Terracotta Warriors, Pandas, and Typhoons “Oh My”: A July spent exploring Xi’an, Chengdu, and Beijing, too!

Hi Everyone,

Thank you all for returning to my Astronomer in Beijing blog. I hope this post finds you all enjoying your summer, getting to do a little traveling of your own, and staying safe and healthy! As the title mentions, this was a pretty full month for me, but I want to start by touching on the recent events in Beijing. For those of you who haven’t been following the news, Beijing was hit with an insane amount of rain over the last week due to a typhoon (hence the title of this post). The city got ~ 40 cm of rain, which is quite a lot, especially given that most of the year, Beijing is super dry. There’s been some pretty extensive flood damage, especially on the outskirts of the city. Thankfully for me, I wasn’t too badly impacted. While my hutong neighborhood didn’t flood and other than the constant pitter patter of rain, I didn’t lose power or internet, my apartment didn’t make it out completely unscathed. Long story short, I have some water damage on the roof and a leaky ceiling (ironically right where I normally keep Goldie’s litter box). The days when there was major rain, I collected nearly half of my small trash can full of water leaking in. Thankfully, I was able to buy a bunch of towels and get them quickly delivered, so the floor wasn’t too badly impacted, but it made for a stressful morning (especially as the first storm was the night before I was leaving for Xi’an and the second was the morning I was leaving for Chengdu, so I was a bit concerned for Goldie – she’s seemed fine other and mostly stayed in the living room). While the landlord didn’t get the repairs done until this morning (they initially thought it was just leaves blocking the drain – it wasn’t), thankfully things seem to have calmed down for now. I know that a few of you reached out to me and my parents to check on me, so thank you so much for thinking of me.

In even more crazy weather news, for anyone who is wondering, I mentioned that we had record heat in June and now crazy storms in July. While the temperatures have dropped some (we were closer to 90 than 100), with the storms has come some oppressive humidity (today was 89 feels like 107), so it’s still a rough time to be in Beijing. Additionally, this morning there was a magnitude 5.4 earthquake in Shangdong, approximately 300 miles from Beijing. While I didn’t feel anything and nothing seems to be impacted in my apartment, a number of friends did feel the quake and Goldie has been burrowed under the covers all day, so I think it might have freaked her out a bit (having the repairmen over probably didn’t help much either). With the weather discussion out of the way, I can tell you all about my travels this month!

Xian – Day 1: Exploring the Muslim Quarter

Shortly after my last blog post, Jesse and I took a quick trip to Xi’an to see the Terracotta warriors. Since this is Jesse’s last summer in China and China has finally eased travel restrictions within China with the ending of the COVID-Zero policy, we wanted to take advantage of living here and see at least a couple of sites outside our respective cities before we leave (for anyone wondering, I still have another academic year here). For me, this is only the 4th city I’ve visited here (Shanghai, Beijing, Huangshan, and now Xi’an), so I was pretty excited! Since Xi’an is only about a 5 hour high-speed train away from Beijing, I was able to take a relaxing train there! And as a plus, I got to see some pretty great mountains in the horizon!

Before I begin this visual tour through Xi’an, I want to thank Jesse for organizing the trip! I’ve been pretty busy working on Project Radio (I resubmitted the manuscript, yay!!!) and Project Morphology, so I let Jesse figure out what we wanted to see (although I did get some delicious recommendations for food from my friends in the Vegans of Beijing), and he did a marvelous job. As per usual when we visit one another, we did a ton of walking, but that was especially great since it let us get a sense of Xi’an in really only two days. Since we arrived in Xi’an in the later afternoon, we decided that the main activity on Wednesday night would be to visit the Muslim Quarter and see the marvelous array of shops and street food. To note, Xi’an is pretty far West of Beijing and is the historical start of the Silk Road, so there’s a bit more ethnic and religious diversity here. Although I’m not sure if it’s super apparent in my photos, we saw a number of people wearing head coverings, so it really didn’t feel like Beijing or Shanghai.

As I hope the photos show, the Muslim Quarter is amazing! It’s sort of like if you took the hutong shopping district near the lakes by my apartment and super sized it! Shops line all of the alleyways selling a wide variety of street foods (more on what I tried in the Vegan food section), as well as everything from scarves to shoes to millions of Terracotta warrior figurines! Also, because Xi’an is near Sichuan province, there were lots of chili peppers, too (though we held off on the chilis a bit since we were going to be in Chengdu about 10 days later)! Although Jesse and I mostly were window shopping (we wanted to wait to buy a figurine until we actually saw the warriors), we did get some delicious fruit teas and dried fruits!

In between our exploration of the Muslim Quarter, Jesse and I went to a delicious vegetarian restaurant (see the Vegan food section below) that was across the street from a Tibetan Buddhist Temple. Although the temple was closed, the way it was lit up made for some exquisite photos. Also, the Muslim Quarter starts right near the Xi’an Bell and Drum Towers (as Xi’an was an ancient capital city, it has them too, just like Beijing – more on those later).

Beyond our sightseeing, I also saw some cute ads that I wanted to share, too!

