of monkeys common to the area (had to stop for a few photos) and back near Angkor Wat before sunset.

[Written with input from Ryan]

P.S. Boo! Happy Halloween to all! We missed seeing everyone at our annual pumpkin carving. Send us some good costume pics.

Stretching our time in HCMC: Cu Chi Tunnels and War Remnants Museum

Posted on October 25, 2013 by Nicole Schwartz

Initially thinking we had a 4pm flight on our last partial day in Vietnam, we were planning a walking tour of the city. Turns out our flight was at 7:30pm, so we booked a half-day tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels. Cu Chi is a region about 60km northwest of HCMC. The tunnels were originally built during the French occupation in the 1940s and 50s, and then expanded during the Vietnam War. In addition to military use, some of the Cu Chi people actually lived in the tunnels during the wars.

Many of the real tunnels collapsed over the years or were destroyed by carpet bombing. The tunnels on the tour were created/restored as an attraction and enlarged to accommodate visitors (or as Ryan says, meat eating Westerners). Only after the very broad muscular guys in our group lowered themselves down one of the tiny holes did Ryan and I follow.

Next up was a shooting range where you could pay $1 per bullet and shoot any number of weapons from AK47s to M16s and M60s. I was definitely not a fan of the very loud gunfire, and it appeared the 2-year old in the group agreed. Ryan thought it added to the ambience of the place. We then had the chance to crawl through some tunnels. I made it 40 meters before calling it quits. Ryan went the full 100m, basically doing lunges the entire way, with a guide following closely, coming out at the hospital tent replica. He continued to pay for his decision (his words) over the next few days — reminiscent of Gary’s lunge workouts. The crouched position was rather uncomfortable and created a lot of stress on the knees and quads.

Last on the tour was a Cu Chi tunnel history (propaganda) video. It was a little light on the history, science, engineering, and very heavy on the anti-American agenda. Interesting to hear a different perspective on the war, but definitely made us feel uncomfortable.

During the van ride back to HCMC, our tour guide told us that the anti-American sentiment is just history at this point. He said even older veterans from the war seem to be embracing the western culture and capitalistic ways, mostly because there’s a strong sense of government corruption and the belief that Communism isn’t working.

Since there was still time before our flight, we had the van drop us off at the War Remnants Museum on the way back into town. This was an interesting interpretation of the ‘American War’, as the Vietnamese call it. But as is said, the victors write the history books. Overall, the only word I can think of to describe the entire day is ‘interesting’. I learned more about the Vietnam War than I ever learned in school (no U.S. History 2?), mostly from doing a lot of online reading and fact checking before and after the tour. Honestly, I do not think I would recommend the Cu Chi Tunnels or the War Remnants Museum as must see sites for U.S. tourists in HCMC.

Other interesting pictures from the day:

Vietnam is the 3rd largest rubber producer in the world -> lots of rubber tree farms.

An entire kids sports team on scooters

Street we stayed on in HCMC – Check out the Vietnam telecom

(Written jointly with Ryan)

Sunny day at the beach in Hoi An

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Nicole Schwartz

The morning after the flooding in Hoi An was beautiful. We rented bikes from our hotel and rode through the palm tree strewn streets to the Cau Dai beach and then north a little ways to the An Bang beach. The beaches were relatively quiet, with a few tourists lounging underneath umbrellas and some locals tempting them with food and drink at small beach front restaurants.

We took a walk up the coast a bit, laughing about romantic walks on the beach for our honeymoon, when Ryan said “This is your honeymoon. Congratulations on marrying me.” Ha ha, priceless! That is definitely a quote I will never forget. Right up there with “Thank you for [pause] other things.”

Feeling like we’d been a bit lethargic the past few days, we went for a long ride up the coast, on relatively uncomfortable single-speed bikes and under the strong sun. Back in China, we had finished all of our normal 70 SPF sunscreen and had to pick up some 30 SPF sunscreen in a pharmacy. Multiple sunscreen applications and 30 km of biking later, we were both burned to a crisp. And Ryan was a little, uh, uncomfortable from the inadequate bike seating position.

