Great Wall and the Forbidden City

After two pretty much ruined weekends in a row, it was finally time to get out and be a good tourist. On Saturday the smog situation was luckily quite good as the Air Quality Index on the US Embassy page "only" said very unhealthy instead of hazardous like it did on Sunday.

I had heard that it can be a bit colder at the wall than in the city so I put on some extra clothes. When arriving at the parking lot, it seemed that this was not enough as I was freezing at first. Luckily it got warmer once we got to the wall itself and the sun started warming us up.

Since the wall is so, well, great, there are a lot of different sections to go to. Badaling is most popular one and swarming with tourists in the peak holiday times. We went to the Mutianyu section instead which is a bit further away but it's apparently easier to park there. We left so early that when we got there, the parking lot was almost empty. On the way to the entrance you are bombarded by dozens of people selling souveniers, warm clothes etc from their booths. There were not many tourists to choose from so we got the attention of them all.

We used the same cable car as Big Willy

We opted to use the cable car for going up and then walking back down. This was a good choice since this section of the wall is high up in the hills. Even coming back down seemed to take forever.

The wall was pretty much as seen from the TV. What suprised me though was that it was basically just climbing stairs either up or down all the way. Very rarely was it flat. Even this short section that we walked was a good workout. There were very few others there this early and I think the most number of people we ever saw at any one time was around 20 which is not what I was expecting.

My poor legs

After leaving Mutianiy, we went back to Beijing to see the Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. I knew that both were pretty large areas but after already walking quite a bit at the wall, seeing the actual scale of the Forbidden City was pretty daunting.

Thomas the Tank Engine?

At the Forbidden City we saw very few Westerners. This is not exactly the peak tourist season and the recent widely reported news of the bad air quality have probably made some people reconsider their travel plans.

There are three main halls in the outer court of the Forbidden Palace. They all have imperial thrones like this one in the Hall of Preserving Harmony

Smoggysmog

For the first two weekends, I unfortunately could not go out much since the first one was ruined by the poor air quality outside and the second by me having a cold.

I of course knew about the poor air quality in Beijing before coming here but during the first weekend it was so bad that it broke all previous records. The scale used for measuring the number of small particles in the air did not even go high enough to measure the real level. This was a widely reported news not just all around the world but also here in Beijing where authorities advised people to stay indoors. Looking out the window, you didn't need any scale to realize how bad it was.

The scale used by the US Beijing Embassy. The max value of 500 was not high enough. Just a note: in 2006 when smoke of the large scale Russian forest fires blew towards Finland, the amount measured in Helsinki was 165. 150 is the level of being unhealthy and since the smoke could be seen and smelt in the air, it was a big local news story. In the three weeks I've now been in Beijing, it has rarely dropped below 200.

Past 24 hours

Even so, I have done quite a bit of walking in the Chaoyang District. The main streets are packed with shops and restaurants (and cars) but when you go into the side streets, you can see how the locals live.

The yard of a local school

This is what the coal plant that I can see from my hotel window looks like up-close. There must be hundreds of these things in the city.

Fancy some cheap Nokias or iPhones?

Old buildings get torn down. This site will most likely have a skyscraper by the end of the summer.

I have seen several places where you can rent bikes. Shouldn't be too difficult even though it's not in English

The bikes are not exactly hip though

I hear it snows maybe 3-4 times a winter.

Some yummy veggie dish, or what's left of it anyway

Peking duck. You take the duck (top right), dip it in the black sauce, put it in the tortilla/pancake looking flour thingies on the left, add some veggie sticks and then fold it a few times. After that, it's easy to eat by hand.

Who doesn't like some unexploded small owls?

A Change of Scenery

Before returning back to Finland, I was offered the opportunity to travel to Beijing, China for a couple of months starting from just before the New Year. Again it was not an easy decision but after thinking about it for a while, I said yes. The flight was moved out a week from the original plan so I got to spend five weeks in Finland including Christmas and New Year.

The hotel and the office are in the Chaoyang District in Beijing which has most of the embassies and the central business district. The traffic is quite chaotic but you don't really see any old cars in the streets. This cute pink Porsche is no exception.

