The Summer Palace

On our last day in Beijing, we went to the Summer Palace in the morning.  The Summer Palace was really close to our hotel.

Upon exiting the bus, we were seiged by people wanting to sell us stuff.  Special price for you!  Special price for You!  The Chinese always say this to foreigners.  One lady was trying to sell me a hat.  I was already wearing one, my NYM hat.  I took it off and I said back to her, special price for you!  Special price for you!  It's funny, when you say the exact phrase back, the context is now slightly changed and then the Chinese sometimes have a look on their face like they have no idea what I just said.  I just repeated what she was saying and now it's like,  all is lost.  Funny.  Then there was this man who kept haggling us to buy something from him.  We were walking to the Palace and he was right there, step-by-step with us.  One of the things he wanted me to buy was a little red book of quotations by Chairman Mao Tse-Tung.  I thought...hhmmm, quotations from the old man?  How much I asked?  85 kuai he said.  I laughed and started to walk away.  He was trying to get my attention again.  Some of the book in English he said.  I looked it over.  Some of it indeed was in English (also Chinese).  It looked pretty cool but not for that amount.  50 kuai he said.  20 I said.  25 he said.  15 I said.  He did not want under 20 and I was not going higher than 15.  This is all as we walked.  I never stopped walking and he kept following us.  I kept telling him 15 or sell it to someone else.  Just as we got to the gates, he grudgingly sold it to me for 15 kuai mumbling to himself.  You see, in China, when Chinese are haggling you to buy something - especially on the street, just show them the $ and they cannot resist the sale; it's like cocaine to them.  There was no way he was going to let me walk away with me showing the 15 kuai.  He wanted it, badly.  Could I have gotten him down to 10?  Probably, but 15 (less than 3 USD) seemed fair and I was content with that.  I thought it would be good reading for my long upcoming overnight train ride.  I then thought, boy, wouldn't it be funny to have this in my carry-on luggage when I come back home to the states?  What are you doing with this?  Who are you trying to convert?  Blah/Blah/Blah...

Back to the Palace, the Summer Palace (Yihe Yuan) literally means "Gardens of Nurtured Harmony" I was informed.  The Palace is the largest and best preserved imperial garden in China.  The Palace was used as a summer residence by China's imperial rulers - as a retreat from the main imperial palace known as the Forbidden City.  It's in the country-side yet close to the city.  Longevity Hill dominates the  grounds as well as the Kunming Lake.  I did not know that the lake was man-made and that the excavated soil was used to build the hill.  Pretty cool stuff.  There's palaces, gardens, pavilions, temples, halls, bridges, rocks, trees, paths, ponds, and the lake.  It's a big time tourist attraction as well as a recreational park.  The area really started to be built around 1750.  It was razed to the ground by Anglo-French forces in 1860 and then rebuilt in 1886 by the Qing dynasty.  It served as a summer resort for Empress Dowager Cixi and she oversaw the reconstruction and enlargement of the Palace.

The main building is the Tower of Buddhist Incense.  The tower sits on a 66 foot stone base and is 165 feet tall with 3 stories.  It's easy to see and the pics serve as justice.  I read that the Summer Palace is suppose to represent China's ideals of harmony between man & nature.

We headed back to our hotel around noon for lunch, to pack, and to take 1 final shower as it was really hot that morning at the Palace.  The buses to take us to the train station for our overnight train would leave around 5pm.  We still had 4+ hours to kill so a few of us decided to take taxis to downtown area/lake of Beijing for lunch and to hang out...

The Great Wall

On the morning of August 22nd, we went as a group to Mutianyu to visit the Great Wall of China.  Mutianyu is a section of the Great Wall ~ 43 miles north of Beijing.  It's one of the best preserved sections.  Part of this wall was built mid-6th century but the bulk of it was built  and restored during the early Ming dynasty (1368-1644).  This section is the largest construction scale and the best quality.  The wall is about 24 feet high here and ~ 15 feet wide at the top.  The wall was constructed to keep the northern nomads out of Beijing.  Over 95% of Mutianyu is covered by orchards and trees.