As we all now know, it wouldn’t be a wet season day in Vietnam without some rain. We got the bikes back to the hotel just before the heavens opened. Dinner was at a recommended restaurant in the Old Town, traditional cao lau, a broth with sliced pork, bean sprouts and herbs, for me and a banh mi sandwich, a baguette with seasoned beef, for Ryan.

Our last morning in Hoi An consisted of a walk to the central market, where, not surprisingly, we got caught in a crazy downpour. Even with our umbrellas and rain coats, we were totally soaked. The central market was very interesting though. Reminded us a bit of the market in Cusco, on a smaller scale; lots of veggies, fruits, pig parts, and other stalls with any spices or grains you could possibly want. There was also a big food hall with lots of traditional foods and counters for people to sit down and eat.

On a side note, Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a well-preserved ancient port town with a lot of historical temples and buildings, of which we saw very little.

Double beef noodles and travel to Vietnam

Posted on October 17, 2013 by Nicole Schwartz

Our second full day in Taipei was split between the National Palace Museum and Jioufen. The National Palace Museum houses many valuable Chinese artifacts, moved to Taiwan from the Forbidden City at two points in time; the first prior to World War II to prevent them from falling into Japanese hands, and then in the late 1940s as the Chinese civil war was taking place. We particularly enjoyed the Religious and Sculptural Arts special exhibition showing many incarnations of Buddha, and the carving exhibition with carvings made from rhinoceros horns, bamboo, wood (mostly boxwood), and ivory.

Jioufen (also spelled Jiufen and Chiufen) is a small town north of Taipei built into the mountains. The town is known for its historic district and spectacular views of the pacific. We wandered around the Old St. browsing shops and trying some street food while enjoying the mountain and ocean scenery, even with the low cloud cover and threat of rain.

Henk and Mavis wished us goodbye on our last morning in Taiwan in the same manner they welcomed us; with delicious food! We enjoyed some award winning beef noodles for Saturday lunch before heading on to Vietnam. Goodbye Taiwan! We definitely hope to return someday. Thanks again Henk and Mavis for your hospitality!

It was a short flight on Vietnam Airlines to Hanoi. “Due to alarming levels of taxi scamming,” and Ryan’s concern for our personal well being, our hotel arranged a driver to meet us at the airport. The scamming is said to involve shady drivers holding placards with our name copied from other official placards. So when we noticed 2 people holding signs with Ryan’s name, we immediately went to the secret code method our hotel provided. They both had that too. It turns out they were together, one driver and one person who spoke a little more English.

Our 1 hour evening drive into Hanoi city center passed a number of rice paddies with small fires burning. These are apparently the stalks of the rice harvest that are burned to make good fertilizer for the next round of planting. They are also a big problem for air quality and airplanes that want to land. The government is trying to limit the number of fires, but the thick air still blanketed our lungs and almost resembled a heavy fog during parts of our drive.

Our fancy hotel welcomed us with fresh watermelon juice when we arrived. We spent the evening wandering around the Old Quarter and Hoan Kiem Lake, stopping at what looked like a local joint for some delicious pho with beef and vegetables and a Bia Ha Noi for Ryan.

Update on Ryan’s ATM card: It met us as advertised in our Taipei hotel, but without the new PIN which is sent separately, and not through next-day mail. According to the credit union, it could at least be used to get a cash advance, although we’ve read nothing about how to do this without a PIN.

(Jointly written with Ryan)

A culinary adventure in Taipei

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Nicole Schwartz

My friend and co-worker Henk lives in Taipei with his fiance Mavis. They were wonderful hosts and personal tour guides, introducing us to the sights and food of Taipei. Our culinary adventure began the night we arrived in the city, at the famous Din Tai Fung, a Taipei original with locations worldwide. We ate delicious bean curd, fungus (kid you not, that’s what it was called), and cucumber appetizers, followed by pork and shrimp/veggie filled soup dumplings, ending with red bean buns for dessert. All delicious!

