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Published: September 28th 2006
Forbidden City
Entrance to the grounds.Monday September 18, 2006 - As we got closer and closer to Beijing, I got more and more nervous. A new country, a new language, leaving the comfort and isolation of my train cubby. Luckily, Robbie and Vikki were staying in the same hostel that I was going to, so we were able to navigate this together. We said good bye to Darragh and Caryl and made plans to see them for dinner, and we were on our way. First stop was the ATM. It was hot in Beijing - stepping out of fall and into summer - and the ATM itself was in a scorching cubicle. Had to hold the door open during the whole transaction. Then we tried to get a taxi to the hostel but they wouldn't give us the time of day. So we took my favorite, reliable transport - the metro. It was only two stops and easy enough in the middle of the day. We then had a bit of a wander, but eventually found the hostel, without too much in the way of hardships. As they were checking into their room, I was led to mine. I was meeting my friend Stephen, who I
Olympic Countdown
Everyone was extremely excited about the Olympics coming in 2008. had met in Africa, and he had already checked in. He had arrived earlier that day, and luckily, he had gone out for a bit. I say luckily because I had been on the train for seven days without a possibilty of a shower, and I was grateful for a chance to shower and unwind a bit before he came back. I neglected to mention this in my other blog but there are no showers on the train. I simply used baby wipes as a replacement shower, and did nothing with my hair but hide it all week.
After a wonderful hot shower, Steve came back and we caught up a bit. It had been three months since I had seen him last, so we had a lot to talk about. I told him I had made dinner plans for us with some train people and he agreed. He's from Scotland as are Vikki and Robbie, so I thought that would be something to talk about anyway. We went downstairs a little before the appointed meeting time in order to check out some of the possible things to see and do in Beijing and look into some of the
tours. Met up with Vikki and Robbie and then Tom from the train, who they had invited along as well. We were waiting for Darragh and Caryl for quite some time, maybe an hour, before I was able to reach them on a combination of text and phone on Steve's mobile. Everyone was starving but they weren't able to find our hostel without a proper map, so we met them at the restaurant. By then it was after 9pm and the restaurant was closed. Restaurants close early here. A waitress from the restaurant offered to take us to another branch that was still open and we agreed. It ended up being quite expensive, but we were hungry and tired so we ate there. We ordered Peking duck which was good. They roast ducks and then chop them up and bring it to you along with thin pancakes and spring onions and plum sauce. You put the duck in the sauce then into the pancake along with the onions and then roll it up. Really good. After dinner everyone came back to the hostel for a drink and afterwards we said good-bye to Darragh and Caryl one last time, as they
Roof dragons
These decorations are on most of the temple buildings everywhere in China. would be leaving Beijing the next evening. Steve and I headed back to the room and got some sleep.
Tuesday - The plan was to get up early and head to the Forbidden City, but we were jetlagged and lazy and slept in. Stayed inside until about 2pm, when we decided to see something of Tienamen Square, which was fairly close to the hostel. Tianamen is huge, and we walked around for a quite a bit. We were accosted by several "art students" who wanted us to come see their work. We ended up getting sucked in by two who said they wanted to practice their English and were helping us get tickets to a Chinese opera. It ended up at an art show and that's when I had to leave. Plus I was starving so we stopped in to a quick food joint for some lunch. Sat by the window and watched the world go by. Today was particularly hazy and smoggy, so much so that I wondered if it had really been sunny and clear the day before. But Steve told me that yes, it had been. Really a very polluted city. And to top it off,
Cool dudes
How much cooler can temple figures get? everyone spits everywhere. I think it is a reaction to the air pollution, but everywhere you go you hear people clearing their throats and hocking a loogie. Terrifying when you're wearing sandals and afraid people will be spitting on your toes. Ended the day early. Steve fell asleep and I tried to find a computer to email my dad for his birthday. Found one eventually and then read for a bit. Just couldn't get tired early enough.