Xian – Day 2: The Terracotta Warriors, the Wild Goose Pagoda, Temple, and the Bell and Drum Towers

Because the Terracotta warriors aren’t actually in Xi’an (they’re about an hour outside the city), Jesse and I got an early start to our very full Thursday. When we arrived, I was definitely a bit in awe of just how large the site is! While much of the land is still converted farmland (that’s how the warriors were discovered) and thus just a pretty nice landscape, the three main tomb sites are very near one another. As you can see the first tomb contains thousands of amazing terracotta soldier. These aren’t just identical mannequins; each warrior has a unique face and dress, recreating the main forces of the Qin army (from sometime around 100 BCE). It is really both breathtaking and a bit overwhelming when you see it. The one down side is that the first pit is really large (like the size of a football field), but you can only walk around the edges, and though we got there pretty early, it was already really crowded! However, that didn’t stop us from getting to see a lot of really cool statues of warriors and horses. Also, if you zoom in, you can see that not all of the soldiers are in perfect condition. While many have been restored and preserved, you can see others that are missing heads or limbs. I think one of my favorite things was that the warriors remain within the site they were found, so you can get a sense of how the archeology is done. Although I had forgotten, this is actually the second time I’ve seen terracotta warriors, since Jesse and I saw them at an exhibit in NYC in 2012, but it was way cooler to see them all together like this!

After the first pit, we made our way to the much smaller, but equally cool second pit. While the first pit hosts the main army, the second pit is home to infantry units and military guard. You can see a large number of horses and some of the soldiers are a bit more ornate. Additionally, since this pit was much smaller, we were able to get a lot closer to the warriors. One of the cool things that some of the exhibits on the wall highlight (but is pretty tough to see by eye) is that the warriors aren’t just terracotta, but each was uniquely painted!

The last of the three pits is almost as massive as the first, but still very much an active archeological site. While I don’t know if I’d love this if I was working there, I really liked getting to see the various stages of doing archeology and uncovering new statues.

Throughout the third pit and in the special exhibition hall, they have a number of very well preserved warriors that are on display (you can see a bit of the color on some of them). It was really cool to highlight the different poses (the crouching one and one who looks like he’s in a kung fu pose are archers). The detail is really amazing!

Not to be outdone by the other historical sites I’ve visited that have lots of cute depictions of their mascots, the site is full of artistic and cute depictions of the warriors (and yes, I bought one of those shiny little figurines and an ice cream popsicle, too). It’s so cool to see some fun depictions of these warriors and how they’ve been fully integrated into the economy of the area!

After the seeing the terracotta warriors, we made our way to the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda, which is right outside of Xi’an (Xi’an is a walled city, so there literally is an outside of Xi’an). Before I show the pagoda, I had to share these cool statues that filled the area surrounding the temple!

As you an see lurking in the background, the second you approach the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda, its grandeur and scale dominate the skyline. While the entire complex is stunning, the pagoda really does take your breath away. The pagoda dates back to the Tang Dynasty (~650 CE) and unlike many of the purely religious temples, this was built primarily to house ancient Buddhist scrolls and artifacts. This pagoda is 7 stories tall (we got to climb all the stories – that was definitely worth the wait in line – you can see some photos looking down on the courtyard below) and while aesthetically there are many similarities to some of the other temples I’ve visited in Beijing and Shanghai, you can definitely see a bit more of the Indian influence as well – there were lots of elephants. Additionally, there were some amazing golden paintings/carvings depicting monks bringing Buddhism from India (see the photos below).

After climbing the Wild Goose Pagoda, Jesse and I made our way to another Buddhist temple, Daxingshan Temple. While not as epic in scale, it’s another beautiful site and going there allowed us to make our way closer to the walled city. While we had initially include Daxingshan Temple because of the vegetarian restaurant on site (it was really delicious – see the Vegan food section), I’m really glad we stopped by and could see another temple! The temple grounds date back to the 3rd century, and was once the home of esoteric Buddhism in China. In contrast to the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda, the grounds were decorated in multiple dragons, which symbolize the emperor, and likely reflect the revitalization of the temple in the 15th century. While I loved all of the stone carvings, I especially loved the turtle pond with the live turtles!

After visiting the temples, we continued to walk closer to the city until we finally made it to the wall. One of the coolest parts of the Xi’an Wall is that it is very wide, so you can easily walk on top of the wall (it feels like you’re walking on a wide street). While the trendy thing to do is bike the wall, it was really crowded and had rained in the morning, so Jesse and I just walked. While I’m not sure if the wall was more symbolic rather than a fortification (though portions of the wall date back to when the city was the imperial capital, the entire wall does not), it’s one of the most unique features of a city I’ve seen here and made it abundantly clear that I wasn’t in Beijing anymore.

After walking the wall, Jesse and I finished our day (and our nearly 30,000 steps) by visiting the Drum and Bell Towers. Both of these sites were used for time keeping (especially during the night) in ancient China. As ancient astronomy traces itself back to early forms of time keeping, I’ve always found these places to be fascinating! Given my proximity to the Drum and Bell Towers in Beijing, I definitely wanted to see what Xi’an had to offer, too! I can’t help but compare the Xi’an towers to those in Beijing. As you can see, there are tons of drums at the drum tower, but it’s unclear if they are purely for show or still used (we missed the drumming performance). Unlike the Drum Tower in Beijing, where the museum portion is under the traditional tower, here, they turned much of the top portion into a museum and the entire building definitely felt a bit more ornate. While we didn’t get to see any drumming, they did have a sample drum that we got to bang, which was fun! We then visited the Bell Tower, which was also beautiful. While the Bell no longer hangs in the tower (in contrast to the one in Beijing), the Bell Tower equals the Drum tower in its ornateness. I also really liked how both sites did a great job explaining a bit of the history (even in limited English).