October 10th is Double Tenth Day, Taiwanese National Day, celebrating the Wuchang Uprising in 1911 which led to the establishment of the Republic of China (Taiwan), so Henk and Mavis were off from work. They had us up early for a traditional Taiwanese breakfast of sesame cake sandwiches stuffed with egg and fried dough (unsure of the official name) and soy milk, before heading out on the day long walking tour. We peppered them with questions about Taiwanese history and current relations with China, a very interesting topic that I knew little about. (China basically thinks Taiwan is still a part of China. Taiwan has all these songs and chants, which we heard playing in the squares a few times, saying that Taiwan and China are neighbors and speak the same language, but Taiwan is a separate country). Because of the holiday, many of the streets were shut down around the Presidential and government buildings. Here’s Henk enjoying the usually busy road all to himself. We also passed by some protests, both for and against the current president.

The city tour began with the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Zhongzheng Park, which resembled the Lincoln Memorial. Chiang Kai-shek was an influential political and military leader in the 1900s, and his head appears on many coins and bills. This was followed by the Lungshan Temple (frequently spelled ‘Longshan’), a very active Buddhist temple, always filled with a lot of visitors and people praying. Henk helped us buy a small trinket for safe travels, which we waved in a circle three times over the burning incense.

Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall

Zhongzheng Park

Longshan Temple

Big crowds inside temple

Not the permanent location of our safe travels trinket

Not the permanent home of our safe travels trinket

We stopped at Mos Burger for lunch, a Japanese fast food chain, known for using sticky rice as sandwich buns. It was then on to Bo Pi Liao Old Street, the Red House, and Huashan Creative Park. Taipei has a thriving cultural scene, with a lot of great performance venues and festivals. The month-long Huashan Living Arts Festival was starting, and we were able to walk around and enjoy some of the exhibits before catching a free drum performance in the afternoon.

We become part of the exhibit

Ryan participates in another exhibit

Ryan’s note

Drum performance

Next stop was Taipei 101, now the 4th tallest building in the world. Unique in architecture, it was designed with the structure of bamboo in mind and resembles a pagoda at the top. Taipei 101 also boasts one of the fastest elevators and claimed many other records when it was built. Henk and Mavis had already been to the top, and had a very long tea in the mall below while Ryan and I stood on line to go up, moseyed around and enjoyed the view, and stood on line to go back down. Following Taipei 101, we hiked up Elephant Mountain (more stairs than Henk and Mavis remembered) for a great view of the city.

Taipei is famous for its night markets, so we hit Raohe Street Night Market for dinner, where the culinary adventure really began. First up, pig’s blood cake; sticky rice and pig’s blood formed into a rectangle, on a popsicle stick, coated in peanuts (we skipped this) and cilantro. It was relatively bland; Henk said it’s better with the peanuts. Ryan passed on trying it. On to the fried stinky tofu, served with pickled cabbage and soy sauce, which mostly tasted like tofu, though it is hard to get over the smell. Next was a sort of medicinal pork soup, called that because of the healthy spices they put in. It was very flavorful, with lots of cinnamon and maybe some nutmeg, and pork ribs.

Ryan and I were pretty full by that point, but couldn’t pass up the oyster omelette stand, a dish that both of us had been wanting to try. It was a bit different than we expected, not a traditional western omelette, as they also use usually a potato or flour starch in addition to eggs to make the batter sort of gooey. We both really liked the flavor, but were not a fan of the consistency. All these dishes were accompanied by about three cups of melon tea, a delicious sweet tea sold at every other stand. Exhausted from the tour and with full bellies, we said goodbye to Henk and Mavis at the metro station and headed back to our hotel for the night.