Wednesday - Today we did manage to get up early and after breakfast (I had a huge plate of noodles) we walked over to the Forbidden City. This is where five centuries of emperors used to live with their wives and concubines, mostly from the Ming and Qing dynasties. Commoners weren't even aloud to approach the walls, hence the name. It has 800 buildings or so and is very big, an understatement really. Disappointingly some of the better buildings were under construction and we couldn't see them. There seems to be a lot of this in Beijing - probably for the 2008 Olympic games. We spent about three hours inside the walls but then everything started to look similar and it was
Good luck
I rang this bell three times for good luck...and only about 25 cents! overrun with tour groups so we took our leave. We went out the back exit and across the street into Jingshan park. Here we sat and relxed before climbing up a hill to a temple at the top that looks into the Forbidden City. Of course this temple is under construction, so our views were less than phenomenal. But it was still good. Next we walked to the nearby Beihai park, supposedly created by Kublai Khan. It is all situated around a large lake and there are many temples and buildings to be seen. There is also a 27 m dragon screen which is decorated on both sides. It is not a screen in the classic sense of the word, but rather made of ceramic tiles. Very pretty and one of the biggest in China. We finished off the day with a long walk back to the hostel, maybe an hour or so. We signed up for a tour of the Great Wall for the following day. For diner we headed to a little place on our spit-laden street. We got hailed in with a little Chinese lady saying "Hello!!!! Come in, sit down." So we did. We sat outside
and ordered chicken hotpot. Not traditional hot pot which is more like fondue, this one came with everything cooked and in the pot with a fire under it, to keep it hot on the table. It was delicious. Went back where Steve fell asleep early again and I spent a bit of time reading before finally drifting off to sleep.
Thursday - Today was highly unfortunate. I woke up around 5am with pains in my back/side that just kept getting worse. At 6am I woke Steve up to tell him I couldn't go on our tour and he arranged for us to go the next day. By 8am it hurt a lot more and I decided I needed to go to the hospital. I thought maybe it was my kidney. So we had to walk two streets over to pick up a cab who took us to my choice of hospital. We had to pull out the book and find the Chinese word for hospital, then he called the number to see which one and where it was. Once we arrived I felt better, of course. But they still did two hours and a hundred dollars worth of checking
Dragon
This is a close-up from one of the longest dragon screens in China. me out and x-rays. They even gave me two injections - of what I have no idea. They thought it might be kidney stones but nothing showed on the x-rays. In the end they said nothing was wrong and if it hurt again I should come back. Kind of a bummer.
We got back to the hostel and had lunch before setting out to the Temple of Heaven. Took about 40 minutes to get there and inside. There are several buildings to see there, and some were closed for renovation, of course. The grounds are big with a lot of green space and it took a while to cover. We started near the Round Alter, considered to be the very center of the Earth. This is near the Hall of Prayer of Good Harvest. This is where the emperor would come once each year with his royal court in order to pray for the harvest, an effective tool apparently. It was forbidden for the commoners to even catch a glimpse of the emperor and his enterage on their way through town, so they had to stay inside with the windows covered the whole time. This building is considered a
highlight - a large wooden beautiful building made entirely of wood with no nails at all. It was stunning. but you can't go inside - you can only peer in, making it difficult in the sun to see much. We walked around the gardens a bit and then headed back. Along the way was the Natural History Museum, and we decided to go in. They have a huge dinosaur exhibit, several animal skeletons, the history of evolution, you name it. Even a large stuffed giraffe. There was a scale where I could weigh myself where I found I still weigh the same as I did when I bungee jumped in March. Yee haw. But the highlight and the reason we went in was the next door building which houses human specimens in jars. All kinds of human pieces and parts - brains, heads, skins, cross sections of everything. It's all there, including two full human bodies in formaldehyde. They both have bags covering their heads, which is most disturbing. One of them has no skin except fingertips with fingernails. Really freaky. Perfect end to our hospital oriented day. Had a good meal at a nearby indoor restaurant and got to
A lovely boat ride
Actually this thing is made of marble and the money to build it was essentially embezzled by Empress Cixi from the navy! sleep early.