The trip to Colorado didn't offer any kind of a culture shock but I knew this was going to a be a different animal. The language barrier is one thing but that's only a part of it. I did not really know what to expect so I went in with an open mind. I was most worried about the food situation as I am kind of a picky eater and Chinese food (or rather, the western perception of what that might entail) has never been my favourite. I'm not exactly a pro with chopsticks and the first few times when having lunch, I felt like a total idiot and had to revert to the strange spoon that's only really meant to be used with soup. The locals did get a few chuckles out of that.

The whole city seems to be full of skyscrapers and more and more seem to rise out of the ground all the time. The Chaoyang District alone has roughly 3.6 million people so it's no wonder that old buildings get torn down and replaced by these high-risers.

The first work week has been mainly spent inside the office and in bed. Getting used to the jet lag takes a while but the worst is now over. The week when I arrived had been a really chilly one but it has warmed up a bit and now the highs in the daytime are above freezing. The smog had varied quite a bit and opening up the curtains in the morning can reveal anything from blue skies to just a wall of grey. One night I woke up twice thinking that something was burning in the hotel based on the smell but it was just the smog creeping in from the outside.

A surprisingly clear sky in one morning

My hotel is right next door to this place

I have not ventured too far away from the office and the hotel area yet since it's already been dark when I've left the office. I'm not really sure what to do in this first upcoming weekend but I'm sure I can think of something :)

Walking to work on a foggy Friday morning. Those electric rickshaws make almost no noise so be sure to double check when crossing roads.

Back Home

I flew back to Finland on 30 November. It had been a bleak fall over there but right before I left, a big snow storm hit the southern parts of the country and it was very winter-like when I arrived. The next few weeks were also very nice as the temperature stayed below freezing and the snow kept coming and coming. On Christmas there was roughly 70cm (28in) of snow in the Helsinki airport which is a lot more than usual this time of the year.

Before New Year's that all changed though as it got warmer and rained for quite a few days melting much of the snow into a slush which then froze during the night. That's one thing I don't like about the winter in the Helsinki region. Some years we get almost no snow at all and the ground stays bare without the need to add some gravel to provide grip. You can ride your bike through the whole winter and whine about the depressing darkness with your colleagues at the water cooler. Other years we get the proper winter with lots of snow and the temperature constantly stays below freezing making it a very beautiful place. Most years, however, it's a mix of these two and it's either trying to wade through the slushy streets dodging the splashes thrown up into the air by the passing cars or then just trying to stay on your feet on streets that would require skates rather than shoes.

Moab, Utah

During the long Memorial Day weekend it was time for the last roadtrip before heading back to Finland. I set off with a colleague and his family to Moab, Utah which has two national parks right next to it - the Arches NP and the Canyonlands NP. Moab had been one of the places I had been recommended by many people but I'd managed to skip it so far so this was a perfect opportunity to go there. During our trip to Las Vegas back in March we had passed by quite close but since then I hadn't even crossed the Utah state line once.

Passing one of the ski centers along the way

My colleague and his wife had two kids (aged 4 and 8) which naturally slows down the travel. We set off on Wednesday around noon after me spending the morning in the already really quiet office. Memorial Day is one of the two biggest holidays in the US and most seem to take the whole week off and spend it with their families and friends.

We decided to spend the first night in Glenwood Springs which is about half way to Moab. Had I been travelling alone, I probably would've driven straight to Moab but at least this way we stopped just before it got dark and could rest for the next day. On Thursday we continued our way and turned south from the I-70 to a more scenic route following the Colorado river and the canyon that it had carved along the way.

After checking into the hotel and grabbing something to eat, it was time to head off to the Arches National Park. It is home to dozens of naturally formed sandstone arches. Some you could see from the road winding through the park but for some you would've had to hike quite a bit to see. With the kids, any long hikes were out of the questions but there was still plenty to see and with the sun going down, there wouldn't have been enough time for much of that anyway. 

Mesa Arch in the Canyonlands National Park

On Friday our destination was the Canyonlands National Park which covers a much larger area than the Arches NP. The park is divided into three sections and we only visited the first although saw quite a bit of the other two in the distance. This area offers some astonishing views of the, well, canyonlands that mother nature's forces have carved out through the years. The scale of it was mind boggeling and even though I'd been to the Grand Canyon, the Black Canyon etc, it didn't take anything away from this experience. All these national parks are there for a reason and have their own unique characteristics.

