Beijing

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So, it has already been two weeks since our trip to Beijing and I have not managed to post anything until now. I have been very busy with school work lately, but I finally feel like I am more on top of things now. Anyway, it was time Beijing was posted about, so here goes:

Train Ride - First Time in a Sleeper Car

We left Nanjing on Friday, November 16 at 9:30pm on the overnight train to Beijing, scheduled to arrive in Beijing at about 6:45am Saturday. When we got on the train we discovered that we would be sharing our 4-bed room with an English-speaking man from India. Him and his wife had been split up in two different sleeper rooms. We talked with them until about 1:30 in the morning and discovered that he was living and working in Nanjing from about July until next May. He used to work for Dell Tech Support in India, helping people in North America that had problems with their computers. He had several interesting stories to tell about this job, including some people who hung up on him once they found out they were talking to someone in India. Not quite understanding the toll-free concept, they thought they were being charged an arm and a leg without being told about it.

Getting off the train in Beijing, we were immediately introduced to the main difference between Nanjing and Beijing: Beijing was COLD! It was a clear, crisp morning and the temperature was a ripe 1 degree Celcius. The high for the day was supposed to be 4 degrees. Not like Nanjing at all, where we are currently still enjoying some days that are 15-20 degrees.

Once we found our mittens and made sure our coats were zipped to our chins, we met our tour guide for the weekend. Little did we know at this point that our tour guide was going to continue to speak in a monotonic uninterested voice for the entire weekend. She led us to the street and down about a block or two before we met our ride and our driver, who took us to our hotel.

Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City

Two hours, a shower and a breakfast later, we met our tour guide at the front door of the hotel again and walked to Tiananmen Square. Tiananmen Square is the biggest public square in the world. We saw the mausoleum for Chairman Mao, where people lined up for over 40 minutes just to walk by his burial place without taking any pictures. We saw the People's Monument for the Fallen Heroes, in the middle of the square this small stone structure is quite a sight. And we saw many, many people trying to sell us random things: kites, hats, mittens, information books, postcards, noisemakers, etc. Not as many people selling things as we had experienced in Shanghai, and not as many people trying to sell us Rolex watches, but they were still there.

At the far end of Tiananmen is the entrance to The Forbidden City. This place is incredible. The entire area is 78000 square metres and has 9999 rooms. The belief is that 10000 represented heaven and that the emperor was one step down from heaven, so he had one less room at his palace. The Forbidden City is called The Forbidden City because the palace itself is as big as a city and because the palace was off-limits to the common people. The closest the common people got to the palace was the courtyard in front of the palace, where the generals of the army were publicly executed if they lost a battle. We learned that two of the emperors that lived at Forbidden City were declared emperors when they were very young. One was made an emperor when he was 3 years old and one when he was 4 years old. In these cases, the empress (their mother) would sit behind the throne, shielded by a curtain, and tell the young emperor what to do. They had to sit behind a curtain because they were not allowed to face the public.

Blatant Marketing Ploy and the Summer Palace

Before leaving Nanjing, one of my students told me that you have not really seen Beijing unless you go to the Summer Palace. After visiting the Forbidden City in the morning, we had lunch at a very Chinese-touristy style restaurant. The restaurant had Chinese food, but it was very westernized Chinese food. We ate like this for most of the weekend, and were quite disappointed that we were not eating at more culturally-rich Chinese restaurants. Although, it was very amusing to watch the tourists who were obviously in China for the first time. They came into the restaurants and started taking pictures of the lazy Susan (which is in the centre of almost every single round table in China) and of each other trying to use chopsticks. The chopsticks only last for about 3 minutes before all of them are eating their food with a fork and a knife. Amateurs.

After lunch we piled into the van and continued driving. About 15 minutes later we stopped, where we thought was the entrance to the Summer Palace. It didn't look very extraordinary. Our tour guide informed us that before going to the Summer Palace, we were making a quick stop at a local pearl market. Anyway, we were treated to a demonstration of how to get pearls out of an oyster and then were each given a shiny pink river pearl (not as rare as ocean pearls) before being led into the merchandise area where we were hounded and strongly encouraged to buy pearl necklaces, bracelets and charms for everybody we knew. Less than 5 minutes later and without making a single purchase, we got back into the van on our way to the actual Summer Palace.

The Summer Palace was kind of like an extension to the Forbidden City. It is where the royal family came to live and work during the summer months. The entire area, the buildings, the lake, the bridges, everything is completely man-made, which is really quite incredible when you see the size of the lake. Although it was quite windy and cold that day, the Summer Palace made for a very enjoyable walk (especially after we got some hot chocolate).

Peking Duck

We couldn't leave Beijing without first trying the famous Peking (Beijing) Roasted Duck. That evening, we headed out on our own to track down a restaurant that served this specialty. We found one not far from our hotel and ventured in. Upon first look at the menu, it looked like we were maybe in trouble. A lot of stomach, liver and feet dishes. However, we managed to order the famous duck, plus a few other dishes that didn't turn out too badly. The duck was brought to our table on a cart and is carved right there. They start by chopping off the head, of course. They then slice the meat very thinly and the meat is eaten on small pancake-like things with a sweet sauce and onions. It was absolutely delicious! When we left the restaurant, there was a sign in the lobby that we think said something about fire safety, but we're not really sure because the English was that poor.

Ming Tomb and the Great Wall

The next day we headed out of the city to the north. Our driver took a detour on the way out of the city so that we could drive past some of the Olympic venues that are almost finished and ready for the Olympic games in August. We saw the Olympic Stadium, the Olympic Pool, Athletes' Village and the Tennis Stadium. The whole Olympic centre is in a great part of the city, with a gorgeous view of the mountains in the distance to the north.

