Beijing

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Hong Kong - Beijing (Peking)
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009
We are celebrating a successful transition and will soon enjoy room service of Dandan noodles, rice and dim sum.
We left HK this morning in a bright, clear, sunny day; boarding a bus from our hotel and driving right to the airport, easy. We had no tickets but with information from Travel China we boarded a 2 and ½ hour flight on China Air- lots of leg room for Terry, he sat in the emergency door space which had one row of seats missing.
Upon our arrival, our private guide, Gloria and our driver were waiting for s and drove us across town to the Holiday Inn Central Plaza, south west of the 2nd ring road. This city has 5 ring roads or more and 15 million people according to the census but maybe more up to 20 million; all the signs are in Chinese, so Terry made a good move when he booked our tour.
Tomorrow we start touring at 9 after breakfast of wonton soup and egg cake??? That is what Gloria told us to eat.
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009
We had the wonton soup, nice, had it before but not for breakfast. We could not find he egg cake, we will try again tomorrow morning.
Gloria and the driver Guo were there bright and early as planned.
We started at the Temple of Heaven, which is where the Emperor used to go to pray for his people; he was one step away from God and was able to connect better than the average folk. The reason Asian people burn incense is that the smoke goes p to God and gets her attention. He temple was lovely however we were most impressed by the many seniors exercising, dancing, playing and generally enjoying themselves. Gloria brought us here first instead of the Forbidden City because of the seniors “show”, I was great. We were a little early for lunch, so she brought us to a silk factory where I pulled silk threads over many layers to flatten the matting of a quilt. Interesting, they use the cocoon of Siamese pupa for this purpose, the thread is double; the single worm pupa is used to make thread for fine material.
Lunch was at BaGuoBuYi Cuisine Restaurant, the best east Sichuan style food in China. Bean curd in hot chili sauce with green onion was my favorite; T and I have gained a bit of weight through this trip!
Time for Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. We saw Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum on one side of the square and the People’s Reunification Hall on the other side; these buildings are from the 50s and made of grey stone and very Chicago plain architecture, a lovely contrast to the ornate style of the palaces to come. There are moats, gates, more gates and finally we come to the Palace Museum. The Palace of the Emperor was reserved for Himself, his Empress and concubines and the Eunuchs; it is composed of 3 Temples for prayer and audiences: and the first starting closest to the North gate is the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the second, the Hall of Complete Harmony and the third, the Hall of Preserving Harmony. We then walked through the Gardens of the Palace and one of the 12 Palaces behind the main buildings also containing 3 buildings: the audience room, the dining room and the sleeping quarters. All in numbers of 5 and 9 which are lucky numbers for the Chinese and then 3 also. The Temple of Heaven had a Mound and it is situated 3 tiers above the ground, at its center is a stone, around it are 3 pieces, then 9, 2, 81… and so on and son till 9,999 ½, not 10, 000 because 10 is a perfect # ad for God alone: great geometrical architecture, dating back to the early 1400, the height of Chinese civilization. Read 1421 and 1434!
We were done by 3 and asked to go to see the Hutongs which are streets 1 to 9 meters wide on each side of which were built courtyards with 4 houses usually for different members/generations of the same family. We saw one quadrangle where one building was the kitchen, the other the bedroom and a third the in-laws suite; the courtyard was covered by a trellis supporting grape vines, an apricot tree, tomatoes were growing on the roof and one room was where the husband made and sold paper cuttings and his 2 brothers painted scrolls.
It was time for a rest as we had walked 8 km, we had a break at the hotel where we were to have our Peking Duck Banquet. At 6 we went in to dinner and told Gloria that we could not stay for the 7:30 Chinese Opera performance as we were too tired( other tourist told us that the screeching was painful but the dace was nice). Home by 7:30 and I am going to bed now.
Tomorrow The Great Wall.
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
After a lovely breakfast of egg cake, we started this morning at 8:30 and drove out of town to the Ming Tombs; built centuries ago by Emperors while alive to receive their remains and those of their Empresses. We walked a lovely peaceful path, between weeping willows then statues of animals and civil servants, all to attend the Emperors in their afterlife. The Ming Dynasty lasted about 300 years between 1368 and 1658; there were 13 Emperors, 10 buried in this valley where the Feng Shui is perfect: hills on 3 sides including north to guard against bad spirits, water in rivers in the valley to complete the Ying and Yang of Wind and Water. ·Gloria analyzed our cottage in Feng Shui and we have a hill in the north with water to balance it, perfect and Terry’s chair on the verandah welcomes faces the door to welcome good spirits, we are just fine.
We went to lunch at a restaurant where a lady played Goudong and then assisted in an art auction. The food was good because again chosen for us by Glory Guo, our very competent guide from the Travel China Company. She is a very bright, lovely and determined young woman and she makes sure that we are always well served.
This afternoon, we drove to the Great Wall, barely saw 2 parts of it in the hills then walked in to the Bandanlig restored part; we saw nothing! The clouds were enveloping the whole area; it was cold, miserable and raining. Domage! We walked between a few turrets and through some but could almost not see the next turret in front of us, the one behind us or any of the beautiful high mountains all around us.
We packed it in, drove back to Beijing, close to our hotel (5-10 km) and asked to be left off at the Silk Market where we had heard on the News that fake watches could be purchased. Again, Gloria directed us instead to the better Pearl Market where we dismissed our guide and driver and explored on our own in a BIG town where few people speak English. A bit scary. We walked in and Terry found his favorite booth; I walked around and found many floors of booths selling jade, red paper, shoes, clothes, knock off purses, mahjongg tiles, cosmetics, socks and everything else. Everybody says “Halo…. Want to buy …..”, if you show any interest at all, they would grab me by the wrist and pull me back to their booth. We shopped for about an hour, purchased a coat for Terry, an embroidered Chinese silk jacket for me, a few watches- his and hers Rada, then decided to try to make our way home.
Gloria told us to get a cab by the meter (remind you of Megan much?) and the charge was 3 RMB to get in and 2 RMB a Km there after: so maximum 23 RMB or Yuan which is a Chinese $, worth 20 cents Canadian x 23, so about 5 $ Cnd. WELL, outside the market, we stuck out like a sore thumb as tourists and the cab drivers would not go on the meter, we got into 2 cabs and got out when they asked for 80 RBM to go to our hotel. We started walking and at a bus stop, we asked how to get towards our hotel. It cost 1 RBM each to get to within 1 km of our hotel and we had fun, it was an experience to have passengers on the bus trying to translate between us and the conductor. But we made it!
Home by 7:30, room service of spicy Dannan Noodles, Terry is drinking white Chinese liquor which tastes like blue cheese and I opened a small bottle of red wine from the mini bar. Packing, ready to go home tomorrow after the Water Cube, the Bird’s Nest and the Summer Palace. Pick up is leisurely at 10 am, flight at 4pm.
TTYS

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