P.S. I write this from Hoi An, Vietnam, listening to the heavy rain and wind outside, with occasional brown-outs, caused by Typhoon Nari. The typhoon is expected to hit this area in about 5 hours, and some hotels closer to the coast have been evacuated. All the buildings here are built to withstand typhoons, and the storm is predicted to quickly lose steam once it hits land. There’s been a lot of crazy weather in the region the past month, but we’ve been very lucky to miss almost all of it up until this point.

Gorgeous gorges

Posted on October 13, 2013 by Nicole Schwartz

I really thought we’d met the nicest and most helpful people in Japan, but I was wrong. They are in Taiwan! We have been approached by countless people trying to help us navigate buses, subways, and trains. Some of the stand outs include: 1) A man in his 60′s insisted on giving me his seat on the subway because I was carrying my huge heavy backpack. 2) A man traveling by scooter on the street pulled over and asked if we needed help getting somewhere. Taiwan definitely feels more like Japan than China, perhaps due to the large Japanese influence in the early 1900s when Japan ruled Taiwan; lots of sushi and mochi, common convenience stores like 7-11 and FamilyMart, and the general friendly attitude of the people.

Our first three nights in Taiwan were blessed with ‘quad’ rooms, with a double bed for each of us and plenty of room to spread out, a nice change from the lodging in Hong Kong. Ryan enjoyed multiple boxed lunches on the trains; huge hot meal boxes containing rice, veggies, pork chop, an egg, and tofu which were surprisingly delicious and about $3. Tasty food in Taiwan is cheap and also very international. While searching for restaurants in Hualien, I was sure my TripAdvisor app had somehow been set back to Austin. The top two restaurants listed were Salt Lick (American BBQ) and Dos Tacos (Mexican). We wound up at a local seafood restaurant, Ju Yan. To order, customers go up to the glass display case and pick out their desired protein and cooking style. There was a slight language barrier, but in the end, we wound up with boiled shrimp with the heads on (Ryan’s favorite, once the heads were removed), sauteed green vegetables with mini fish pieces including the heads, BBQ squid, and abalone (my favorite). A delicious and interesting meal.

The primary reason for traveling to Hualien was to hike in Taroko National Park and visit the Taroko Gorge. We joined a small tour with a young couple from Hawaii, run by a Canadian expat. The weather was absolutely beautiful, and a typhoon two days earlier had resulted in waterfalls throughout the park. We hiked the Lushui and Swallow Grotto trails, along a cliff and through 30 meters of a dark cave. Next up was the Baiyang Waterfall trail, with incredibly picturesque waterfalls. This was followed by the Cave Water Curtain, accurately named. Our guide is very experienced, and had umbrellas available for all of us, which came in very handy. Can you find Ryan in the waterfall picture below?

The last trail for the day, Lianhua Pond, unfortunately got nixed. Rock slides are very common in the gorge, with trails frequently closed due to rock slides. While eating lunch, we saw rocks starting to fall down on the trail, and though it was still open, our guide decided it was not worth the risk. Instead, we headed to the Eternal Spring Shrine, a memorial commemorating veterans who died while building a nearby highway.

Back at the hotel, I napped while Ryan did laundry.
Ryan doing laundry: 4, Nicole doing laundry:1

Dinner was at the Zhiqiang night market, where we enjoyed some local food, including coffin toast and fresh juice. Coffin toast is like a big slice of French toast, cut open and stuffed with savory delights. Ours were stuffed with sweet and sour chicken in one and pork in soy sauce in the second. The fresh juice (mango and pear), while relatively normal drinks, were delicious and very refreshing. On the way back to the hotel, we walked by an outside dance floor underneath the train track overpass, with couples practicing ballroom dancing. We mostly found this entertaining because overpasses like these are usually considered somewhat sketchy areas in the U.S.

Pop Quiz!