Green River is somewhere down there

On the way back we also passed by the Dead Horse Point which is so named because of an old legend of some cowboys leaving a group of horses to the upper mesa which then died of thirst staring at the Colorado river since they couldn't find a way down. This is where the closing scene of Thelma and Louise was filmed and this area in general is certainly familiar with anyone who's seen some John Wayne or Indiana Jones movies.

Double Arch

On Saturday we decided to go back to the Arches NP for a couple of hours before starting the way back home. We spent the night at Glenwood Springs again and the kids got to splash around in the Glenwood hot springs. On Sunday we set off relatively early and managed to avoid the crowds on the I-70. We drove through the Glenwood Canyon once more and on the way I just stared at the scenery and tried to soak up all the images to my head knowing that soon I'd have to leave all this behind me.

A spooky face

During this 10 month long expat I managed to visit seven different states (CO, UT, WY, SD, NY, NV, AZ), 11 National Parks (some of which more than once), several National Monuments and other interesting places as well as pretty much scouring the entire state of Colorado. I could have easily added Nebraska, Kansas, New Mexico, Idaho and Montana to the list of states just by driving through them or by taking small detours but I didn't want to do that just for the sole reason of getting them on the list. Looking at the places I would've liked to go to but never did, two jump out. Going to San Francisco CA would've required a longer holiday than what I had time for and the Dinosaur National Monument along both sides of the Colorado/Utah state line would've been a good destination in the summer when the days were much longer. I have a feeling I might return to this beautiful state before not too long so maybe I can scratch that off my bucket list fairly soon as well!

Old Bent's Fort & Final Look-See at the Rockies

With just two weekends left, I knew I had to get out and experience some new things while I still had the chance. The trouble was that I didn't really know where to go. I had already been to most interesting places in Colorado and only had the weekend to spend. I seriously thought about going to the Dinosaur National Monument which lies both sides of the the North-West Colorado and Utah. However, the Colorado side is closed and with the ever shortening days, it was just too far away.

Pike's Peak seen again between the rocks in the Garden of the Gods

On Saturday morning I set off south and stopped at the Garden of the Gods yet again before deciding where to continue. Pikes Peak? Been up there twice and it's frigging freezing up there now. Manitou Springs with the caves and the Mesa Verde reconstruction? Meh. Cheyenne Mountain Zoo? I actually thought about that quite a bit but in the end I decided to head off to the South-Eastern Colorado to see the Old Bent's Fort.

Old Bent's Fort is a reconstruction of the old trading fort next to the Arkansas river along the Santa Fe Trail. At first it may appear quite small but at the time of its building, it actually used to be the largest building between Missouri and the Pacific Ocean.

A conestoga wagon and a cannon in front of the fort

This is not exactly the peak season for tourism and luckily there were only two of those irritating reenactors who pretend to live in the time period and explain things like we were all living in the 19th century. Even though there were less than ten other visitors in the fort at the time, with some clever planning, I could avoid their stupid presentations and stories.

I saw some pictures filled with dozens of reenactors doing their thing in the courtyard in the peak tourist season. I'm glad I avoided that.

The fort was rebuilt in the original location a few decades ago by the National Park Service based on archaeological excavations, diaries and sketches like the one seen below. If you are interested in history, this is definitely a place worth checking out but if that's not your thing, driving roughly 410 miles might not be the best of ideas.

The Arkansas river flowing close to the fort. This river carved out the Royal Gorge Canyon that I visited back in August.

On Sunday I decided to head off to the Rockies for one more time. I haven't really been up there since it started snowing and as the upcoming extended Thanksgiving weekend was already fully booked up, this was really my last chance.

There's yet another pic of the Chapel on the Rock  with Mt. Meeker (13,911' / 4,240m) in the back

Bear Lake in the Rocky Mountain National Park. It was hailing quite a bit when I arrived at the parking lot and it continued on and off for the next few hours

The Nymph Lake is just half a mile away although quite a bit higher up and walking in the slippery trail with my summer shoes was slightly difficult