Day 1/2: Changi (Singapore) to Tianjin (2 nights in Tianjin):
Arriving from Singapore to Tianjin around 8AM, we took Didi (e-hailing service in China) to our hotel (Hotel Zmax in Guandong Road in Tianjin). 1st two nights in Tianjin we visited:
a) Wudadao （天津五大道） Five Great Avenue area, where there is a lot of history during the Nationalist Government （民国）period (1920’s). After walking into its tourism info centre, we visited the Wudadao Museum, which in on the 1st floor. It was our luck that the Senior Museum Director was there and we were invited to join the museum tour with guests from Shanghai. We managed to talked to her and a friend, and she also personally explained to Elaine the history of Wudadao.
(b) The next day, we changed to a hotel (IBIS hotel Tianjin) located just next to Guwenhua Jie, Tianjin’s Ancient Culture Street （天津古文化街）and the hotel is facing the main river in Tianjin, with beautiful rever view, especially at night. We are impressed with this Tianjin’s cultural & commercial street, which is much more interesting than the ones we visited in Taiyuan & even Beijing. Highly recommended.
Day 3/4: Tianjin to Handan 邯郸 (Overnight in Handan)
We took China’s High Speed Rail from Tianjin West to Handan East train station (2 2/1 hours) 463km away. The train ticket is 152 Malaysian Ringgit per pax.
There are many things to see in this ancient city, which used to be the capital city of Zhao State (赵国）during the Spring Autumn period (770BC to 481BC). & Warring States period 戰國時代
a) due to our short stay, we only managed to visit Handan Congtai Park 叢台公園 where the famous King Wuling of Zhao (赵武灵王) trained his soldiers preparing for war.
Day 4/5: Handan East to Anyang East Station (17min; RM19.42 per pax) (2 nights in Anyang 安阳市)
one of our main destinations of traveling to south of Tianjin/Beijing is to come to world famous Anyang City, where:
a) Yinxu archeological site 殷墟 is located. It is a UNESCO Heritage site since 2006. It is an ancient capital city of the late Shang Dynasty (1300 – 1046 BC). It testifies to the golden age of early Chinese culture, crafts and sciences, a time of great prosperity of the Chinese Bronze Age. And it is also the Birthplace of Oracle Bones, which bore the early matured Chinese writing system, a precursor of modern Chinese writing system in use today! An ABSOLUTE MUST VISIT for everyone!!
(Photo above: It is Fu Hao Tomb 妇好墓 excavated in the acheological site and thousands of artifacts of absolute beauty were unearthed. It was described as the Tomb of King Tut of China!)
b) Anyang Chinese Characters Museum – This is another superb museum that you must visit as it traces the origins and beginning of Chinese writing systems. Whether you are a Chinese language teacher, some one who has learned Chinese language or anyone who is not familiar with the language, it will be an eye-opening experience visiting this museum. Another ABSOLUTE MUST VISIT place in China!!
The displayed many artifacts unearthed which carried the ancient Chinese writings, including oracle bones 甲骨(甲骨文), bronze vessels 青铜器 (金文), bamboo stripes 竹简 and others.
c) Youli Castle Site (羑里城遗址) & Temple of King Wen (Zhou Dynasty)周文王庙 This is less known site, as not much info is available on the net, but it is a significant site critically important for Chinese history & culture!! it has Cultural remains from Longshan to the Western Zhou periods. The cultural layer is about 7 meters thick. It also comprises remains of the national jail with the longest history in China. It is the very place where “the Western Duke (Jichang 姬昌) deduced the trigrams into hexagrams during his imprisonment in Youli”. Being the leader of the Zhou clan in the end of the Shang Dynasty and with the name of Jichang, King Wen 周文王（1152BC—1056BC）widely adhered to the policy of benevolence, which aroused the suspicious and jealousy of King Zhou of the Shang Dynasty. King Zhou put King Wen into the jail in Youli. During the 7 years of imprisonment, Jichang expamded the eight trigrams 八卦 of Fuxi 伏羲into the 64 hexagrams 六十四卦, and wrote the classic “Yi-Ching 易經 (the book of changes)”. Hence, Youli became the birthplace of the “Yi-Ching”, which is known as the origin of the Chinese culture. The later generations built the temple of King Wen 周文王 in memory of this great man, which has become the sacred place for people to pay respects to the late sage King Wen 周文王 of the Zhou Dynasty. This place was declared as a National Important Protective Unit of Historical Relics by the State Council in 1996.
(d) Window Shopping in Anyang City (a 3rd Tier city in China): Not expensive!! The experience is much better than big city like Beijing, which has higher cost of living!!
(👆🏻$$ Guess how much is this per “kati**” 一斤**? 😄)
**Take note that in China, 1 “Kati” 一斤 is 500 Gram, NOT 600 gram as many ‘old’ Singaporeans & Malaysians would be familiar as we used the old measurement system donkey years ago 😂
(👆🏻 We stumbled upon a farmers supermarket 5 min walk from our 3-star hotel we stayed in Anyang City & we surveyed the price level here.)
($$👆🏻: The answer to my Question posted above: this sweet green seedless grapes is around 10 RMB per 500g. In fact, a local friend told me that this grape species has a story and that explains why the price is cheap in China 😄. SO remember to buy this “Green seedless grapes with a story” when you visit China!!)
(👆🏻 I bought these groceries to keep us going in our long traveling in China. Check out the price levels on the receipt & convert to your own country’s currency)
(👆🏻We went to one Anyang’s shopping mall, a 3rd tier Chinese city to check out their price level & types of goods sold here. It is also a way to train up Elaine to do simple market/price comparisons between different Chinese cities as well as different countries. we saw Wanda Mall in Anyang, and also in Taiyuan City. The super/ hypermarket, Yonghui Superstores 永輝超市 has presence in many cities here. 4 years ago, we bought groceries in this hypermarket in Chengdu 成都). Locals go there and prices are reasonable.