Posted on October 6, 2013 by Nicole Schwartz

Name the fruits in the pictures below.
- Roman, no guessing on the first one. I know that you know what it is.
- John and Shelley, I’ll leave it to you to abstain if you know them from your trip here.

We have sampled all the fruits unknown to us, including a persimmon and a small spiky yellow fruit not yet identified. It looked like a small horned melon, but with red seeds inside instead of green. There are tons of fruit stands everywhere, a lot of them selling single passion fruits with the tops cut off and a spoon for an immediate snack. Delicious!

Mountains and rivers of Yangshuo

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Nicole Schwartz

October 1st is Chinese National Day and the start of a week long holiday. This is also when the people of China descend on tourist spots and everything (tours, taxis, activities) double in price. For that reason, Ryan and I decided to hit the hot spots in Yangshuo on September 30th. We rented bikes and spent all of Monday biking around the town, through some small neighborhoods, across the Yulong River a few times where bamboo rafts were launching, taking multiple wrong turns, but greatly enjoying the scenery.

Eventually, we got ourselves on the correct path and stopped at the Big Banyan Tree and the Gold Water Cave, also called Buddha Cave. The cave is fascinating, with stalactites and stalagmites, but our tour guide focused more on what the formations looked like (ie. buddhas, elephants) rather than the history of the cave and natural formations. Ryan took a mud bath in the cave at the end of the tour. I passed, as the mud, really more liked dirty water, was a bit on the chilly side, but it allowed me to get some great pictures of Ryan.

(3 washings of the swim trunks were required to remove the stench of the muddy water).

After the cave, we biked over to Moon Hill, hiked up to the top for picturesque views and watched a few rock climbers. As you can see below, the Chinese are real sticklers for following the rules.

At the top, we chatted with a Chinese man and his two sons. The man lived in Austin for 4 years while attending McCombs, and then Chicago for a few more before moving back to Shanghai. Two nice Austrian girls then traded picture taking duties with us.

Traffic and driving in China, even in smaller cities like Yangshuo, is crazy. The bike ride back to our hotel was probably one of the most stressful things I have ever done. Ryan tends to disagree. He thought it was pretty easy, cause everyone is going slow and steady, but he’s more comfortable on a bike than I am, and my bike was a little too big for me. I was not too fond of getting squished between another biker on one side and a moped on the other, or trying to go around a huge traffic circle with buses cutting us off, or mopeds weaving in and out around us. Oh yeah, and don’t forget dodging the pedestrians. Stressful! It did help to just be able to follow Ryan though, as he was a good leader. And the scenery outside of town, and even in the town, was beautiful.

A nice shower and dinner at the hotel was followed by the Liu Sanjie Impressions Light Show. On the shuttle to the show, we came across our first Americans in China! A mother and father from Chicago, visiting their son who teaches in Shanghai, and another nice girl from Texas, also teaching in Shanghai. The show was created in 2004 and depicts daily life of the people living around the Li River, with beautiful music. The highlight, though, is the mountains in the background beautifully showcased by the lights. Have I mentioned that the natural scenery here is amazing?

Pomegranates grow on trees, in bags

Posted on September 29, 2013 by Nicole Schwartz

Xi’an is famous for the Terra Cotta Warriors, which is where we headed on Wednesday. My navigating put us on the wrong side of the tracks, literally, at the railway station to catch the bus. The 20 minute walking detour turned out to be interesting, through first the bicycle/moped repair district (shop after shop after shop of parts) and then the LED sign district. As we’ve mentioned before, everything in China is huge, so while it sounds simple to go to the train station and catch a bus, the train station is massive, making it very difficult to actually find the bus stop. We were ushered onto a bus by a pushy bus attendant before having time to figure out the number of the bus. Turns out it would have gotten us to the warriors eventually, but was a local that made lots of stops. Regardless, we didn’t know the number of the bus we had boarded, so we got off the first bus at a later stop and onto another bus we were certain would get us there. The man sitting next to me on the second bus tried to give me 1 yuan; I have absolutely no idea why.

