Accumulation of Blog Entries (Beijing Day 2 to Train Ride Home)

Beijing Day 2 (01/25/10)

This day we wanted to do a little less walking, after the long day of walking on Monday. We woke up and decided to eat in the Hostel instead of wasting time trying to find something to eat. The hostel had a pretty good menu for all times of day including their breakfast selection, the three of us got breakfast sandwiches, which were good.

We left the hostel headed north to a temple we had seen a top a hill overlooking the forbidden city. The park that this temple was in cost 2 rmb, and conveniently took the same card that the Beijing subway takes, so we could just scan that and enter very easily. We spent some time looking around this park and then headed to the top of the hill to the temple that overlooks the forbidden city. It turned out that this temple was a Buddhist temple, and included a giant gold Buddha. What was more impressive though was the view from that height. Although the ornateness of the forbidden city was obvious while we were inside, it was hard to comprehend the immense size of the complex while we were walking around inside of it. The view from this temple allowed us to see all of the Forbidden City, and the vast size and number of buildings. It was very impressive. We also got to look out over the skyline of Beijing and could see the mountains and the Olympic Park in the distance. It is interesting that most important buildings in Beijing are all along one central north south axis, the Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City, this Temple, and even the Olympic Park (going from South to North). The temples and the square were made a long time a go, but it is cool they made the Olympics along this axis as well.

After leaving this temple, we walked to an Imperial garden and Beihai park nearby, which also included a Buddhist temple. This temple was slightly different though in that it wasn’t designed in the typical Chinese style. Instead it was designed in more of a Middle Eastern style, more like a Minaret. Both of these parks were very scenic, but after spending all of Monday and some time today looking at old Chinese buildings we were getting a little bored, so we decided to go see some more modern attractions.

We walked along the western side of the Forbidden City to go look at the Performing Arts Center. This building is about as far away from ancient Chinese architecture as you can get. It is a giant silver/glass, half egg shaped building surrounded by water. The only way to enter is through a tunnel beneath the surrounding pool, so there are no external access points visible, while you are viewing the building from above. Supposedly, because of its clash with the surrounding architecture some locals do not appreciate its presence.

We then headed to Tiananmen Square to see Mao’s Tomb. The security to get into the square was pretty tight. We had to pass our bags through xrays, and some people were patted down. Overall the square is pretty boring I thought, ignoring its past. It is a giant expanse of concrete surrounded by buildings. In the center stands an obelisk monument. and on the north side is THE national flag of China. Our original intention was to see Mao’s tomb but for some reason it is only open from 8 am to noon, and we were there at like 1 pm, so we decided to put that off until the next day. Supposedly there are many soldiers that are not in uniform throughout Tiananmen Square, I wasn’t really looking for them but it was still pretty easy to pick them out. If we saw a Chinese man that was in shape and walking around by himself without a camera, it was probably a soldier.

We then took the subway to see the CCTV building. (http://morfis.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/cctv-building-beijing.jpg) It was very cool that a building with this odd structure could still be structurally sound enough, to support its own weight. We tried to get inside, but unfortunately the park surrounding the building is still under construction so access is prohibited unless you are an employee.

Since we were getting tired of lots of walking, we decided to look for a Beijing Acrobatics show. Using the Lonely Planet Guidebook we found where the Peking Acrobats performed, and walked there from Tiananmen, but unfortunately we found out when we arrived that they were not performing because they were on tour elsewhere in the world. Although we were disappointed by that, the trip was not a complete waste because we found an authentic street market. This market was most definitely not tourist designed. It was made on a winding alley, with many vendors selling mostly food items such as fruit breads, and meat. We stopped to get a selection of fruits including some Jujube, which tastes kinda of like a grape, but has a skin like a kiwi and a large seed in the middle. I also got some baked goods but was disappointed to find they were not as sweet as I was expecting. We then stopped for dinner at a restaurant in this alley. The store owner spoke no English, but eventually we figured out that they had only one item for sale at the time so we ordered that. It was essentially fried tortilla’s with meat inside of them. They tasted good, and surprisingly the total bill for 2 plates of them, plus a salad dish, and drinks was less than 20 rmb.

One of our main objectives while in Beijing was to find a street market that sold trinkets (sadly the food market was lacking in that). We looked up in the Lonely Planet Guide and found a market that was very close to the hostel, and took the train back. This market was very touristy, but it had exactly the type of items we were looking for. The store owners were aggressive enough to grab your arm and pull you so that you would look at their products and then they would offer you a ridiculous price for them. It was a lot of fun to bargain them down if you found an item you actually liked. They would usually start at around 10 times the price and you would have to take awhile to get them down to something more reasonable, but I am sure they still made a lot on each purchase. Each bargain was accompanied by phrases like “You student, I give you good price”, “Its new year, I give you good price” or when you went for a low price “This Chinese money, not dollar.” Overall I enjoyed the extra fun I got buy bargaining, I got the same excitement I get while gambling, except in this case I actually got something for my money.

After the market and a short stop so I could buy new gloves (my new old navy ones middle fingers unraveled) we headed home for bed.