While that pretty much wraps up what was an amazing whirl-wind of a trip to Xi’an, I did want to highlight some of the cool statues and ads that I saw. There were lots of different fun and cute interpretations of Qin warriors, but one of the coolest statues I’ve seen is the first image below. While it was a very short visit, I really got to see a ton of the city and Jesse and I had so much fun. It’s great to know that we can plan a trip by ourselves without a tour guide (especially as I hope to do at least one more trip while I’m here – fingers crossed for a trip to Harbin in the winter).

A Quick Visit to Shichahai and 798 with Jesse

Because the train from Xi’an to Beijing and Beijing to Shanghai was about as long as the train from Xi’an to Shanghai, Jesse decided to return to Beijing with me so that he could attend a Roberta & Ted Kehillat Beijing Shabbat before he leaves China. Since he was only going to be in Beijing for a short time, we wanted to just do a few quick fun things. No visit is complete (at least based on where I live) without a stop by Shichahai! It’s pretty amazing that in Jesse’s three trips to Beijing, he’s been able to see three different seasons! While the first time people were ice skating on the lake, this time, people we paddle boarding!

After we walked around the lakes, we made our way to 798. Although Jesse and I had explored there a bit the last time he visited, since it’s so close to Roberta & Ted’s house, it made sense to stop by again. Plus, there’s always new art exhibits and fun displays, so every time I go there is something new to look at. While we just walked around, I did see signs for a number of new exhibits that I hope to see in the next two months or so!

Chengdu – Day 1: Kuanzhi – The Wide and Narrow Street

My second trip of the month was to Chengdu (the 5th city I’ve been to in China)! For those of you who are a bit familiar with Chinese geography, you probably know Chengdu for either pandas or Sichuan cuisine. While I’ve enjoyed my share of spicy food here in China (thanks in large part to Richard and Paulo being big fans of spice), Jesse and I wanted to come to Chengdu for the pandas (though we enjoyed the food, too)! This is our great panda adventure (I really should try to rewatch that movie, it must be on a streaming app somewhere). While Jesse was the instigator for the trip, we decided that because the panda sanctuaries aren’t near downtown Chengdu (and because there are a number of other things that we got to do in Chengdu), we should do a tour. Thankfully, English-language tours exist and through a company called Joy Travel, we were able to book a wonderful experience. On this trip, we were joined by my fellow Tsinghua Astronomy postdocs Daniele and Tom! Although the tour could have had up to 15 people, it was just the 4 of us, which made it extra fun! Daniele, Tom, and I flew to Chengdu from Beijing (while we could have take a train, that would’ve been 8+ hours, which is a long time). While the morning was very hectic for me because of my ceiling leaking, once we got to Chengdu, it was clear we had arrived in the city of pandas!

Because the tour didn’t star in earnest until Sunday, we decided to spend Saturday night exploring the Kuanzhi Alley (the wide and narrow street), a giant old-town style street market (like the Muslim Quarter in Xi’an). It was really cool to see all of the fun panda merchandise and we also got to try some yummy street food (mostly noodles – see the Vegan food section)! It’s definitely a bit of sensory overload, but it’s just amazing how many vendors there are and how alive the district is. I can’t imagine what kind of ghost towns these areas became during COVID, so I’m glad that I was able to visit now. And for those of you who are wondering, of course Jesse and I bought some panda memorabilia! Pandas are Jesse’s favorite animal and I love all the cute figurines.

Also, you’ll see a number of signs highlighting a rather sporty looking panda holding a torch. These aren’t holdovers from the Olympics (though you still see Bing Dwen Dwen here in Beijing), but rather from the 2021 FISU Summer World University Games. But if you’re thinking, wait, it’s 2023, you’re right. The games were actually postponed until the end of July, a week after we visited Chengdu. So the ads were in full swing, and I think a lot of people thought the four of us were here to compete (the US does send a team, though it’s not entirely clear how that selection takes place as it isn’t a huge priority for the US).

Chengdu – Day 2: The Dujiangyang Giant Panda Base and the Dujiangyang Irrigation System

Because the Dujiangyang Giant Panda Base is about an hours drive from Chengdu (Dujiayang is technically the 6th city I’ve visited in China!), we got a very early start to our day on Sunday (because we were spending the night in Dujiayang, we also couldn’t leave anything in the hotel room). We met up with our tour guide, Kevin, a local tour guide who spoke fluent English and did a wonderful job explaining all of the different sites!

Once we arrived at the Giant Panda Base, we registered and were given our official volunteer polo-shirts (that’s why everyone is wearing green). So not only did we get to see pandas, we also got to help them! The first thing they had us do was clean one of the panda habitats (we were cleaning the area for an older panda (I didn’t realize this, but pandas live for a very long time, some were older than me, and I’m 32), who’s English name translated to “wood star” – we got to see him being fed and he seemed like a very friendly panda. We were joined by an American family from Texas who were doing there own tour of China and another small group of school kids. We started by scooping up panda poop and then sweeping the enclosure. Thankfully, pandas don’t digest the majority of their food, so panda poop looks a lot more like chewed food than normal animal poop. We then got to break some long stalks of bamboo (as if we were swinging giant swords – this was a lot of fun) and then clean the pandas indoor space after he was let into his enclosure. It felt really great to be able to help out. Although we weren’t allowed to take photos, Kevin could, so here are some of the highlights!