Friday - Today we woke up early for our Great Wall tour that left at 7:30am. It was called the Secret Wall tour, as they bring you to an unofficial, probably illegal, part of the wall that is completely unrestored and without an official entry ticket. All the other sites are apparently crowded with tourists, and we figured this would be a good way to escape that. And it was. It took almost three hours to get there - a long trip where I read and slept mostly. When we got there, we picked up our non-English speaking guide and started out. It was about a 30 minutes hike uphill to get to the wall itself. I had a little trouble at first, being so out of shape, but it was fine. There were 11 of us on the tour, plus the guide, and we were literally the only ones there. It was great. The hike was beautiful as well. I even forgot we were there to see the wall at all. It was just so pretty to look around. We took a few breaks to get there and then we were at the wall itself -
Yay for nice sunsets!
This was taken at the Summer Palace. the Great Wall of China. We could see quite a bit of it from where we were. It's really amazing. I had enough of a hard time getting up there with my water and camera - I can' imagine having to carry up all those bricks and stones to build the thing! We stayed up there for a couple of hours, hiking along and periodically resting and taking it all in. It was really a great day. We finally reached the last guard tower we would be going to, and there in the middle of nowhere was a man selling water, coke, candies, and souveneirs. Funny. We got some chocolate and then started our descent. Partially on the wall, and then the rest down a steep, rocky path. We ended up in a little town where we walked to a small restaurant and had lunch. It was a great meal, served the traditional Chinese way - lots of dishes, shared among everyone. Everyone on the tour was very nice and nice to chat with as well. After the meal we got back in the minivan with our spitting driver (out the window, luckily) and got back to Beijing about three
Freckly mama
Do I have more freckles than I used to? hours later. We had dinner and then went back to the hostel where I repacked and did a bit of book exchange in the hostel. Our last night in Beijing.
Saturday - Today we got up around 9:30am, finished packing, and checked out. Stored out luggage in the hostel and then started our day. Got some lunch - by far the worst meal we've had in China - and then I went to a pharmacy with a currency exchange. The place was big but I eventually found the money place and changed some dollars to yuan. Then we got on a bus to the Summer Palace, not realizing that it would take us 1.5 hours to get there by bus. We arrived around 2pm and walked around until almost 6pm. We were supposed to meet Robbie and Vikki for dinner at 6:30 but called the hostel to ask them to leave a note telling them we would be an hour late. The Summer Palace is huge - the grounds are overwhelming. It is all set up around a really large lake. We walked around for hours, and saw a lot of things, including a covered walkway almost 1 km
Reflection
Steve at the Great Wall - this is how I've started taking all my pictures now. Luckily for you, he kept it. long. We went into several buildings and temples and finally across a bridge onto a little island. On the way back across the bridge we stopped to watch several people flying kites. They were quite a site to see - and so high!
Once back in Beijing we ran into Robbie on the street - he was heading out to get money to buy train tickets for Shanghai. They had never gotten our message that we would be late, which really pissed me off since Steve had made an international call from his cell to leave that message. We got to the hostel and sat with Viki while we waited. We went to the restaurant we were heading to the first night and found that it was REALLY expensive - quite a nice place. So we ducked out and went back to one of the places we had eaten before. Steve remembered that they served Peking duck there and that was what we were wanting. We ordered that, along with spring rolls and a vegetable side dish and finally banana fritters. It was all amazing and about $5 a person. The banana fritters were especially good - they came
Tradition
Steve tends to take more traditional, vertical pictures. out all covered in a sticky glaze and we were supposed to dip them in cold water to harden the sugar and eat them like that. Really delicious.
Headed back to the hostel and had 30 minutes to relax with them before we got our luggage and said our good-byes. Then we got a taxi to the train station and got on board. We had hard sleepers, and we were both on a top bunk, except here there are three tiers, so it was harder to get in with less room to sit up. Felt hot at first but then the air came on and we definately needed our blankets. Slept ok as we sped off for Datong.
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