To get up to the wall, you walk through a little village with villagers trying to sell you everything they have: food, drinks, handycrafts, clothes, etc.  The walk up to the wall was something none of us will ever forget.  We walked hundreds and hundreds of stairs just to get to the top (and I had sandals on for some stupid reason).  I've never walked that many stairs at one time in my life, not even close.  It was so hot and all of us were so tired by the time we got to the top.  Hope you can get a feel for the sheer # of stairs that we climbed by the pics.  I climbed up some Mayan temples during the Spring but now that seemed like nothing.

Once on top, the views are stunning and it's just astonishing how they built this thing.  Just to bring the materials needed this high is amazing.  Some parts of the wall can be difficult to traverse with high/steep steps and inclines.  It was nice to go into the watchtowers to get some quick shade.  We were at the top for a few hours and needed to get to the bottom for a group lunch.  Instead of walking back down, a few of us took a toboggan slide down for 50 kuai apiece.  It was not worth the $ but how many times can you take an alpine slide down the mountain at the Great Wall?  There was a Chinese person in front of my slide who was just going really slow and this created a bottleneck.  Oh well.

We had lunch at a little place in the village and I sat at a vegetarian table that the restaurant had set up.  There were about 8 of us at this table.  They just came out with plate after plate of vegetarian food.  Food is usually served family style in China.  Rarely do you order single meals unless you're at a western restaurant or something.  Plates of food is usually served on a lazy susan in China so sharing is made easier.  You just swing the susan around to sample the dishes and fill up your bowl or plate via your chopsticks.  This place brought out rice, bok choy, tofu, corn, steamed buns, potato slices, Sichuan style green beans, eggplant, & cucumbers that I can recall.  It was fabulous.  We were all commenting on how good this place was.  Was probably the best meal I had while in the Beijing area.  We then hopped on the buses and headed back to the hotel.  I showered up and then  went out with some friends for dinner and drinks that night.  For this would be our last night in Beijing...

Olympic Green

On August 21st, I thought I would skip a talent show (that I was suppose to attend – but what the heck) and trekked out by myself via subway to the Olympic Green in Beijing to check out where the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games were held. Our group was leaving Beijing in two days and the XXIX Olympiad area had not been and was not going to be an itinerary. That didn’t sit well with me. I might never go back to Beijing. How can I be in Beijing for ~ 2 ½ weeks and not see the Bird’s Nest? So I took my final Chinese speaking, writing, & listening exam that morning and headed for the subway outside PKU w/ camera in hand for my adventure.

But before I left, I took a few hundred kuai with me. I knew I would want to tour the Bird’s Nest but I also wanted to head downtown for lunch first at an Indian buffet. Indian is my favorite food, bar none, and I was dying to eat some since I left the States. I knew it would be expensive. Anything non-Chinese is expensive. Basically double the price for anything not Chinese when buying/ordering. It took me a little time to find the restaurant but I eventually found it. It was called The Raj. It was good but I would not say great. Did I overpay? Most definitely but I left stuffed. At the restaurant, I thought I would order a pi jiu (beer). Now a ~ 22 oz Yanjing bottle of beer near my hotel would be $3.5 kuai (about 50 cents). On the menu, it said $28 (just a little under $5). I thought, holy shit that’s expensive! But I thought, what the heck, just order one. You should have seen the look on my face when the lady came back w/ a 12 oz can! For 28 kuai? I could have had ~ 6 bottles for that much.

I took the subway to the Beijing National Stadium complex (aka Bird’s Nest & Water Cube). The Bird’s Nest is also known as the National Stadium. I loved it. Every Olympics in the future will be compared to this one probably in my lifetime so I was excited to finally see it. The Nest is so cool and just so different. The architecture is so different from any sports structure I had seen before and I have seen a lot. There’s a huge pedestrian walkway once you exit the subway to the Olympic Green. To my left was the Water Cube & to my right was the Bird’s Nest. I read on the net that the Nest draws 20-30K visitors a day at 50 kuai apiece. That’s at least $150K USD a day at the minimum.

