Welcome Shu Shu! Let's go back to Beijing

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In Chinese, uncle is Shu shu if it's the father's brother. Shu shu (Uncle Matt, as he's known in the US) arrived after a very long flight that originated in California. We spent the first few days showing Matt our neighborhood, eating some classic Chinese dishes and also some classic Italian (when you have kids, and one kid has a birthday, and that kid isn't a fan of Chinese, you do Italian!). We've also wowed him with our culinary skills by whipping up some french toast, exotic fruit salad, and bacon. It's fun to see Shanghai, and China, through a visitor's eyes. Just like when my dad and Eileen came, Matt is adventurous and open to the differences in a new culture.

In a somewhat spontaneous turn of events, the kids and I went with Matt to Beijing by train. Last time when the whole family went, in April, we flew. This time, we took the train (cheaper and different) during the day to Beijing and the overnight, sleeper train back. We sat in soft seat (first class) and the trip was pretty smooth. The kids watched a movie, I read an entire book, Matt read about Beijing and China. They sell food on the train, but we brought loads of snacks, bread and peanut butter and some sweet treats. We did enjoy seeing what was for sale though. The train attendants sell microwaved popcorn, boxes of tomatoes, chips, crackers and many other unidentifiable bags of Chinese snacks. We did buy some Pringle-like chips that were potato flavored. This is funny to me not only because they were potato flavored potato chips, but considering many chips here are sold with meat flavor, some with fruit flavors like kiwi or vegetable flavor like cucumber, I was surprised to find such a simple choice.

We were not the only foreigners on the train but we were, as always, a noticeable minority. Mostly, people smiled at the kids and didn't pay much attention to us. We had a very noisy passenger in our car who was clearing his throat in the pre-spit way that is part of the background noise of life in China, and so I had to put my iPod on to tune out the noise. I think throat clearing, pre-spit gets the point across, but know that it's icky.

We arrived in BJ at about 9:30pm. I had tried to travel lighter than normal but I sort of failed. We each ended up with a wheeled bag in various sizes plus we had a bag of food and a few backpacks. Matt was super helpful with the kids bags and Nathan pulled his own most of the time. It's inevitable that when coming and going in Chinese train stations, you will be forced to take a bag up and down some of the stairs. There are escalators but not all the time. Sometimes there are ramps to push or pull wheeled bags up or down, but they are tricky to use in huge crowds on steep staircases. We made it, though.
In an effort to stay lower budget, but also somewhere nice, I chose the Holiday Inn Central Plaza. I found it on Tripadvisor and booked directly with the hotel. While the location was not as convenient to some of the main BJ attractions like the Forbidden City, our plan was to spend the first day out at the Great Wall and the LongQing Gorge, so it seemed like the location would not be a big deal. Just like Shanghai, taxis are cheap and we were only about 20-30 minutes away from the main tourist areas.

The hotel was perfect. We had a very spacious, modern room and the breakfast was great (Slaven travel law is to have breakfast included in room rate). The Tripadvisor reviews mentioned Storm, the hotel's concierge. Before I could seek him out, he came and found me at breakfast. I'm not sure if he reviewed the new guest list and saw we were good candidates for needing assistance, but he found us right away and helped us throughout our two night stay.

I had arranged a private car on my own before we came to BJ. I found the company online, and they turned out to be very professional and helpful. I had an English speaking organizer, but I opted out of the English speaking guide in addition to the driver. I speak enough Chinese that we were fine. Plus I emailed back and forth in English with the travel arranger so our itinerary was set. Our driver was great.
The info for the company I used to hire the car is: www.authenticchinatour.com, and email is [e-mail].

I was nervous about the weather for our day outdoors because the forecast said it would rain all day. Thankfully, weather predictions in China are as inaccurate as in the US. We had a perfect day. No rain, just cloudy (or smoggy?) skies and cool temps. It was in the 70s (F). Unheard of in July in Beijing. Lucky us.
First stop on our tour was the Badaling entrance to the Great Wall. Our driver drove carefully and drove us up to the ticket gate for the cable car ride over to the Wall entrance. We bought our tickets and were surprised to see so few people in line for the cable cars. I made a false assumption that this meant it was not going to be crowded. WRONG! So not the case. Badaling is one of the most popular entrances and there appeared to be many tour groups there. Normally I would not have picked it, but it was the best option for our plan to do both the Wall and the Long Qing Gorge on the same day. Having been to Mutianyu on the last BJ trip, the contrast was very obvious. This site was very crowded, the walk along the wall was absurdly steep, but it was still the Great Wall. Still amazing. Still worth it. Matt and Nathan walked ahead of us, and Emily and I kept a slower pace. It was difficult to make much progress since we were stopped about every five minutes to take pictures. These stops would invariably end up being endless photo shoots until I finally had to shout "OKAY!" and usher Emily onwards. It was crazy.


Next...Long Qing Gorge

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Comments

[Linda]

How terrific to have Uncle Matt with you for summer vacation. The kids must be loving showing him the sights.

[Lorraine]

Love your travel blog!
My husband and I have lived in China for about 2.5 years. We have traveled to some of the places you guys went, but I wish I could have planned them as nice as you did!!!