Beijing

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So, we went to Beijing! It was really really great. We spent a total of 4 days there, and I think we basically covered everything before moving on to Xi'an. But, this blog post is only about Beijing. The Xi'an post will come later...

The group that went on this trip was Katie, Emily, Nikhail, Jason and I. We have actually done a lot of our trips together, and we usually have a pretty good time together despite the occasional drama. We took a soft sleeper overnight train from Shanghai to Beijing at 7:44 last Thursday night. One of our friends who was coming with us ended up getting back to campus a little late, and we ended up getting onto the train about 10 minutes before it left. We basically had to run the the metro, and then run to the railway station. But, we got there on time, and that was a huge relief. The trains we took was a Z train (the fastest train), and we were in a room with 4 bunk beds, and a small table in the middle. It was a pretty nice train ride, and I was able to sleep more than I thought possible on a train. The guys had a room next door with a couple that was from Lousiana, so it was fun to meet them.

When we arrived in Beijing, we took a taxi to our hotel to drop off our stuff. Our hotel was pretty close to the Forbidden City, so we decided to do that first. We had no idea that it would take all day! We walked to the Forbidden City along some side streets, where Katie and Jason bought Mao Zedong hats to fit in a little better. At the entrance of the Forbidden City is a HUGE painting of Mao Zedong, and inside there are huge expanses of pavement or stone. There aren't very many trees or things to block the view. I've heard that the Forbidden City was built this way because the emperor was paranoid and he wanted to make sure that he could see everything that was going on. There were some cool buildings in the Forbidden City, and there were some places where you could learn more about the dynasties and the different rooms and what they were used for. After walking through the city, there is a garden where the concubines of the emperor lived. It was a nice little garden. The most amazing thing about the Forbidden City was just how HUGE it was. It was probably at least 2 square miles!

After the Forbidden City, we went out to find somewhere to eat. We ate near Beihei park at this little restaurant. The food wasn't extraordinary, but it was right on this lake, which was gorgeous. When we were eating it started to rain, but we still wanted to see a little bit more of the city. We tried to get into Beihei park, but it was closed, and we just ended up wandering around for a while until we decided we were wet and tried enough to go back to the hotel. That evening we went to see Kung Fu Panda in a theatre near our hotel. I saw Kung Fu Panda in China! It was a pretty funny movie, and it was fun to be able to recognize some of the Chinese subtitles.

The nexy day we went to the Summer Palace, which is where the Empress Dowager built a huge palace. This place is the biggest garden I have ever been in. The palace itself is on top of a mountain, and offers a great view of Beijing, even though you couldn't see much because of the terrible pollution in Beijing. I'm not sure how they are going to clean that up. It is the most polluted place I have ever been. The summer palace was gorgeous though. At one point in the day I was wandering around looking at some of the temples and pathways, and this Chinese man thought I was lost and pointed me in the right direction. After about 15 minutes, I realized he was following me, and kind of tried to ignore him so that he would leave me alone. It started raining, and I stopped underneath a building to wait for the rain to stop. When I came back out he was still there, so I decided I might as well make a new friend. In my broken Chinese, we talked about where he was from, and I told him that I was a student in Shanghai. He is a professor at Beijing University. I told him that I was studying Chinese this summer, and then he started teaching me all of the Chinese names for the buildings and the gardens we were passing. I told him that I wanted to meet my friends at a certain art gallery, and so we headed in that direction. By the time we got to the art gallery, I had made a great new friend, and I'm sure he was tired of babysitting me, so we parted ways. He kept wanting to take pictures of me in front of the famous Chinese monuments, and he was also kind enough to take some pictures of me with my own camera too.

As a side note, whenever I am traveling in China, Chinese people always come up to foreigners and ask to take pictures with them. Whenever we go to tourist spots, we get this request about 2-3 times a day, and it makes for good stories later on. I think the Chinese are just so proud that people from the other side of the world come to visit their national heritage sites. Plus, they aren't used to our light colored hair, and they always get a kick out of learning the English words for things. It is a lot of fun to take pictures with them. The women usually hold your hand or put their arm around you. They are very affectionate people.