After the main work part of our morning was done, we got to see the pandas! While I’ve seen pandas before at the National Zoo in DC (and maybe a few other zoos, too), usually they are very sleepy an inactive during the day. However, the high altitude allowed for the pandas to be active all throughout the morning! We got to see so many pandas doing everything from eating to wandering around and playing. As you’ll see in the photos, some of the pandas are solitary, while others are in groups of two or three. This is because younger pandas like to bond with their mothers and siblings, but after they turn about 4 years old, they prefer to live on their own. So while we didn’t see any truly baby pandas, anytime you see multiple pandas in a single enclosure, it’s a good sign you’re seeing younger pandas. As we walked from enclosure to enclosure, it was hard not to keep a constant smile on my face, as this was so cool!

And just in case you thought I was kidding, here are some fun videos of the pandas doing what they do!

Not to be outdone by their Giant counterparts, we also saw some adorable red pandas. As can be seen, these little guys appear more social than their giant counterparts and they are equally adorable. One of the most interesting things that I learned was that pandas were not discovered until 1869. And this isn’t a western thing. Apparently, due to the mountainous region they lived in, they weren’t known in China before then, either. This may explain why we don’t see many pandas in anything in the Forbidden City. Interestingly, red pandas were actually discovered first, in 1825. While these guys don’t look a ton like their giant cousins, their skeletal structure makes the connection apparent. Interestingly, and probably tied to their movements, the word for panda in Mandarin in Xiang Miao or Bear Cat (University of Binghamton alums, wouldn’t you rather one of these pandas be your mascot).

After seeing the pandas in their enclosures, we got to visit a special section of the park reserved for pandas who are in a bit of medical distress. While it’s wonderful to see that the reserve takes such good care of the pandas, seeing pandas who were depressed that they couldn’t have a baby (there was one female panda who cradles a plank of wood) and another who lost a leg (he did a very good job hopping around and reminded me of Goldie) was definitely a bit sad. After a quick lunch, we then watched a documentary on how Chinese scientists are working to better understand panda’s mating habits (female pandas can only get pregnant over a short ~ 48 hour window each year), so while the scientists encourage mating, they also artificially induce pregnancy. Interestingly, despite panda cubs being incredibly tiny, a mother will usually only care for one cub at a time, so if twins are born, the researchers have to rescue the cub and they will often pull a Olsen twins on Full House, where they swap out the cubs for one another (as infants) so that the mother can care for both. Also, they have been working to reintroduce pandas into the wild. They showed how difficult that can be if pandas become too attached to humans and the lengths that scientists have gone to (dressing up in pandas suits that smell like pandas) to allow for panda cubs who are more ready to be moved from centers like where we visited as cubs to the actual wild. We finished up our volunteer work by helping to prepare a special lunch for the pandas. We made panda cakes – a mixture of corn, flour, carrots, apples, and potatoes, which the pandas eat for extra nutrients, and prepared some bamboo leaves for some of the older pandas to munch on. All in all, this was an amazing start to the tour and was really a fantastic day!

Also, I want to highlight some more of the cute panda decorations around the park (including a delicious panda ice cream – the black parts were chocolate)!

After our panda adventure, we made our way to the Dujiangyang Irrigation System. This massive irrigation system dates back to 256 BCE and was created during the Qin dynasty (remember them from the Terracotta warriors) to divert the Min river as it curves around the mountains to prevent the flooding of the Chengdu river basin. As a physicist, learning about how the ancient Chinese used early mathematics to figure out where best to build an artificial island so that different parts of the river would run fast at different times of year was really cool (basically, by building an artificial divide at a curve, you can divide out the fast running water from the slower water at the edges, creating two paths)! It also reminded me of when I learned about fluid dynamics in grad school and even earlier, when we studied rivers and erosion in Mr. Nixon’s Earth Science class in 8th grade. While the second batch of photos highlights the actual irrigation system a bit more, the entire complex is majestic and includes Buddhist temples and a number of other statues!

Here, I just want to highlight that we’re walking on an entirely man-made island built to allow the flow of the river at two different speeds. We walked across two of those suspension bridges, and while I was never concerned about safety, it was a bit scary just how much they swung! The entire complex is stunning! To walk back to our van, we walked on the opposite side of the river, which allowed us to see a number of other cool temples and even more of the mountains surrounding the river! As the other side of the river is far more mountainous, it really felt like we’d left a bit of the touristy area behind and were hiking through the mountains and could really just enjoy the nature.

As we exited the Dujiangyan Irrigation System, we found ourselves in another traditional old town. Although we weren’t at the panda center, pandas are still everywhere (as are spices)! These areas are so alive and fun!

We also got to see a number of cute panda sculptures and signs throughout the Dujiangyan Irrigation complex!

After our very full day, we got to explore Dujiangyan a bit! We went to a wonderful vegetarian restaurant (more on that in the Vegan food section), but also got to see some of the fun areas of the city, including another bustling market area that hugs the Min river (yes, the same river that we saw the irrigation system for). While it’s a much smaller city than Beijing (and Chengdu), we had a blast exploring and I especially loved how they lit up the river at night. Also, the giant selfie panda is amazing!!!!

