China 3

Shavua tov to all

We had a very nice Shabbat here in Beijing...any thoughts that we had about losing weight have disappeared over this Shabbat as the amount of food served at the Chabad house put all those diet dreams to rest....well, we are leaving Beijing early tomorrow morning and maybe we can begin to eat a little less as we will be without any Kosher restaurants until next Shabbat.

But more details on Shabbat later....we are still filling in the blanks from this past Wednesday.

We were met early Wednesday morning at our hotel by Lisa and her driver. Lisa's English was quite good and we headed north to the Great Wall. There are a number of locations within a 90 minute drive from Beijing where you can access the wall. Lisa advised us that we would be going to the Mutianyo section of the wall, which is less travelled by tourists. 

The drive north took us on major expressways for about 45 minutes, climbing all the time and then as we could see the mountain ranges looming in front of us, we exited onto a two lane road that took us ever higher in the hills till we reached the Mutianyo Tourist Area. We got there quite early as the parking lot was quite empty and the long line of tourist souvenir shoppes was just beginning its daily trade.

When you reach the entrance, you can see parts of the wall peeking out at you high above you and in order to access the wall, you have to ascend steeply by cable car. We had elected to go up by cable car and down by toboggan on a winding steel track.

Lisa went up with us and when we reached the wall at the top, she said goodbye; meet you at the bottom; and we walked up the stairs till we arrived on the Great Wall of China.

A few interesting facts about the Great Wall:

The Great Wall of China is the longest man-made structure in the world, stretching 6000 kilometres or 3728 miles long which makes it longer than the distance from coast to coast in Canada. The width of the great wall varies from 4,6 to 9,1 meters (15 to 30 feet) at the base and from 2.7 to 3.7 meters (from 9 to 12 feet) at the top. Watchtowers, guard towers, beacon towers, stairways, bridges and battlements.rise above the wall at certain points.

The wall was originally built by Chinese royals who had figured out that physical barriers were a good defense against invaders. Measuring 20 feet high, it was tall enough to stop even the most determined of invaders. Swords and spears could only do so much against a giant barrier of tightly-packed earth.

Nomadic tribes from territories now a part of Mongolia and Manchuria often swooped down marauding into the areas ruled by the emperor. In 221, B.C., Qin Shi Huang conquered all the surrounding states and united them under his empire. He destroyed walls between states and ordered the main wall along the northern border of the territory to be extended.

The wall  was repaired and rebuilt over the years, as it's construction of mud, gravel, and wood, made repairs necessary. The wall that is seen today was mainly built by the Ming Dynasty in the 1400's CE, using stronger elements such as bricks and stone, making for a much more permanent structure.

The effort was costly in materials and manpower. Over the years, millions of people worked on building the wall, with the manpower coming from frontier guards, peasants, unemployed intellectuals, disgraced noblemen, and convicts. In fact, there existed a special penalty during the Qin and Han dynasties under which convicted criminals were made to work on the Wall.

During its construction, the Great Wall was called “the longest cemetery on earth” because so many people died building it. Reportedly, it cost the lives of more than one million people, and they were buried beside the wall, at the point at which they died.

As weapons improved, the wall became less protective and losing its political importance, fell into disrepair.

The last battle fought at the wall was in 1938 during the Sino-Japanese War, and contrary to popular myth, you can't see the Great Wall of China from space.  William Lindesay, a British long distance runner, hiked about 1500 miles of the Great Wall in 1987. Then he sat down and wrote a book called “Alone on the Great Wall”.

The Chinese say the Great Wall is a dragon winding over the mountains. When you look at pictures you can see that's a fact. It really does look like a dragon.

These days the Great Wall of China serves as a tourist attraction and important historical landmark. Millions of visitors, as many as 40 million a year, come from all around the world to walk its long, crumbling path - the path of ancient warriors. It's a site of history and cultural significance the likes of which we're unlikely to see again.

We arrived at the top and began to walk along its length, marvelling at the way it would along the tops of the mountains that form the northern border of China. The two and a half km. section of the Great Wall at has 22 watchtowers built at almost 100 meter intervals, which is much more than along other visitor sites at the Wall and we spent time climbing to the tops of these towers to admire the changing vistas visible from the heights of the towers.