The Terra Cotta Warriors were very impressive. The underground army was built as Emperor Qin’s mausoleum, around 200 BC. The statues themselves were much larger than I expected, life size of a large man. There are currently three pits open for viewing; the third houses the high ranking officers, the second consists of military forces including archers, war chariots, cavalrymen, and infantrymen, and the first, and most impressive, contains the main army. There is still a lot of work being done excavating the area.

Along the drive were orchards after orchards of pomegranate trees, with stand after stand of people selling just pomegranates. All the trees had plastic bags around the pomegranates, no idea why, have not had a chance to Google that one yet. I did buy a pomegranate, and it was good. They are always a lot of work for little reward. And what do they do with all those pomegranates? It seems like way to many just to eat. Hard to tell, but here’s a picture of small individual plastic bags over each pomegranate in the orchard.

For dinner we stopped at a restaurant back in Xi’an that advertised ‘welcomes foreigners’, but no one spoke any English. The only reason I mention dinner at all is because Ryan was putting rice on his plate from a bowl, and one of the waitresses decided he wasn’t doing it right, or was doing it too slowly, and came over with chopsticks and scooped rice on his plate for him. Between that and the man offering me money on the bus, it was an entertaining day.

Back at the hostel, we joined the dumpling making party along with a guy from Australia and two sisters from Sweden. Mikki from the hostel taught us how to make the dumplings, rolling the dough, stuffing (veggie ones with egg, chives, and spices for this evening), and then boiling in water. They were pretty delicious, and something easy enough to make at home. Maybe we will start an annual dumpling making party to celebrate Chinese New Year?

Side note: We figured out that the relatively horrid smell in Beijing was actually stinky tofu, a common street food! And boy does it stink.

Just like the Bellagio

Posted on September 28, 2013 by Nicole Schwartz

Our late arrival in Xi’an was met warmly by the helpful staff at the hostel and a guy playing guitar in the cafe on the first floor. Our room had a nice king size bed, but was unfortunately not the cleanest. After a coffee and a beer in the cafe, we requested new bedding and proceeded to change the sheets on our bed. (No, this is not the part like the Bellagio).

Tuesday morning brought an early 6am departure for a trip to see pandas at the Shaanxi Wild Animal Rescue and Breeding Center. This center rescues injured animals and also protects animals from extinction. Our tour guide was really good; he has been giving tours of the center for over four years, and has seen the animals come and go, and knew the pandas all by name. We saw two pandas in their indoor/outdoor living habitats, a four year old female YaYa and a similarly aged male Erla. Here are pictures of the two posing for us.

We also saw an older brown panda named Qizai, which means superstar. In addition to the pandas, the center houses golden monkeys, golden takin (meaning sheep-ox in Chinese), crested ibis, eagles, vultures, an owl, and small red pandas (whose name means small bear-cat in Chinese). This was a great tour, definitely more than we had expected.

After a nap, we walked out to the south gate of the Xi’an City Wall, built by the Ming Dynasty in the 14th century, where we rented bikes to bike around the top of the wall. We decided to go for the tandem (first time we’ve ever done it), and it was a blast! It was also definitely harder than expected, especially when Ryan is on the back seat. When I’m on the back, I could take pictures, re-arrange my backpack, basically do whatever, I would just help peddle. When Ryan was on the back, every time he pedaled it would totally throw off the balance, and I had to work hard to keep us not running into people.

We headed down to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda for dinner and the nightly water show. Craving some ‘normal’ food, Ryan walked into the KFC, but the menu was unrecognizable, so he wound up with Burger King instead. We had talked about the water show being like the Bellagio, totally kidding, but it was actually a whole lot like the Bellagio water show! The fountains turned different colors and swayed back and forth to the music. It was very funny.

Nicole and Ryan's Honeymoon Adventure

Author Archives: Nicole Schwartz