Chengdu – Day 3: Qingcheng Mountain and the Museum

The next morning, we made our way to Qingcheng Mountain, a sacred mountain for Daoism and one of the birthplaces of the religion. While I’m not as familiar with Daoism as I am Buddhism (the benefits of taking multiple Japanese religion courses at Brown), Kevin did a great job of describing how Daoism started out a bit of a mix of religion and philosophy and how the stars in the sky each were thought to portray a different deity. Interestingly, much like Shinto in Japan, which has blended with Buddhism to create a unique Japanese hybrid, Daoism is intrinsically tied to Buddhism and the temple features halls to some Buddhist boddhisattva’s as well as to Laozi, the legendary founder of Daoism. While aesthetically, the mountain, which is filled with temples as you make your way up the mountain, has many similarities to Buddhist temples, one of the coolest features are these uniquely foraged and wooden pagoda structures, made out of found branches, as to emphasize the connection to nature.

Although we were all up for a big hike, we knew that we had multiple excursions planned for the day, so we were not able to hike the entire mountain (that would have take 4+ additional hours). Instead, we opted for a gondola ride which took us from the lovely mountain lake you see below to the top of the mountain. As we walked progressively through different temples (some of which have been converted into Daoist souvenir shops, it felt like we were progressing on our hike to the heavens. Throughout the walk, there were numerous people lighting red candles and praying to different deities. Once we got to the top of Qingcheng mountain, not only was the view amazing, but the the temple was equally impressive. While we couldn’t climb this pagoda, we could marvel at a giant statue to Laozi! Although the pagoda was amazing, one of the things that I haven’t highlighted yet are the numerous locks you can see throughout the mountain (see below). According to Kevin, these are kind of prayers/wishes posted by people to wish for luck, love, achievement, happiness, and many other things. It’s sort of the Chinese equivalent of putting a prayer in the Western Wall and it makes for a beautiful display. Additionally, I finally learned the story behind the turtle dragons! There is a Chinese myth about the Dragon King having nine sons with different beasts and this is one of them!

One thing that is worth highlighting is that much of the area in Dujiangyan was devastated by a horrific earthquake in 2008. While Chengdu’s location in the basin left it relatively unscathed, many of these sites, including both the panda center and the Daoist temples on the mountains had to be rebuilt following the earthquake. Kevin even told us how he was giving a tour when it happened and how scary it was! Despite that, without knowing any of it, you would never be able to tell that things were so thoroughly destroyed.

After making our way down the mountain, we returned to Chengdu in time to visit the Jinsha site museum. Akin to the Terracotta warriors, this is another archeological site that dates back to the Shu state in the Shang dynasty (between 500 and 200BCE). While it isn’t as expansive as the Terracotta warriors, they have a number of really cool artifacts, including a ton of petrified wood, as well as their two iconic pieces, a gold mask (which reminded me a lot of the stone masks in JoJo’s Bizarre adventure – also, I think Daniele and I saw examples of these at the Chinese National Museum in the winter) and the Golden Sun bird disk!

Unlike the Terracotta warriors, where the museum is the archeological site, here, they’ve built a separate museum to highlight the artifacts! The museum starts out with examples of petrified wood, and then introduces you to various pottery and other clay artifacts, before revealing an array of jade weapons and jewelry. It’s really interesting to see such a different era of Ancient China, as aesthetically, many of these pieces reminded of some of pieces I’ve seen from South America, Africa, and the Middle East.

Although our tour ended for the day after visiting the Jinsha site, Tom, Daniele, Jesse and I decided to explore the Jinli Pedestrian area, another bustling old-town style shopping market. Both hectic, chaotic, and wonderful, we got to see a number of different Chinese gifts (including some cool anime paper cuttings – I got a Monkey D. Luffy for me – see the Anime section), as well as tons of delicious street food. As we had been recommended to try a variety of different noodles – particularly sweet water noodles – we ended up having an array of street foods for dinner! And of course, because this is Chengdu, there were tons of pandas! However, two cool non-panda things that we saw at Jinli were a cool dancer performing, who wore Chinese opera style masks (another staple of Sichuan), and these really cool Chibi-style (cutesy) historical figure statues that I’ve included below! It was a really fun night exploring and while we were all pretty exhausted by the end, definitely a ton of fun!

On our way back to our hotel, we also saw a few more cool statues, including some amazing Lunar New Year Style paper lantern displays. While Jesse has been able to see many of these at the Yu Gardens in Shanghai, I haven’t, so I was super excited to check these out!

Chengdu – Day 4: The Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base and the Leshan Giant Buddha

Our last day was also full of the most driving. We made our way to the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research base, about an hour from our hotel. As we approached the base, it became increasingly obvious as the number of panda sculptures and art installations increased dramatically! Probably because this center is closer to the city and thus a bit more touristy, we had to wait in some crazy long lines to get in! However, despite the heat, it was still fun to wait since the line area was surrounded by tons of cute panda sculptures and ads (and yes, I got another panda ice cream)!

Once we got into the park, Kevin did an excellent job of taking us to one of the less crowded panda enclosures first, so that we could still see some pandas while they were roaming around outside. Because of the heat and the lower elevation of this panda center, the pandas don’t spend as much time outside and will be moved indoors pretty early in the day. However, we were still able to see a ton of pandas! While it was definitely more crowded, it was so thrilling to see the pandas again! Even when they were sleeping indoors, the pandas were super cute and playful! It’s really hard not to smile!