After walking for quite a distance on the undulating wall, we decided to head down. We had paid for the toboggan ride; really a little wheeled cart that runs along a metal track where the driver has a control bar to either brake or speed up. It was quite a lot of fun....finally reaching the bottom, where surprise of surprise, you are deposited in the midst of the "gift shop", actually a mini shuk or market, where I finally had the chance to begin practicing the art of bargaining....and could also practice my swordsmanship!

We watched with fascination how one local artist painted delicate pictures on the inside of a small glass jar....absolutely amazing.

From here, we headed back to the car to begin our drive to the Summer Palace.

All the best

弗朗西絲   - Frances
大衛 - David

China 2

Good Friday morning to all in China and a good Thursday night to all

We have been very busy since we got here and we have not really had a chance to sit down and write any updates....so we have a lot of catching up to do. 

To sum up the first two full days, we covered a number of the highlights of Beijing, and are really enjoying ourselves. The weather has been cooperating nicely. During the day it is sunny (tho hazy...or maybe just polluted) and very comfortable; in the evenings it is cool (sweater or light jacket). 

We had no concept as to the size of Beijing. It is huge. Distances are vast. And attractions are quite spread out which require taking cabs or subways to get from one place to the other. And even within individual attractions, there are vast open spaces (to accommodate the tremendous masses of people) which necessitates much walking. 

We have taken taxis which are an adventure in itself because of the driver's lack of understanding of English and worse still his lack of knowledge of locations in the city (we had to explain to the driver last night how to get to the National Arts Centre....imagine a cabbie in Toronto not knowing where Roy Thompson Theatre is located)...and then not knowing when you get in whether it is a legal cabbie or not.

We have taken the subway which has 15 lines covering the entire area of the city, (and adding new lines as we speak) and it is clean and efficient but totally packed...you do not have to hold onto a rail because being packed like sardines will ensure that you do not fall (but watch out for your valuables :-)!

So here are some of the updates....

On Wednesday night, we ventured over to the Chabad House, a short 12 minute walk from the Marriott. It is housed in a very attractive building on a Main Street directly in front of one of the entrances to Si De Park, which has many public sports facilities.

It is a three storey building and the entire main floor is Dini's restaurant (meat) and the kosher mini mart. The second floor houses a very beautiful shul with many exhibits that make up the Sino-Jewish museum of Beijing and it also has a dairy cafe open for breakfast and lunch.

The Chabad centre is managed by Rabbi Shimon Freundlich and his wife Dini who moved here in 2001 from Hong Kong, where he had served as assistant rabbi. Dini has close connections to Toronto, as she is the daughter of Rabbi Mendel Lipskar of South Africa, and the granddaughter of Rabbi Lipskar a"h of Toronto, who was my Grade 6 rebbe in Eitz Chaim.

When they arrived here, it was a virtual golus and over the past 12 years they have rapidly expanded the services available to the community of 1000 individuals who live here and to the approximately 2000 - 3000 business people and tourists who travel through each year. Included in this group, are the masses of Israeli backpackers traveling through Asia, especially throughout the spring/summer months. 

They originally provided all their services from their own apartment but now are housed in a 10000 sq. foot Community Centre housing their shul, restaurant, offices, kosher store and mikveh. They also operate another branch closer to downtown. The picture below is from Chabad's website and shows the Mei Tova Mikveh surrounded by a pagoda like structure.

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The staff includes not only Rabbi Shimon and Dini Freundlich but also Rabbi Nosson Rodin, Mrs. Miriam Rodin, and Rabbi Mendy Raskin and Mrs. Chani Raskin. Rabbi Mendy and Chani Raskin are the schluchim of Chabad of Ya Bao Lu, or downtown as it is perhaps better known, situated close to the downtown hotels and hosts Shabbat services and meals every week for overseas guests that are staying in area hotels.

Ganeinu is the only Jewish day school in northern China and is a school for the entire Jewish community, regardless of background or affiliation. They utilise a Montessori based curriculum combined with Jewish traditions and cater to the educational needs of students.

 This is a 5 star facility that has successfully fused together Judaic observance with a Chinese traditional theme with a modern spa touch.