Our first stop for the day was at the Ming Tombs area. There are 13 emperors, along with the empresses and concubines buried in this area. We went to the tomb of the 3rd emperor of the Ming Dynasty, the emperor who brought the capital city back to Beijing from Nanjing. The Ming Tomb here was very similar to the Ming Tomb in Nanjing, where the 1st emperor of the Ming Dynasty is buried. Although, it was neat to see the view of the other tombs scattered amongst the hills.

After another and another westernized Chinese meal for lunch, we headed out for the Great Wall. This was the part of the trip to Beijing that I was most excited about. From when we first drove up to the first section of the wall to when we were leaving, I was in awe. In awe of the magnificence of the wall itself, but also of the level of craziness that those ancient Chinese people must have reached to take on such as a task as building the thing. It's quite incredible, and the pictures don't do it justice at all. There is a reason why the Great Wall is included in the list of the Wonders of the World.

Anyway, our tour guide dropped us off, said something about how the wall had over 2000 years of history and then said she would meet us again in 2 hours. The place where we were dropped off was called Heroes Climb, and let me tell you it takes a hero to climb the thing. In the first section, just to get to the second watchtower, most of the steps involve a giant lunge upward because they go up so steeply. The weird part was that each step was a different size and height, so you couldn't even get into any kind of rhythm while you were climbing up. Also, the part where people constantly step is worn out, which has created a dent in each step. Well, not far into the climb, I felt like I was dying. I couldn't breathe and my short legs were not working well on the steep steps. I'm obviously not hero enough for Heroes Climb. After a lot of encouraging on Tim's part and with me wanting to hunt down and seriously hurt the ancient Chinese people who built this part of the wall, I finally made it to the second watchtower. Now even though I have no doubt, like our tour guide said, that the rest of the climb was not as killer as the first part, that was it for me. I stayed at the second watch tower for a bit, admired the view of the wall and the view back towards Beijing, and then began the careful climb back down. Liz and Tim made it to the top part of that section of the wall, where Liz turned around and came back down and crazy Tim continued on and finished the complete 4 km section of the wall, running part of the way. It's insane to think that the whole of the Great Wall that still exists is over 7000 km long!

Kung Fu Show and Olympic Shopping Fever

On the Sunday night, we went to see a Kung Fu stage show. It was interesting and different, but not worth the money that we paid for the tickets. Next time I go to Beijing (in February) I want to go and see the Beijing Opera.

On Monday morning, we had time to ourselves before having to meet our tour guide at noon. So, we decided to venture out for a walk down a pedestrian shopping street. Before walking 100 m down the street, we saw 3 different official Olympic stores. I purchased several items because the prices were actually very reasonable. We also made a stop at a Foreign Languages bookstore and I stocked up on some reading books for myself. When we came out of one of the stores, loaded with bags of Olympic gear, a young woman approached us and introduced herself as a reporter for U Magazine, stationed in Hong Kong. She interviewed us about what we had bought, took our picture and wrote down our names. So, we could potentially be in a Hong Kong magazine in the near future!

Temple of Heaven

After lunch, we went to the Temple of Heaven. This is where the emperor would come to pray on behalf of the people, usually for rain or good harvests. The architecture here was quite amazing. This is one of the only places in China where you will see round buildings, because it was believed that square or rectangular things represented earth and round things represented heaven. In one area here, there is a round building in an enclosed round stone wall. Our tour guide explained that the wall could reflect sound (we thought at first that she said the wall could reflect the sun, until she started talking about clapping) and that if you said something while facing the wall on one side of the round courtyard, that someone standing on the other side of the courtyard facing the wall could hear you as clearly as if you were standing right next to them. We didn't try this since there were too many people around, but we did try something else. Our tour guide also went on to explain that if you stood on the third stone from the round building and said something, you would hear it repeated back to you 3 times. We each gave it a shot: standing on the stone and clapping, trying to hear the echo. It didn't work. So, then we decided that if clapping wasn't going to work, maybe jumping would. So, we all took a turn jumping on the stone. Still no echo. So we all three jumped at once. No echo. Finally, we got 1 echo (but not 3...) by all 3 of us clapping at the same time. If it wasn't as windy and if there were less people around, maybe we would have gotten three echoes.

Return to Nanjing

After the Temple of Heaven, we were driven straight to the airport to fly back to Nanjing. The trip to Beijing was amazing and I am glad I will get the opportunity to go back to Beijing in February...and look forward to maybe even seeing some snow there at that point! Mike and Debbie were awesome about taking over our classes on the Monday while we were still in Beijing, but of course all of the Chinese teachers and students didn't understand why we had missed a day of work and were extremely concerned about our safety and well-being and asked us many questions the next day.


Other pictures of the Beijing trip:
Beijing Part 1
Beijing Part 2
Beijing Part 3

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Additional photos below

Photos: 15, Displayed: 15

Photos

Tiananmen Square
Liz and I at the emperor's gates.

Tiananmen Square
Me, Liz and Tim near the entrance to the Forbidden City.

A dragon at the Forbidden City
The dragon represents the emperor and the phoenix represents the empress.

The Summer Palace
This is where the royal family came to live and work in the summer months.

Olympic Stadium
Almost all ready for Beijing 2008!

View of some of the other tombs
At the Ming Tombs area in Beijing

After a little pushing...
Me at the Great Wall!

Three of us jumping...and still no echo!
...but it was fun!