I’m so glad that we got to have both panda experiences. It was really nice to both start and end our tour with pandas, but also, I liked getting to see them in a bit calmer of an atmosphere. The second center is so packed and hectic, that at times it felt like we were just part of a tidal wave moving through, while our first experience really allowed us to enjoy watching the pandas at our own pace.

After our panda visit, we made our way to Leshan, to see the Giant Buddha (about a two hour drive from the panda reserve)! This was the last part of our itinerary and it did not disappoint. While we didn’t have enough time to do a full hike to the area where the Buddha is (we’d really have needed the entire day to do that), we were able to take the river cruise to see the Buddha in all of its majesty. While we were waiting for the boat, there were a number of cool Buddhist statues to look at, too!

For the history buffs, the Leshan Giant Buddha dates back to the 700s CE and took approximately 90 years to build (apparently because of funding issues and the death of the monk who was spearheading the project). The idea was that because of the deep waters near the edge of the river, many fisherman were drowning due to boats sinking, so they thought that if they put a Buddha there it would protect the fisherman. Additionally, the Buddha was designed to be the Buddha of the future because at the time of its construction, the only female emperor in Chinese history had popularized the notion that she was the reincarnation of this Buddha. It shouldn’t be surprising that this marvel is a Unesco World heritage site! The shear scale and grandeur of the Buddha is amazing and on the cruise, it just seems to come out of nowhere. The carvings on either side add to the elegance, and can really see the scale, especially in the Buddha’s hands! It was definitely an amazing way to wrap up our trip! Another cool fact is that if you look at the landscape (towards the bottom portion of this photo block), you can see that the land resembles a resting Buddha, which adds to the mystique of the site!

All in all, we had an amazing time in Chengdu and I’m so glad that I had this panda adventure with Jesse before he leaves Shanghai in a little over a week. It was a really nice way to make some more lasting China memories!

Life at Tsinghua – The Astronomy Update

Although I did a lot of traveling this month, I also did a lot of science. I am happy to report that I received a number of very helpful comments from my collaborators on Project Radio and as of Friday morning (Beijing time), the paper has been successfully resubmitted to the Astrophysical Journal. While the paper is still quite long, I really do think that it now has a much tighter and less repetitive narrative. Hopefully the referee agrees! I should know sometime in the next month or so, so I will keep you all updated on that.

In the meantime, I’ve been able to continue my work on Project Morphology and Project Low-Z. In particular, I’m re-running Galapagos on all of the galaxies in our protoclusters and will be doing a new measurement of the density of elliptical galaxies later this week to better probe whether. or not we find any evidence of a morphology-density relation in these systems. I’ve also started to do a measurement of the star formation rate so that I can compare the morphology to the star formation. I’ve been prioritizing this project a bit since I will be going to the First Structures conference in Paris in September and will be presenting on it (I’m also hoping to submit this paper early this fall, too). I’m really excited. to get to go to a galaxy cluster conference in person for the first time since 2019! I really miss the energy of being surrounded by people studying the same thing as you and am also excited to practice my French a bit! For Project Low-z, I am working my way through examining the morphology of all of the bent sources so that Jesse and I can can use the cluster statistics he’s done to better compare them to the properties of the radio sources within them. Although I have a lot to do this month, the hope is that both of these projects can be near completion by the end of August. So while the end end of the summer might be relaxing for some of you, I’ll definitely have my foot on the gas.

Outside of my own research, we also had a cool lecture on the results from eRosita. eRosita is a joint ESA (European Space Organization) and Russian X-ray telescope. While the European side has been very good about publicizing their results and data, the Russian side has not. However, because the PI who gave the talk was from the Russian side, we got to see some of their results, especially in regards to the ability to detect clusters, which was pretty cool.

Exploring Beijing

While much of my exploring happened outside of Beijing this month, I did want to highlight a few more of the cool things that I saw in the city. Though most of the flowers have died due to the heat, there are still a few sprinkled throughout the city! Additionally, when Daniele, Tom, and I were looking to get a photo taken (we needed an official photo for our Panda volunteering), we wandered into the Wudaokou mall near Tsinghua and saw a ton of funky sculptures!

Jewish Life in Beijing

Since my last blog post, we’ve had four very different Shabbats. Our first Shabbat was Bastille Day Shabbat, which was also Roberta & Ted’s last Shabbat before they went to the US for part of the summer. This also was Jesse’s first time coming to a full Roberta & Ted Kehiilat Beijing Shabbat! It was a lovely meal full of lots of French food and we had a huge crowd! I’m so glad that Jesse got to experience what a typical Friday night is like here!

With Roberta & Ted out of town the last three weeks, we’ve returned to the. Capital club for Shabbat. One of the highlights for me of going to the Capital Club is that the view of the city is amazing! While we started off with a good, but small, minyan (about 12 people), the last two weeks are really the dog days of summer, with much smaller crowds. Although I enjoy leading the services regardless of how big or small they are, I’m looking forward to the return of many of our community members once the summer ends.

Goldie

This was a bit of a difficult month for Goldie. While she is doing fine and has been an excellent writing companion (she didn’t leave my side as I was finishing up the last of my paper revisions last week), I don’t think she really liked that I was gone while it was raining. I had to move her litter box (since that’s where the leaking was), so I think between that and me being gone, she was extra loving when I got home! As always, she remains my adorable cuddle companion and I’m so happy that she’s such a good cat.