Residents of Bejing and visitors alike all point to Rabbi Freundlich's warmth, inclusiveness and extremely gregarious nature as a major impetus behind Chabad's rapid expansion in Beijing.

When we arrived at the restaurant, there was only one other couple there, and over the next hour, a number of other couples came in to eat. Most were travellers like us on their way thru the Far East. We were hoping for authentic Chinese food and were not disappointed. We had a very good dish of sizzling chicken with Chinese rice as a side. It was very tasty.

We met Rebbetzin Dini's niece, Nechama, from South Africa, currently on Shlichut in Beijing for the year together with a number of other girls. She shared with us some of her impressions of Beijing, albeit limited as she had only just come around the time of the chagim.

We were getting quite tired and headed over to the hotel to rest up for our full day on Wednesday of the Great Wall and the Summer Palace.

Here is a preview.....

All the best ...have a great Shabbat...

弗朗西絲   - Frances
大衛 - David

China 1

Our Air Canada flight to China left Toronto on time at 1:00 pm from Toronto's Pearson Airport. It was a very full flight and thankfully, we were able to get our bulk head seats which made the 13 hour flight that much more comfortable. The flight path took us up over the North Pole and given that Beijing is in the northern region of China, the duration of the flight was just a bit longer than our flights to Israel, so the length of time is something that we have now gotten quite used to.

We arrived about 10 minutes early at the Beijing Capital Airport. Our first impression of the airport was that it was modern, spotlessly clean and very efficient. And there were people everywhere. It is the second busiest airport in the world after Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport. 

We cleared customs, collected our luggage and then headed over to China Mobile to get our SIM card for our cell phone. Everything seemed to work ok (tho' instructions for the SIM card are only in Chinese) and we went to the lower level to the taxi stand. 

We had been warned that local cab drivers may not know the city as well as they should and most do not speak or understand English. So we were armed with a printed card that Gary gave us with the Marriott Northeast address in Chinese to show the driver. We were told that even that might not be enough because he might not be able to read and also might confuse that Marriott with other branches of the same chain in this vast city and therefore as an added security measure, we should place a phone call to the Marriott desk and have them tell our driver exactly how to get there! 

But lo and behold, our driver seemed to know from the card exactly where the Marriott was and we headed out to the airport expressway. There were tons of cars and traffic was moving quite slowly. The Marriott was 20 km. away and the entire trip took about 30 minutes at a cost of about $14.00 which was quite reasonable.

There are over 3 million cars in this city and over 65000 legal taxis, which are very closely monitored for cleanliness, safety and courteousness, catering to the enormous tourist trade. Tour books will warn you not to take rides with so called "black" taxis, which operate unlicensed and which charge you much more than legally permitted.

We checked in, and as we are here till Sunday morning, we unpacked, and then headed out to explore the local area. We decided to walk over to Chabad and Dini's restaurant for dinner.......more about that in our next posting, but first....those who have been following my posts know that I like to present a brief introduction and a few facts about the countries that we intend to visit. I get these facts and the pictures that accompany them from simple googling and a little cut and paste; and so a few general words about China.

I knew that China was a large country but never realized that it was close in size to Canada. To compare the two, China stretches some 5,026 kilometres east to west, while Canada's distance east to west is 5,514 km from the eastern tip of Newfoundland and Labrador to the western tip of the Yukon Territory where it borders with Alaska.

With an area of about 9.6 million km², the People's Republic of China is the 3rd largest country in total area behind Russia and Canada (9.98 million km²). China is actually very similar in size to the USA.

And while the time throughout the country of China is standard (always 12 hours ahead of Toronto), the country actually stretches across 4 or 5 time zones, the whole country uses the time zone that Beijing (the capital) is located in. This can be inconvenient for the people living in the far eastern and western portions of the country as the sun rises and sets too early or too late; for example at 6 AM, in one part of China there is total darkness, while in the opposite end of the country there is bright daylight. 

China has 50,000 rivers, with a total length of 420,000 kilometers. The majority of rivers flow west to east into the Pacific Ocean; The Yangtze is the largest, rising in Tibet flowing thruy China and entering the Yellow Sea near Shanghai. It is 6,300 kilometers long making it the third longest river in the world, after the Amazon and the Nile.

