Much cleanser then suspected. Stayed in a very nice part of town, clean streets, huge designer stores, made walking around an unconscious effort.
Planned many explorations in Beijing. Visited the largest city square in the world first, Tiananmen Square. The first glance I was amazed how clean. The structures so large, different architecture from anything I had seen live.
The flowers and arrangements were very familiar to me. My Papa every spring would plant hundreds of the same type. I had wondered if he had got the idea while traveling to China back in the day when he worked for Sears.
Continued to walk the square, under the pass to across to the magnificent Forbidden City, one of China's most recognizable landmarks, it was the former royal residence for five centuries. Forbidden City was enormous. After walking through the first few residents everything started to look the same and I got pretty bored. Not that it wasn't interesting but how irragoant the Chinese were, so many structures taking up so much space for 1 person. Nonetheless it was a good historical lesson.
After Forbidden City we were off to Summer Palace, a massive garden and summer resort for royal members only during the imperial times, that was what was told. It wasn't much of a garden as it was a park, would be the best way to describe it. It had a man made lake and more building that looked the same as the ones built in the FC. We walked down this long outside corridor, many tourists and school children taking field trips. My little tour group stopped along the way. Cactus the tour guide had bought a cake for my birthday. She also bought candles, had my name put on the cake and sang Happy birthday. What a truly kind gesture. We ate the whole entire cake with chopsticks and many locals stopped to take pictures with me. The Chinese did this often because I looked so different. Cactus said it was because I had a different, nose, eyes, hair, skin...I found it cute.
Upon returning to the hotel I thought I would nap, instead I went to get a foot massage, not as good as I wanted but was relaxing. I then decided to head out and walk around. I was exiting the hotel and the turnabout stopped, a Chinese lady on the other side looked at me and said what happened? I shrugged and kept walking. As soon as I existed a man tried to get me to ride on his rickshaw, the local taxi, which is a bike. I continued to walk and this lady came running beside me with her umbrella, it was the same freaking lady that was in the turnabout. She was speaking so fast in English it was hard to understand her. She kept asking please can we go for the next or coffee beautiful lady to practice my English? She didn't need practice, her English was good. I kept saying no, but my curiosity manged to get the best of me and I walked with her to a tea room. She was asking so many questions it was alarming. My conscious mind was having a conversation with me all in itself as I continued to ignore my better judgement for the experience. We sat by the window, I thought door is behind me I'll run out if things get weird. Then they were speaking in Chinese and she told me over here...I followed her to the back. I know I shouldn't have but I did. I asked why can't we sit up there? She said it's only for food...I knew that wasn't true but whatever. We sat behind the wall in the very back and ordered tea black and green. What an invasion of privacy. Questions about family followed by the Chinese animal, good or bad, rules for the Chinese women. Everything is illegal, went into conversation about child birth laws, how they changed a few years ago. This stranger all started to tell me she wanted to get pregnant now because she wanted a daughter. She then asked if I wanted wine, I thought to myself not really. I said no, she said for the meet for the meet we cheers. Okay, after all I didn't want to be rude. Wine comes and I had less, it was weird. I asked why and she put some of hers in mine. I was thinking was it was possible they put something in my wine? If I started to feel weird I'd jet for the door. I at this point told her I had to be at the hotel by 6pm. We rushed through the wine and left but not before she tried to stick me with the bill. I wasn't having it and I told her we are gonna split. I'mpretty sure when she walked away she got the Chinese price. I was paying for the experience.
Threw the plastic butcher like hanging strips and out the door...RELIEF!...but then she wanted to bring me to their art showroom. We cross the street and walk into a industrial building, up the elevator and into a little room. Many beautiful paintings at this point I knew she wanted me to spend money and buy something. I looked around at all the beautiful art and graciously declined. We left because part of the plan was to sing karaoke. She rented us bicycles and we road through the streets. I followed her but I knew where I was, just blocks from where I was staying. We started to head down an alley. A little bit creepy but we arrived safely to this "bar". We walk in up the stairs, we are the only ones there, through a doorway that was about 5". Here we are karaoke time. We pick song, Last Christmas, Brown Eyed Girl, Happy birthday in Chinese and a few others, 2 mics, 1 bottle of wine and we are off to the races. It was horrifying but hilarious and quite an experience. After we finished I headed back to the hotel. It was dinner time and everyone kept saying the peking duck was a must. I found a place to eat that was recommended off the beatin path. It was bad but not great. Chinese food is definitely not part of my pallet. Tried some veggie dishes and rice too, washed it down with Chinese beer...
Next day, the first stop is the Mutianyu Great Wall, a comparatively less tourist-trodden part of the 1,400-year-old fortification system. This is what I've been waiting for. It was a beautiful sunny day, which I had come to realize that I was extremely lucky to experience such nice weather. Its usually cloudy and misty. I didn't understand how amazing the feeling would be until I actually got on the wall.
I had chosen an open chair up, and toboggan slide down. The scenery up was an amazing panoramic of the mountainous range surrounding the wall. The wall was non stopped as far as I could see. It was magnificent. I Had approximately 2 hours to climb the wall. Once I jumped off the chair onto the wall I was in absolute awe. I couldn't take enough pictures. There were parts of the wall that were so steap. I covered as much ground as I possibly could. Looking on the outside, up top of the look out towers maximizing all the time I had. On the way back to downtown, I had a beer to soak it all in and proceeded to the tabagen slide to go back down the mountain. What a sight to see.
On the ride back the tour guide showed the group the Bird's Nest and Water Cube. Took a quick ride on a rickshaw for a Hutong Tour through the most characteristic, maze-like neighborhood. Back to the hotel after the trip. It's one of the mosymt sought out neighborhoods but it looked so cluttered and poor. It was very claustrophobic like.
Day 6, today started with a visit to the Temple of Heaven, where emperors of Ming and Qing Dynasties performed ceremonies and rituals to pray for good harvest and blessing on the country. That's why all the roof tops were blue to match the sky. I didn't care so much for the temple as I did the people watching. Elderly people out playing poker, hacky sack, and laying out classified ads of there children to match with other parents. This was astonishing to me, but it's very normal in there culture. There is so much pressure to marry and have children by 30, if you don't they think there is something wrong with you. Even when they ask me do you have kids? After I respond no the huh in disappointment. I quickly call them out on their judgement and Cactus laughs but still there is the presumption there's something wrong with me.
Before heading to the high speed train to Xi'an, I visited a real tea house. It was a wonderful explanation of the tea, how they prepare it, drink it, and what it's used for. So lovely I had to buy some after all the pre pre man came free with puchase!
Now I'm sitting here on the speed rail train to Xi’an, which takes approximately 5 hours, at about 300km/h. I am surprised at how many city buildings there are but also there is so much countryside as well. China is enormous!
Temple of Heaven