Goldie also got to see a lot of people this month, including Jesse, when he spent the night in Beijing, and Daniele and Tom when they stopped by before we got dinner. Goldie has gotten much friendlier when my friends come over (she likes the attention). However, she definitely did not like when the handymen were here to fix the roof. She spent the entire time hiding under the covers yesterday and then today spent nearly the entire day today under the covers (I think mostly because of the earthquake). Hopefully the next few days will be calmer for her.

Vegan Food

Starting in Xi’an, I had a number of delicious vegan meals this month. On our first night, Jesse and I went to a vegetarian restaurant across from the Tibetan Buddhist temple. We got a delicious traditional fruit and nut tea, thin crispy tofu, a delicious mixed mushroom dish, vegetarian rou jimao (the Chinese equivalent of a hamburger) – I think this one was made of mushrooms, a delicious noodles with mushroom broth, and a tofu and mushroom dish! The tofu and mushrooms, noodles, and mushrooms were my favorite!

For lunch on Thursday, Jesse and I went to a wonderful vegetarian restaurant at Daxingshan Temple. We got mushroom mapo tofu, sour plum juice, dumplings, spicy mock meat (mushrooms), eggplant and beans, spicy seitan stew, and traditional Xi’an bread. Each dish was amazing, but I want to highlight the bread as that’s a Xi’an specialty and was really good and so different from what I’ve seen in Beijing – I liked the chili and spicy pepper dipping sauces, too. Also, during the meal, one of the monks stopped by to eat and greeted all the customers by giving us red bracelets and candy!

Beyond our meals, we also got to try a variety of street foods! We got lots of fruit and fruit teas/juices (it was pretty hot, especially on Wednesday night), and some liquid nitrogen frozen corn balls! We also tried the yellow rice cake, too! For dinner on Thursday, we got some delicious biang biang noodles, a wide and flat noodle with a spicy sauce!

On our first night in Chengdu, Jesse, Tom, Daniel, and I went to Vegetarian Lifestyle. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because it is a small chain and they have multiple locations in Shanghai (and Jesse and I have had many good meals there). We got a mix of some of Jesse’s favorite dishes from Shanghai and some more Sichuan style cuisine! We got tea, watermelon juice, Sichuan mushrooms, cold vinegar noodles, eggplant with basil, lion’s mane mushroom with starch, stinky tofu, fried stuffed eggplant, Dandan noodles, vegetarian fish in chili oil, and Sichuan sword beans! Everything was really delicious, but I especially loved the Sichuan dishes. The noodles had a great mix of vinegar and the la (numbing sichuan peppercorn spice) and I loved the Sichuan mushrooms!

In Dujiangyan, we went to an amazing vegetarian restaurant (there was only one and it didn’t disappoint)! The host was incredibly friendly and I think really in awe that there were foreigners at the restaurant. They were very concerned that we knew the food might be spicy (I think they might have toned it down for us a bit) and they were also interested in learning where we were from. It was also a super delicious meal and we got to eat outside and enjoy a lovely view of the city. We got Mapo Tofu, kung pao chik’n, fried mushrooms, spicy mushrooms, sword beans, potatoes and seitan, and a cauliflower dry pot! My favorites were the mapo tofu and the two mushroom dishes!

At our last meal in Chengdu, we went to a non-vegetarian restaurant in Leshan with Kevin and our driver. While the specialities were certainly not vegetarian, Kevin helped us get some barley tea (though he quibbled that it wasn’t really tea), delicious sweet and sour tofu, stir fried greens, and crispy sweet sticky rice! It was a really nice meal!

We also got to try a variety of street foods in Chengdu, including a few different varieties of sweet water noodles (with a spicy chili sauce), some kind of cold fruit and nut dessert, sticky sesame balls (we had Daniele and Tom try one first to make sure they weren’t octopus), a delicious cold garlic tofu, lots of cold juices & teas, tofu pudding (silken tofu with soy sauce and spicy chili oil), and lots of noodles! We capped our night at the Jinli pedestrian street off with a delicious ice cream bubble waffle, too (though this was just vegetarian).

While not as exciting as my meals outside of Beijing, I also did enjoy a delicious meal at a Japanese yakitori restaurant right near my apartment. We got a seaweed salad, ginko nuts, edamame, roasted mushrooms, asparagus skewers, okra, hot peppers, and onions! It was a really tasty meal!

Last week, Daniele and I got dinner at Tianchunmiaoxiang, the vegetarian restaurant near Tsinghua as a sendoff before he heads to Europe for a couple months. It was a really nice meal and we got spicy seitan with bamboo, flame tofu, mixed greens with mushrooms, Sichuan style mushrooms, mushrooms & peppers with fired potatoes, and they gave us a free side of rice! It was a great meal, but I think the mushrooms, pepper, and potatoes and the sichuan mushrooms were my favorite! I’m sure we’ll have plenty more tasty meals together when he gets back.

While my traveling meant I didn’t do a ton of cooking this month, I did prepare some vegetarian duck (folded tofu skins), as well as some delicious seitan with roasted cauliflower, and Dandan noodles (that I learned to make in the Vegans of Beijing cooking classes). I also got two delicious popsicles, a strawberry bar when I was with Jesse, and a delicious vegan fudgesicle from Grassroots!