Eleven of the 17 tallest mountain peaks are located on China's western borders. They include world's tallest peak Mt. Everest (8848m) in the Himalyas on the border with Nepal and the world's second tallest peak, K2 (8611m) on the border with Pakistan. From these towering heights in the west, the land descends in steps like a terrace.

China is bordered by seas and waters eastward, including the South China Sea, and is borderedon its 3 other sides by 14 countries; Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Myanmar, Laos, Mongolia, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Vietnam. 

There are a lot of people in China. The population is over 1.36 billion people which means that over 19% of all the people in the world live in China. It is closely followed by India with 1.23 billion people. Therefore just two countries, China and India, make up 36% of the world's population or more than one out of every three people in the world. 

Wonder if I will bump into anyone I know:-).....or WOW, what a place to play Jewish geography!

I was shocked by #3 on the list; the USA with 316 million people or 4% of the world's total. Canada ranks 37th with 35 million or less than half of 1% while Israel comes in at 97th with a population of 8 million; just over one tenth of one percent! 

Now think about the impact that tiny Israel has on the world! 

When one thinks of large cities in China, Beijing (22 million) and  Shanghai (19 million) immediately come to mind. But I am sure that very few people can name the next 13 cities with populations between 7 and 14 million people; names like Chongqing (14.7 million in the urban area and perhaps over 30 million if you include the rural outlying areas of the city!), Tianjin, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Harbin, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Xi'An etc. The numbers are staggering! 

Our quick walk tonight left us the impression that this is a very bustling city that is constantly in a state of added construction....and some of the construction is trendsetting modern....we hope to see more of that over the next few days that we are here. The contrast between the  ultra modern (e.g.: the Stadium) and the ancient is startling. 

I will post more interesting facts over the next few weeks and will try to include a posting on the history of the Jewish community in China.

In the meantime, here is an interesting tidbit....we are staying at the Marriott Northeast in Beijing over Shabbat, conveniently located in walking distance to one of the 2 Chabad centers in Beijing. Chabad's site, btw, lists 11 cities in China (including Hong Kong) that have Chabad centers....And if you go to the Marriott Northeast site and download their map of the local area, it not only shows local shopping malls, embassies and parks but also highlights in the upper right hand corner of the map the location of the Chabad House or in Chinese......北京犹太人中心

Amazing....what would travellers like us do without Chabad?

More to come....tomorrow, bright and early to the Great Wall....

All the best,

Fran and David....or in Chinese....弗朗西絲   - Frances;  大衛 - David

If you don't believe the Chinese characters spell out our names...go ahead....prove us wrong:-)

China Introduction

Our Air Canada flight to China left Toronto on time at 1:00 pm from Toronto's Pearson Airport. It was a full flight and thankfully, we were able to get our bulk head seats which made the 13 hour flight that much more comfortable. The flight path took us up over the North Pole and given that Beijing is in the northern region of China, the duration of the flight was just a bit longer than our flights to Israel, so the length of time is something that we have now gotten quite used to.

Those who have been following my posts know that I like to present a brief introduction and a few facts about the countries that we intend to visit. I get these facts and the pictures that accompany them from simple googling and a little cut and paste; and so our next post will do all that...first a few pictures to show some of the amazing scenery that awaits us:

More to come....

All the best,

Fran and David

Greece - June 2013 - Part 3

At 4 pm we were standing in front of the Museum where we met three others from Chicago who would do the walking tour with us and our guide Dimitrius. Dimitrius is a local native born Greek whose family originally came from Thessaloniki. His English which was quite good, was learned in school in Greece. He works full time as a guide for this company, Athens Free Walking Tours. 

The guides give free three hour long walking tours and "donations are accepted" at the end of the tour. The route which was well over 6 km long ( I simply had to check at the end just how far we had walked, so I google mapped the route!!! ), took us on a long circle around the Acropolis Hill and it covered most of the important routes in Athens. It was an excellent tour and gave us a great overview of this ancient and fascinating city.