I paid my ticket and entered the stadium. Basically you can walk around at your own leisure and direction for the most part. You could not enter the stadium floor/field unless you paid extra for a Segway cart. I did not do that. I think it was like $150 kuai which I thought was not worth it. But it was just so cool being inside the stadium where the Olympics were held and seeing the membrane, the flag poles, the Presidential seating area, the track, etc. I thought the walkways/concourses and stairs were so cool/so different than other venues. Hopefully the pics show this.

It was kind of disappointing not to see the cauldron lit. I was not sure it should be lit or not but I think it should be; all the time.

It was very hot. When walking around outside the stadium, I thought I would enter this huge tent to buy a bottle of water. The tent was huge with about 30 food vendors on both sides and a dining/seating area in the middle. I did not order anything as I was still stuffed from the buffet. One thing I did notice was one vendor selling cat's ears. No joke.

Well it was getting to be late in the afternoon and I needed to head back to the hotel for a banquet to celebrate our training/teaching in Beijing and receive our 'Teaching English as a Foreign Language in China' certificates. We received our certificates, had a meal, some drinks, and then called it a day.

Forbidden City

During our training & teaching in Beijing, our first day off was a day trip to the Forbidden City on Aug 16th. We were so excited not to teach and train for a day. We took charter buses and got dropped off at Tiananmen Square; the 2nd largest city square in the world (only behind another one in Iran). The ultimate goal was entering the Forbidden City. It is located in central Beijing and for almost 500 yrs, was the home of emperors and their households as well as the ceremonial & political center of the Chinese government. Consists of ~ 1,000 buildings & 8,000 rooms. The City is surrounded by a large wall as well as a moat. Pretty impressive.

It just so happened to turn out to be the most beautiful day in Beijing since our arrival. It was actually clear & sunny. Not sure where the smog went for that day. But it was really hot.

The place was so big and just amazing how many people visit it every day. The amount of money in one day is astonishing. Outside was a lady selling little China national flags. Caught up in the excitement, I decided to get one. Duo shao qian (how much $) I asked? Wu kuai ($5) she said. Tai gui le (too much $) I said and started walking away. She touched me. I turned around. Er kuai ($2) she said. Sold. That's better I said. Laila asked me where I got the flag? I said over there and noticed many vendors selling them. She came back with one. How much did you pay I said? 1 kuai she said. Damn it I said...

It was so crowded and some of the buildings so huge. Some of the squares/courtyards were so large. A lot of the buildings and gates start to look the same after awhile and start sounding the same too: Gate of Divine Might, Gate of Supreme Harmony, Palace of Heavenly Purity, Palace of Tranquil Longevity, Hall of Mental Cultivation, Hall of Literary Glory, etc. You get the picture. But all very cool. You could not enter many and some Chinese would do anything to get close to some of them to take pics of an open window or something. Some of us thought we should take a look too and it was so funny to be pushed by granny on your left and a child to your right. But it was fun. We just pushed back though I'm not sure why I was pushing or knowing what I was suppose to be looking at but I thought it was the right thing to do. Join the mob.

 After we reached the end, a group of us went to Beihai Park for lunch & beers which was walking distance from the Forbidden City. Ate at a nice outside cafe near a lake. I had a good tofu dish I believe.

  

We then walked back to Tiananmen Square to visit Mao's mausoleum. I wanted to see the old man in person but unforunately, the mausoleum was already closed. It closed by like noon I recall. That stunk.

What to do now? We decided to take the subway to Yonghe Gong Temple (AKA Lama Temple) in northern Beijing. It's a monastery & temple of Tibetan Buddhists. It is one of the largest Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in the world. When you buy your ticket, they give you a little CD to play at home which is cool. It was a pretty cool place and you'll smell the incense soon enough as soon as you enter. No wonder I saw so many street vendors selling incense on the walk to the Temple. Dummy me was not paying attention. One of the buildings near the back houses a giant Buddha. It was huge and made in bronze I think. Couldn't take a picture though.

  

After that, I think most of our feet were hurting, so we took the subway back to the hotel to shower up and then we met later that night for dinner near our hotel.