(👆🏻Elaine laid her hand on some of the latest gadgets launched in to the Chinese domestic market! While testing it out, a local Chinese asked her about the name of the model and its price tag.)
(👆🏻 It was also an unique learning experience for her to lay her hand on an EV in a Huawei showroom and test out the new digital technology in the EV.)
Day 6/7: Anyang East to Shijiazhuang （石家庄）Station (238km) (59min; RM77) with connecting train from SJZ to Linfen West Station (470km) (3 hr 19min; RM92.86 per pax (2 nights in Linfen 临汾)
This is absolutely another less known & less traveled ancient city in China, but supremely important in ancient Chinese history, Linfen City 临汾, also known as the Ancient City of King Yao 尧都.
a) Linfen City
This is an absolutely amazing but less known 3rd liners Chinese city, having been labelled as the most air-polluted city in City just a couple of years ago, due to coal mining & coal burning!! When We visited this city ( mid-October 2023) not touched by tourists, we found the air and environment very livable now!
(b) One of the purposes of bringing self-directed learning field trip is to let her experience things local, or local way of life. We had local breakfast (we had local styled fried dough sticks 油条 as well as tried some of their noddle dishes. We were eating what the locals eat!
(b) Visit to Yao Temple 尧庙 and Pay Homage to Ancestors
King Yao 尧帝 is one one the ancestors of Chinese people in ancient China. (尧舜禹时代)
According to some Chinese classic documents, King Yao assigned astronomic officers to observe celestial phenomena in order to make a solar and lunar calendar.
Some recent archaeological work at Taosi Archeological Site, (which we visited!!) dating to 2300 BC–1900 BC, provided some evidence for this. A sort of an ancient observatory – the oldest in East Asia[15] – was found at Taosi that seems to coincide with the ancient records.[16]
(d) we visited the Taosi archeological site 陶寺遗址, on the outskirt of Linfen City. Many people are not aware of this site, including the local Chinese people!!! Therefore we are extremely proud to have visited this site, and the archeological site museum is still under construction. It will be a world class archeological site museum in time to come. We witnessed the ancient astronomy observatory site, similar to Stonehenge in England!
(e) Linfen Museum 临汾市博物馆 – many of the artifacts unearthed in Taosi Accheological Site (above) are now displayed here; others are displayed in Shanxi Museum in Taiyuan, Shanxi’s provincial capital (which we subsequently visited in this trip!!)
(f) Again this is a much less visited site, Ancient Linfen rural town, which is still in its original state, and not yet restored or repainted! This is one of the very few sites that you can sill see the ancient town in its original state. Next to it, we also visited a rural village which showcase simple rural life in China.
(g) This ancient Linfen City really has loads of colourful history! When we stumbled upon their memorial park, we were surprised to learn that the two Han Dynasty heroes & victorious warriors Wei Qing 衛青 & Huo Qubing 霍去病 during the Han Dynasty, under of Han Wuti, They played instrumental role in the opening up of ancient Silk Road, which the present Belt Road Initiative (BRI) promoted by Chinese government is modeled upon. (I mentioned about them in my explanation on YanMen Pass 雁门关 (in Day 11 (a) below).
We really like this city. Elaine said it resembles her home town in Malaysia!! The 360 degree change which happened after the government banned the use of coal in the area really turned it around and is a model for many cities to clean up their air & environment!! The source of air pollution was that Shanxi province had been a major coal producing region. Now we see the increasing use of Electric Vehicles (EVs), where we see cars, buses are all EVs now.
Day 8/9: Linfen West to Taiyuan Station 太原市 263km (1hr 41min; RM50.90) (1 Day Trip to Pingyaogucheng 平遥古城)
In my travel, I made Taiyuan 太原市, the provincial capital of Shanxi 山西省 （not to be confused with Shaanxi Province 陕西省, next to each other, and Shaanxi province’s provincial capital is Xi’an 西安）the ‘hub’ where i bought local tour packages to visit destinations & sites departing from this city especially to Northern Shanxi Provinces, as far as to Datong City 大同.
a) Pingyao Ancient City,[1] is a walled city in central Shanxi, China, famed for its importance in Chinese economic history and for its well-preserved Ming and Qing urban planning and architecture. It is in fact one of the most well-preserved ancient Chinese ancient city & is a Unesco World heritage site since 1997. During the Qing Dynasty, it had a “Wall Street” of China, with many private-owned banks stationed here and controlled the banking and commercial sectors in China. It is really worth a visit for its well-preserved architecture and colourful history!!
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b) Shanxi Vinegar Factory 山西老陈醋）– Shanxi vinegar is famous nationwide for its vinegar and its production technology can be traced to ancient time in China.
(** Elaine’s reaction after drinking the vinegar is FUNNY!!)
Day 10: Taiyuan 太原市 (our hotel is just a stone throw away to its Bell Tower commercial street)
a) Visit to Shanxi Museum (山西博物馆), not to be mistaken as Shaanxi History Museum 陕西历史博物馆, which is in Xian （西安). It is a very good museum to visit to have a first hand & deeper understanding of Chinese history of various period. Taiyuan & Shanxi was the territorried of Jin State 晋国 during the & Warring States period 戰國時代
b) Taiyuan’s Ancient Bell Tower Commercial Street – similar to Beijing’s Qing Dynasty Ancient Commercial Streets & the one in Tianjin. It is a good venue for shopping and prices are more reasonable than n Beijing!
Day 11: Tour to Xinzhou/Datong;
… continue in Part 2 of this Blog post..
(Day 11 to Day 21..)