We covered:

*Hadrian's Arch (which i covered in part one of the Day One Report); 

* The Temple of Zeus

*The Zappeion (the "convention centre" and first building in  to be erected specifically for the revival of the Olympic Games in the modern world, built in and named for its two benfactors Evangelis and Konstantinos Zappas);

*The Panathenaic or Kallimarmaro (meaning the "beautifully marbled") stadium is an athletic stadium that hosted the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. Reconstructed from the remains of an ancient Greek Stadium, the Panathenaic is the only major stadium in the world built entirely of white marble, seats 45,000 and is one of the oldest in the world.

*The street that house the residences of the President and Prime Minister of Greece and is some of the most expensive real estate in the city; we watched the very colourful changing of the guards there (watch the short video below the picture...it is quite interesting)

* through the beautiful and shaded National Gardens

* on to Parliament where we posed with the colourfully dressed and skirted soldiers

* we walked the length of the pedestrian shopping street, Ermou Street (most of which was closed, as it was Sunday...we will likely revisit this street when we return to Athens in 12 days);

* we continued to Monastiraki Square, it's colourful market and the quaint walking streets of the Plaka district; 

 

* and then up a very steep hill till almost the top of the Acropolis for an amazing panoramic view of the entire city of Athens.

It was a very informative and interesting tour and well worth the time and the long walk. We would highly recommend this walk.

As we were now relatively close to Chabad and it was close to sunset, we headed through the narrow winding streets and found Chabad and its Gostijo restaurant. 

We were all pleasantly surprised. It is a modern looking restaurant in the midst of an area that is a weird mix of graffiti and gentrification. It is housed in the Chabad House which was formerly a nightclub. The service was excellent, the food was plentiful and very tasty and the prices were reasonable. Here is what we had....

Starters of spicy tuna salad and Moroccan potato salad....each enough for a meal!

Mains were souvlaki (grilled chicken with marinated lemon and oregano) and stuffed eggplant with meat in tomato sauce.

Delicious freshly baked buns

We had one white and one red wine.

Both couples ordered the same mix of meals and the total bill for the four of us including tax and tip was about $100. Tons of food...all fresh...all delicious....great service. We would highly recommend this restaurant.

We met Rabbi Mendel Hendel who is the Chabad Rav and his rebbetzin Nechama. They have been here for 13 years. 

Rabbi Hendel showed us the text of the song Maoz Tzur that we sing on Chanukah in a Greek siddur. The verse that begins with "Yevanim Nikbetzu Alay" (literally "the Greeks gathered up against us") and has been replaced with the word "Hasurim" (the Syrians, rather than the Greeks) so as to keep the peace in the country. Self censorship.

There are very few dati Jews in Athens. Both the rabbi and his wife speak Greek, which they learned on arrival. He is from Migdal HaEmek and is part of a famous Chabad family from Montreal. She is from just outside Paris. We met their son Levi who is 5 years old and is very precocious. He speaks fluent Greek and Hebrew and also dabbles in French and English. Imagine how many he will speak when he is 10 years old!!!!

The Menu - a highly rated (on Trip Advisor) and highly recommended restaurant!!!
In fact, Rabbi Hendel told us that if you go to Trip Advisor, Gostijo is one of the highest rated restaurants listed for Athens. And because many people rely on Trip Advisor, he gets a lot of customers who are not Jewish. There was another table there of three people and they were not Jewish. We asked them how the food was and we got three thumbs up.

They have two other children that they sent off to school in Israel at ages 11 and 13!

Once again we are amazed at the mesiras nefesh of Chabad families who come to far flung Jewish communities and provide services for locals and one timers like us. They have a beautiful restaurant and a fully stocked kosher store.....you really can come here with little food, make a stop at Chabad of Athens and you are good to go!!!

The other thing that I wanted to add was that according to Rabbi Hendel, there is little anti semitism in Athens. When we mentioned the fact that we had read about an extreme right party that had gained significant seats in the recent election, he explained that they had gained seats mainly because of the poor economic conditions in Greece. They have large numbers of volunteers who help the poor and aged and therefore had gained favor in the eyes of the public.

He did not discount the fact that their philosophy and views are not those that would make us feel all warm and fuzzy but he said that he walks around all the time with a kippah and had not experienced any issues. He felt that other than pickpockets, you were safe in Athens. Therefore like in any other large metro area, it is important to always be aware and vigilant.

