A New Year trip I took last year was to the Orient - China and Japan, to be specific. Living in the States, traveling half-way across the world to China and Japan seemed exciting and exhilarating - and it was. First stop, Beijing.

Beijing was interesting. Usually a person takes one step at a time and things get larger in proportion little by little. But not for me. I got off the plane only to see the largest airport terminal in the world in the Beijing Capital International Airport. The next day we saw the world’s largest steel structure, the Beijing National Stadium (a.k.a. the “Bird’s Nest”). It was designed for the 2008 Summer Olympics and Paralympics and was made with 110,000 tons of steel! We also visited the Swim Stadium, which sits right next to it. The Crowne Plaza hotel we were residing in, also one of the biggest I’ve seen, was adjacent to both of them, and apparently the athletes in the 2008 Summer Olympics had put up at the same hotel. It was exciting to think about staying in the same room Michael Phelps might’ve stayed in.

The Imperial Palace, another name for the Forbidden City, is considered to be the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world and defines the Chinese Imperial Palace from the start of the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. The individual Chinese-roofed buildings and domes are put together into miles and miles of beautiful structured palaces, each bearing a unique significance in Chinese history.

But the world’s “grandest” things didn’t just end here. I got to see the world’s longest man-made structure, the Great Wall of China, just a few days after I arrived. We learned about it in school, saw pictures of it on the Internet, and read about it in countless books. We saw animations and movies about the Wall and descriptions in museums, and heard about it in the news and people we knew. But unless someone sees it for themselves, they can never imagine how much justification the structure gives to its name. It really is “Great” just like it’s called, and with about 4,000 miles of the wall stretching and unfolding beautifully before me, it reminded me of the dancing Chinese dragon floating its way to the Emperor. I felt like I was at the top of the world, and now that I was, I couldn’t figure out which way to go. Little tunnels and pathways twisted and danced around here and there, some of them terminating in dead ends. Stairs and slopes were randomly placed and some of the wall was not even allowed access to the public. It seemed like a mysterious place that only a true ancient soldier from the 5th to 16th century BC would be able to feel the significance of.

One of the most interesting experiences I’ve had was the flower salad I ate in a traditional Chinese restaurant in Shanghai. The flower-eating in the restaurant was obviously something I had never tried before, and surprisingly, it tasted very good. I tried really hard to figure out the name of the place but failed due to the fact that it was all in Chinese and was the hardest name I have ever tried to pronounce! Living in the States, one would assume I knew how amazing skylines looked like, but Shanghai showed me a skyline I have never seen before, including the world’s highest observation deck atop Shanghai’s World Financial Center.

The Shanghai Maglev was another extremely amazing experience. The train, using magnetic levitation instead of the usual wheeled mass transit, is the fastest railway system of commercial operation in the world. If I remember correctly, we rode the Maglev at a speed of about 310 mph (500 km/h), one of the highest recorded speeds of mass transit other than aircrafts. In Xian we saw the Terracotta Armies including the8,000 soldiers, 650 horses, and 130 chariots which were buried underground until the 1980’s. They revolutionized the historical significance of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, who wanted to build the terracotta soldiers and horses as a means to accompany him in his afterlife, according to our tour guide.Another great experience in Xian was the Tang Dynasty Dinner show. This show recreates the life of royal court, the battle scenes, and the social conventions of more than a thousand years ago in the Tang Dynasty with a mixture of both song and dance. The wonderful performances and dinner put you right back in their time.

But all these sights came nowhere close to the splendor of the Snow and Ice Festival of Harbin, China. It isdifficult to decide where to start talking about Harbin. The snow sculptures during the day, and the ice sculptures at night looked like a dream. The humongous ice structures at night, some of them built to the scale of famous cathedrals, castles, and churches, shone with neon lights built within them. Disney World’s Cinderella Castle was one of the cathedrals drawn exactly to scale. The neon lights shown through the ice sculptures looked dazzling, making the festival one of the world’s best tourist spots. As much as my mind was being entertained, my body refused to cope. The -30 degree Fahrenheit weather prevented my toes and fingers from moving. I lost the feeling in my nose and ears, and as funny as it sounds, I had to keep touching them to make sure they were still there. The icicles growing on my eyebrows and eyelashes were scary, and so was the slow dying of our camera batteries. What was scarier was the thought of how bitter cold can creep through almost four to five layers of clothing. And with that thought, we took a last look at the majestic ice sculptures and resorted back to the warmth of our hotel room. All I could think about at this point was the fact that Japan had a more tropical climate than Harbin, China. And believe me, this was a true blessing!

More of my journal is to come. In a later issue, I will talk about a very exquisite Japanese experience.