Animals of Beijing (and Chengdu)

While Goldie remains my favorite cat in Beijing, I also saw a number of other cats and dogs this month, including my favorite dogs (Mimi & Honey). I was definitely a bit concerned for all of the neighborhood cats with all of the rain (it’s not clear which have homes), but they seem to be doing ok after the storms, so hopefully they all found some place safe and dry. I also saw my neighbor who walks around with his cat on his shoulders (that is one well-behaved cat) and remain in awe every time I see him!

While I didn’t see any cats in Xi’an, I did see a number of cats in Chengdu, including a few sleeping lazily at different stores. We also saw a number of different animals on Qingcheng mountain, including two llamas (definitely a bit strange to see – hopefully they are treated alright), many cats, donkeys, and two beautiful peacocks!

China Drawings

While I didn’t have a ton of time to draw this month, I did finish one pencil drawing while I was uploading my revised paper to the ApJ server. I hope you enjoy it!

East Meets West

As the two main cities that I visited this month are still pretty big cities (Xi’an has about 9 million people, Chengdu has about 16 million people), it shouldn’t be too surprising that I saw a few Western stores and signs of the West (and yes, I think that is supposed to be a Trump parody).

I also saw a few signs of the west in Chengdu, too, although mostly athletes! Basketball is huge here in China (Giannis Antetokounmpo visited Beijing in July), so it isn’t surprising to the see NBA stars! Most funnily is this Qiaodan company sign, which I’m convinced is a knockoff name based on a poor pronunciation of Jordan.

I also saw a few interesting signs of the US in Beijing, including the strangest Trump-related sticker I’ve ever seen.

What am I Reading/Watching?

While I’m still enjoying Anthony Horowitz’s Moriarty, I haven’t finished any novels this month. However, I did read a few great graphic novels. Specifically, I read the final two volumes of The Sandman Universe: Lucifer (vol 3 and 4) by Dan Watters with art by Max & Sebastian Fiumara. It’s a great series and they really present a complete 180 on Lucifer and his existence within the Sandman Universe. I love the Fiumara’s (they are twin Brazilian comic book artists) sketchier style and hope I get to see more of their work soon! I also read the first volume of Stumptown by Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth. While I enjoyed the short lived ABC tv show, I really enjoyed the comic and definitely recommend it! I also read Jeff Lemire’s excellent graphic novel Roughneck about a down on his luck former hockey enforcer who is grappling with his past when his pregnant sister returns. Jeff Lemire is a master and I highly recommend this. Nobody does small town Canadian slice of life better!

On the movie front, I watched two movies on my plane to and from Chengdu. I watched Invitation to a Murder, which is an Agatha Christie-style turn of the 20th Century murder mystery that was quite enjoyable for a plane movie. I also watched After Earth, the Will Smith and Jaden Smith starring film about survival on a radically altered earth by a human extinction level event which caused man to leave earth until they crash land on the planet. It’s a surprisingly decent movie! While Jaden isn’t nearly as charismatic as his Dad was at that age, I was pleasantly surprised.

In terms of tv, I finished a few shows this month. Specifically, I finished the 10th and final season of The Blacklist starring James Spader. I’ve always enjoyed the show and while it meandered a bit since season 8, I was glad that the show had a definitive, if not weird ending. I also finished the Witcher: Blood Origin on Netflix. Maybe because I haven’t read the books yet, but while I enjoyed the show, I’m still a bit confused as to how it ties to the main universe (or if it was just meant to be a series of Easter eggs for the next season). I also finished watching The Lazarus Project, which aired on TNT and is a British production. It’s quite good and offers a unique look at time travel through a series of groundhog effect style reliving of your lives. The season ended pulling a complete 180 and I can’t wait to see what happens next. Lastly, I finished watching the 4th and final season of Jack Ryan on Amazon. I liked that this season didn’t feel quite as real world as the previous one and really enjoyed seeing John Krasinski play an action hero one more time!

Anime & Comics

As always, no Astronomer in Beijing post is complete without me highlighting some of my favorite anime and comic book paraphernalia that I saw. This month, I have some from Xi’an, Chengdu, and Beijing. Here are some of the cool ones from Xi’an, including Qin Warriors in the style of the Avengers and even some manga.

In Chengdu, we stumbled across a cool manga-inspired Chinese video game event when we went to Kuanzhi on the first night! We also saw some cute Batman, Superman, Spiderman, and Captain America pandas, and some amazing manga paper cuttings (paper cutting is one of the traditional Chinese art forms – I have a few and had to get a Luffy one and a panda one). I also saw tons of cool anime figurines from everything from Gundam to Ultraman to One Piece and Dragonball Z.

Not to be outdone, I also saw a ton of cool anime and comics paraphernalia in Beijing, too! While a lot of it was different gatchapod machines, my favorite was all of the anime posters on the wall of the yakitori restaurant that Daniele, Tom, and I went to! When Daniele and Pablo had checked on Goldie when I was abroad, they went to the restaurant and they knew i would love it and they were totally right! It was so cool to see so many anime posters on the walls, from Dragon Ball to Detective Conan to One Piece and Slam Dunk!

For all of you who made it this far, thank you so much! I know this was a crazy long post (next months will definitely be shorter), but I hope you liked learning about Xi’an and Chengdu through my eyes and getting to see some cities that aren’t Beijing or Shanghai. As always, I’d love to hear from you, so please don’t hesitate to comment below or write me an e-mail directly. I hope you all have a wonderful end to the summer! Stay safe and healthy everyone!

In Peace,

Emmet