As far as the local community is concerned, he said that he has financial support from some local families although because of the financial crisis in Greece some of the families have reduced their support. He remains very optimistic.

Needless to say that by now (9 PM), after a long day that began at 4 AM and had covered many walked kilometres, we were exhausted. We caught a cab and had a great night's sleep at the Sofitel.

We are now in the Aegean Lounge waiting our flight to Mykonos....this awaits us...have a great day,

All the best

Fran and David

Next....Mykonos

Greece - June 2013 - Part 2

Dear All

We left for the airport at 5 AM and after checking in, davened at the lounge before boarding our flight. We arrived in Athens at 9 AM after a short 2 hour flight on Aegean Airlines. 

We cleared immigration and customs, collected our luggage and checked into our hotel (Sofitel) immediately across the roadway from the airport. We unpacked and then met up with Irving and Ruchama and caught a cab to the centre of Athens. 

On the way, we had a long conversation with the cab driver who briefed us on the terrible financial situation that is being faced by many Greeks; he said that we will be shocked by the number of closed stores; tourism is down; and families are having trouble making ends meet.

We had him drop us off at the Jewish Museum. It is a small museum with much of it devoted to the decimation of the community during the Shoah and the role that the resistance played in battling the Nazis. There was a group tour of Greek non Jews taking place while we were there.

As we left the Museum there was a dance troupe in native dress that allowed us to pose for pictures.

When we left the museum, we headed to the Greek Parliament where there was a memorial service taking place in memory of the genocide of Greeks by the Turks on May 19, 1919. It was in Syntagma Square and there were some bench seats around, so we found some shade and had our lunch.

Syntagma Square is the main town square in Athens directly across the road from the Parliament Buildings. 

Ruchama had found this free walking tour of Historic Athens online, (you take a guided tour for three hours and then you pay the guide whatever you think it was worth) and we had arranged to meet the guide at 4 PM so we had a few hours to fill. We decided to fill it up inside, with some much needed air conditioning (it was 33 C today in Athens; unseasonably hot), so we headed towards the Museum of the Acropolis). On the way to the Museum via a walk thru the lush shaded National Gardens, we passed Hadrian's Arch; looking thru the arch you could see the Acropolis.

The Arch of Hadrian is a monumental gateway built in 131 CE  that spanned an ancient road from the center of Athens to the complex of structures on the eastern side of the city that included the temple of Zeus.  The arch was built to celebrate the arrival of the roman emperor Hadrian and to honor him for his many contributions to the city. 

Two inscriptions are carved on the arch’s lower level, one centered over the arched opening on either side. On the northwest side (towards the Acropolis), the inscription was:

• ΑΙΔ' ΕIΣΙΝ ΑΘΗΝΑΙ ΘΗΣΕΩΣ Η ΠΡΙΝ ΠΟΛΙΣ (this is Athens, the ancient city of Theseus)

The inscription on the southeast side (facing the Olympeion) read:

• ΑΙΔ' ΕIΣΙΝ ΑΔΡΙΑΝΟΥ ΚΟΥΧI ΘΗΣΕΩΣ ΠΟΛΙΣ (this is the city of Hadrian, and not of Theseus).

We soon came to a lovely pedestrian street that leads up to the Museum. 

The museum is relatively new and a very modern beautiful building. it was opened in 2009. It was built to house the many artifacts that were found on the Acropolis Hill.

We spent about an hour looking at some of the many relics and archaeological finds that were on or around the Hill. As well, there are parts of the building that are built directly on top of ancient streets and ruins. In these instances, the architects of the Museum built the building with glass floors so that you can see the original 2000 year old street below from this very modern building above it. 

In one of the exhibits we saw scale models of aspects of the architecture of the Acropolis that we would see later when ascending to the top of the hill. 

From the patio on top of the Museum, you can see the amazing views of the Acropolis towering high above you and to the left, the highest hill in Athens, Mount Lycabettus. At 277 meters (908 feet) above sea level, the hill is the highest point in the city that surrounds it.

The hill is a popular tourist destination and can be ascended by the Lycabettus funicular which climbs the hill from a lower terminus.The hill also has a large open-air theater at the top, which has housed many Greek and international concerts.

It was now time to proceed to our walking tour which would take a total of three hours....

All the best

Fran and David