Anyway, so after the Summer Palace we came back and made our plans for the great wall in the morning! We woke up the next morning around 7:00 and headed for a place called Jinshan Ling, which is one of the entrances to the Great Wall. We took the metro to the long distance bus station. Then, we took a bus to Miyun, which is the closest city to this part of the Wall. In places like Miyun, there aren't any taxis, and so there are just these guys on the side of the road offering to take you in their car. The first guy that approached us offered to take us to Jinshan ling for 50 yuan per person. After some bargaining, we ended up squishing 6 people into a small 5-person sedan for a 20 yuan per person 1.5 hour car ride to Jinshan Ling. It wasn't especially comfortable, but it was so cheap!

We got to the wall around 1:30. We took a cable car up to the top of the wall, and started our 10 km hike along the wall to Simatai. There were about 5 ladies who followed us, helping us to climb the steps and asking us all about our families and helping us along the trail, although their help was completely unsolicited. They told us that they were farmers, and they come up to the wall to sell souvenirs because their crops weren't doing well. They kept asking us if we would buy something at the end, and we told them maybe. They were really nice ladies, and one of them told me I was the prettiest out of my friends, which made me feel pretty good because I looked like I had just climbed the great wall...

The view from the top of the great wall was fantastic, and hiking the great wall was definitely one of the best experiences I have had in China. The weather was gorgeous, and it was awesome to look across the mountains and see the great wall snaking for miles and miles. It was really an adventure. Some parts of the wall were very steep and took both hands to climb while other parts were well paved and restored for the tourist industry. At the middle point of the hike, the ladies we were with asked us to buy some things from them, and I ended up paying 110 yuan for a t-shirt. Most t-shirts only cost 20 yuan, but I felt bad that they had hiked so far with us and they were so nice. It turns out I was just getting ripped off, but I did get a "I Climbed the Great Wall" t-shirt. It was fun to get to know the ladies, too.

The hike was really one of the best experiences. I loved the amazing views and visiting each guard tower. You could see where the elements had really taken a toll of the Wall. It was just awesome to see.

Once we got to Simatai, we had to pay for the same taxi driver to take us back to Miyun. Then we paid another taxi driver to take us back to Beijing. Our goal was to get back in time to go to Outback Steakhouse. We had seen one the day before on Wanfujing street, and we had been looking forward to it all day. We got to Outback around 9:30. I had a chicken burger (oohh...so good) and then we went back to our hotel.

Our last day in Beijing we spent on Wanfujing road and the Olympic Park. First we went and saw the Bird's Nest Stadium and the Aquatics Center that they are building. It is so huge!! It was a really neat atmosphere too. People constantly were taking pictures with us when we first got there, and we signed a huge banner with Chinese characters on it. Then we went to Wanfujing Road. There were lots of Beijing Olympic shops, and there was also a whole road dedicated to skewers. I tried a scorpion, monkey meat, and dog meat among some other more normal things. The scorpion was pretty disgusting. The monkey meat and the dog meat weren't too different than any other meat like beef or chicken. I mostly did it to say that I did 😊 So, mission accomplished. A friend who was with us, Nikhail, also had snake, cicadas, silk worms, and sheep testicles!! Gross!! It was a really interesting evening.

After eating at Outback again (shame on us), we left for the train station. We had this guy with a handicapped van take us so that we could fit all of our luggage and all 5 people. He was a really nice guy who knew some pretty good English, and he used to work at a hotel. We got to the train station 30 minutes before our train, and boarded without the stress that we had experienced a few nights earlier.

I'll write more about Xi'an sometime in the next few days. Hopefully I will be able to add some pictures as well. Right now I can't do much because my laptop's hard drive was somehow damaged, and I am waiting to return to the states. So, I have been bumming off of the program's computers and my roomate's computer, although she isn't very willing to share. I hope to put up some pictures in the next few days!

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