Christmas Eve

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This is Mark again, and I'm going to go ahead and give a run down of our day and only post a couple of pictures from my iPhone. Later, we'll come back and add pictures once Deb is awake. Merry Christmas by the way, as it Christmas morning here!

We started the day real early to visit Mao's Mausoleum before the line got long. The subway was quite an adventure at 7:30am in rush hour. Each train was packed and we ended up waiting three trains until all six of us could squeeze in together. We ended up waiting only perhaps 5 minutes in line to see what might be Mao's preserved body. We had heard previously that the body in the mausoleum is often times a wax replica as they limit how much Mao's body is on display to help preserve him. He looked pretty good (though certainly puffy) for someone that has been dead for thirty years!

Unfortunately, the National Museum is closed for restoration, but we were able to get into the Great Hall of the People (the Chinese legislative building). The building was impressive, with large halls and an impressive auditorium that seats about 10,000 people. There were preparations underway for some kind of an event, we were guessing that it might be for Mao's birthday on Saturday, but given that the tour was entirely in Chinese we weren't given much of a clue!

Next, we were visited the Beijing Exhibition and Planning Museum. The highlights were large scale models of both historical Beijing and a current display. The current display took up an entire room which was a combination of aerial photos that you could walk on and physical models. It was a very good way to appreciate the size and layout of Beijing. We saw a couple interesting IMAX type movies about Beijing's history and transportation plans for the future (transportation is certainly a huge problem here).

After leaving the museum we walked through the former Legation Quarter and took the subway to visit the Bell and Drum towers. Both had long, very steep climbs to the top. Both had nice views of Beijing and we were lucky enough to climb the Drum Tower just in time for a drum exhibition on the very large drums in the tower by 5 performers. Our family percussionists thought their percussion skills were a bit sloppy, but when you're playing a 5 foot diameter drum, I don't think precision is the main focus!

We had hoped to eat at an Italian restaurant that was well reviewed close to the Towers, but it was only open for dinner. Luckily for the kids, there happened to be a McDonald's close by. It was nice to get off our feet for a while and enjoy some french fries and burgers. We then walked through a very nice area of shops and bars called Hoo Hai Lake. Mike found a Chinese large furry hat with a Chinese army star on it, while Steve purchased a Mao style green cap with red star. Diana and Deb bought some small items and there was a bargaining by all!

There was a neighboring hutong area to walk through which we did. We visited the home of Mei Lanfang, a famous Chinese opera entertainer of the mid 20th century. The home was being preserved as part of a larger effort to keep some of "old Beijing" from being developed into large apartment complexes.

Next came our version of Mao's Long March. Deb wanted to visit another restored hutong that she had read about, but it was a long walk with no subway option and we'd be left with a decent walk after that to the restaurant we had planned for dinner. We found the hutong shopping area Deb was looking for (Nan Luogu Xiang), which was a nice, upcoming area. Feeling that we needed a little pick me up, we enjoyed some churros covered in warm chocolate sauce from a street vendor. It might have been a little risky from a health point of view, but they were very tasty! Deb did a little shopping, finding an Obamao shirt for Mike that she had read about.

We then began our final trek to our destination for dinner, The Red Capitol Club. This was a highly recommended small restaurant done in a theme of old Communist China. We had an address and a general idea of the location but had a lot of difficulty in finding it. After two phone calls to the restaurant, the staff at the restaurant told us to stay where we were and they would come get us. In about five minutes, a waiter from the restaurant showed up on bicycle (dressed in an old style Chinese uniform) and escorted us personally to the restaurant! We never would have found the restaurant as it was off the main street in a dark, quiet hutong. The restaurant was worth the adventure. The restaurant was decorated in Mao-era decorations, including an old phone you could pick up and listen to Mao giving a speech. We started off with drinks in the bar and some very funky, unique drinks. The highlight was Mike's Lin Biao's Crash. Lin Biao was a close confident of Mao who died in a plane crash. The drink was a flaming drink which was sight to behold! We had a great meal of assorted Chinese food, we left stuffed. We were all worn out when we made it back to the hotel.

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