China part 1 - Beijing 3/17-3/20

Friday
We arrived pretty late in Beijing between a delayed flight out of Tokyo, difficulty finding our driver in the midst of the insanity of the arrival lounge of Beijing Airport, the 45-minute drive into the city, and a bit of incompetence at the check-in desk. So by the time we finally hit our beds, we fell fast asleep.

Saturday
We met up with Kate’s friend from college, Julie, who is living and working in Beijing. She had offered to take us to lunch and show us a bit of the city. We hopped a taxi to a big market area (forgive me, I’ve forgotten names) where we dodged beggars and street vendors to a big bustling Chinese restaurant. So bustling, in fact, that we had to pay for our meals in advance. We each ordered a cold noodle dish with various vegetables and some kind of sauce, a delicious mild eggplant dish and a rather plain dish of broccoli and butter and the free Chinese tea.

After lunch, we headed into the market. The basement floor was a wet market selling live fish, seafood, and dried food and vegetables. The first floor was a maze of stalls of typical Chinese souvenirs. The second was a huge market for knock-off designer goods and the top floor was nothing but pearls and jade jewelry (“You want pearl? You like earring?). Random, right.

After the market Julie had to leave, but she suggested we head to the Houhai area on the river. This area is very popular with young people. The riverside was lined with bars and coffee shops. I imagine it’s very interesting at nighttime. Alas, it was mid afternoon, but it was still very busy. The weather was gorgeous so Kate and I just ambled along the river for awhile. Soon enough we realized we were kind of lost, so we decided to stop into a cafe for a drink with the hopes that that someone could point us in the right direction.


At 7:00 we had to meet our tour guide and our group for some paperwork and introductions to the people with whom we’d be spending the next 9 days in cramped quarters. Our guide’s name was Anthony. He’s this hilarious 30-something Chinese guy with fantastic English who proved to have patience beyond my comprehension. There were two trainee-guides along with us, Howard and Dragon (weird name). Our group consisted of a dumpy looking British couple (later nicknamed by Kate as Baldy and the Beast); an obnoxious, borderline alcoholic, 30-something Australian woman and her mom (the mom was nice); two random middle-aged American dudes – one a fat, ugly, compulsive liar from somewhere in California (Mr. D) and the other a random dude from Pennsylvania who kept saying he was from NY (Mr. H); a lovely 22 year-old British girl named Lucy and an awesome 40-something Australian couple, Pamela and Richard. Needless to say, it was an interesting group.

After the meeting, Anthony took us to a famous restaurant for Peking Duck. We walked through a maze of hutong, or alleyways, where the local people live in very traditional and very basic accommodation with no modern facilities, running water or private bathrooms. It was very interesting to see. As Beijing (all of China for that matter), is developing so quickly for the Olympics, most of the hutong are being closed down, and the local people displaced to make way for modern apartment buildings, shops and hotels.
Peking Duck roasting



Anyway, we ate the famous Peking Duck which was delicious, with beer, tofu, vegetable dishes and ice-breaking conversation. Mr. D cause some uncomfortable moments by questioning Anthony about Chinese politics and the Tiananmen Square massacre. It was very interesting because it hit me just how indoctrinated and uninformed the Chinese government keeps its people. I’m trying not to make judgments, just comments on what I saw. For example, Mr. D. asked Anthony how old he was/where he was when the massacre in Tiananmen happened. Anthony replied by saying that honestly, we would know more about it than he did. He was a student when it happened and the next day, in the newspapers, there was only a small sideline saying that some people had been killed, that the government had taken measures against unruly students who were shooting at soldiers, in an effort to prevent a mass uprising in the city. He also spent a significant amount of time telling us the virtues of communism. It’s hard for me to decide if he really felt this way, or if he has been trained to say these things to foreign tourists, or if the government has restricted information so much that he isn’t aware of other options. I don't know.

Sunday
On Sunday morning, we were up at 9:30, in our comfortable shoes with our water and snacks and warm clothes for the much-anticipated trip to The Great Wall. It was about a two-hour drive from the center of Beijing to Mutianyu, the section of the Wall that we were going to visit. Apparently, there are only certain sections of the Wall that tourists can visit (makes sense), and I’ve heard that Mutianyu is one of the better and less-touristy sites. Kate and I had elected to climb up to the wall, rather than take the cable car. The climb was about 45 minutes of panting and wheezing (just kidding… kinda) and removing layers, but we finally made it up. I’ll kind of let the pictures do the talking here, cause I feel like that’s probably more interesting that whatever I could possibly blab on about it.




I saw this man playing the flute on the climb down from the wall. Lovely.


After the trip to the Great Wall, we drove an hour and a half back into the city where we watched a Chinese acrobat show. It was so cool. Seriously, the kids (all junior high-school aged) in this show must have bones made of jelly or something. I highly recommend seeing one of these shows (Kat, Golden Week suggestion).

When we returned to the hotel, we had another group dinner at a Sichuan restaurant down the street from the hotel. After dinner, I showered and passed out.

Monday
On Monday morning, we met in the hotel lobby from where we took the short walk to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. The thing that struck me about Tiananmen Square was the cleanliness of it. The ground was spotless, unlike the rest of China where the men hock loogies and spit every 5 minutes and young children squat and pee on the sidewalk. No lie. The other thing is the sheer size of it. According to Anthony, it’s the biggest square in the world.
It was a sunny day. The grey sky is beacuse of pollution

There's Chairman Mao. The Chinese can't get enough of this guy.

Little kid running with Chinese flag


We made our way to the Forbidden City where we took a tour which lasted about 3 hours. It was a very long tour and the City was quite crowded, but the weather was awesome, so it was rather pleasant. Again, here are some pictures.



We had the afternoon free until about 6pm. Kate and I made our way around the massive shopping street called Wangfujing and eventually settled into a hotel bar to rest our feet and have a few cocktails before dinner.

We met the group at 6pm, ate dinner, collected our bags and made our way to the train station where we got a night train to Xian, our next stop. The night train was very interesting. There were six beds in a cabin stacked with three on each side and about 12 inchese between them. Very cozy. And of course, Kate and I had the top bunks. But, the beds were clean and came with blankets and pillows so it was rather comfortable. My only gripe was with the toilets which were absolutely hideous, but I’ll spare you the details…
Kate in her bunk

Me climbing to mine



More to come later. And I'll be posting all 150 of my pictures to my fotopage this week.