Beijing Day 3 (1/23/11)

This day we woke up and after eating breakfast in the hostel, we walked to Tiananmen Square to see Mao’s tomb. They don’t allow backpacks or cameras to be brought into the tomb, so we had to take turns entering. Matt and I entered first. After going through more security, and telling many people “No we do not have any cameras”, even though we and most people there have camera phones with them, we headed into the tomb.

Entering into the tomb there was the option to buy some yellow flowers. We were afraid though that we might be the only ones without flowers, but luckily that was not the case. It turned out that the flowers were to place in this huge flower and plant display in front or the room that housed his body. This room had around 5 rows of potted trees, and many more flowers all surrounding a statue of Mao. The mood in the entire room was like a funeral. Following the line of people, we headed into the next room. In this room was a giant glass box, and within that box was the body of Mao, laying in his coffin, with upper body exposed. Also in this giant box were two soldiers guarding the body; I am sure that any anti-communist activity in that room would be immediately extinguished and the person most likely sent to jail.  It was very weird to see a human body that has been dead for many years just sitting out like that, especially the body of such a influential man in history.

Then we went to the military museum. The best exhibit was on "the war to aid korea and stop us aggression" it was weird to see a war from the enemy's side. The descriptions of battles were a little upsetting to me when they talked of it being good that thousands or “enemy” soldiers were killed, since most of these were US soldiers. They also have artifacts of killed US soldiers like their helmets and medals. It was also weird that they called it the "un troops" as if they aren't actually united nations. I have never seen an account with the UN as the bad guy but now I have thanks to the PRC. Other exhibits included exhibits describing the ancient Chinese territorial disputes, we got to see some cool ancient weapons, such as a multistage rocket arrow and a giant thing that shot around 25 arrows at a time all propelled by rockets. I am not sure if either actually worked but they looked cool.

The next stop was too the Capital Museum. This museum housed many artifacts from ancient china, and had huge exhibits of jade pieces, terracotta pieces, and a lot of other things. The museum was a little boring though because we had seen many similar artifacts at both the Forbidden City and other temples we had visited over the past two days.

After the museums we searched for another Acrobat show to see. Today we were more successful. We searched the internet on an iPod and found a place that was available, and called to get tickets, then headed there. Upon exiting the subway we accidently turned the wrong direction, and because of that got to the theater only 5 minutes before show start, but it turned out we had got very good seats. We were only 6 rows away from the stage, which was just the right distance in this theater.

The show was awesome. We got to see people be much more flexible and physically talented than I am. Climbing up polls with only their arms, and bending in ways I didn’t think were possible. They even brought Matt up on stage to make fun of him, by having him jump rope with a blindfold on. Then we got a quick dinner and headed back to the hostel.

Beijing Day 4 (1/24/11)

On Tuesday we had signed up to go to the Great Wall on Thursday. There were two options, one was less hiking and included a trip to the Ming Tombs, the other was a 6K hike on a rugged part of the wall. Thankfully, we had chosen the one with less walking, and when we woke up on Thursday still tired from walking the past 3 days, we were glad that we didn’t have a 6K hike ahead of us.

We ate breakfast then got in the van that was waiting for us outside the hostel (the tour was organized by the hostel). The drive to the wall was about an hour and a half long, and on the way I met some other travelers from around the world. We had a good conversation about world politics and such.

We got to the wall and heard about all the options for going up and down and exploring. We chose to take the Gondola up and the Alpine slide down. We got our tickets and headed up the mountain on the Gondola. When we got to the top we spent awhile just standing where the gondola dropped us off and admiring the impressive size of the wall as well as the beautiful scenery of the mountains around us. We spent the next 2 hours walking along the wall. In some places the wall is very steep to climb on. It still would be much easier to run along the wall then to run along the mountains, therefore making the wall easier to defend than attack. Most of where we were walking was more recently restored, but when we reached the end we got to see what the wall looks like when it hasn’t been restored for many years. There were trees and other plant life everywhere.

After taking many pictures and videos we headed down the mountain on the alpine slide. The alpine slide was a fun addition, although I got stuck behind this dumb couple that had the brakes on the entire time. At the bottom we were going to buy some t-shirts that were promised to us for 2 for $1, but it turned out it was a shameless lie and it was really 2 for $60, so we passed. Then we got on the bus and headed to lunch. We went to lunch at a family style place where they served us a few dishes and we shared them among people. After lunch we headed to the Ming  Tombs.

The Ming Tombs are the burial grounds of all of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty. They buried them all underground in a giant concrete room under a mound. And around that mound were some temples and gates built for people to honor the emperor. The tomb was very cool, especially the huge stone doors that were made out of single pieces of marble. They had also been designed so that there was a large weight behind them that when they discovered the tombs they had to use a special tool to move the weight. The tombs included thrones for the emperors and boxes that used to contain the bodies of the emperor and empresses as well as many boxes of jewelry and such. The bodies are gone now though because during the cultural revolution the red guard burned them to get rid of the symbol of the “landlord.” After leaving this tomb, the tour guide asked us if we also wanted to go to another sight in the tombs, the entrance to the valley that contains all of the tombs. This entrance includes a long pathway with stone animals and statues of guards. For each statue there were 4 copies. Two pairs on either side of the pathway, one of each pair was laying down and the other was standing. This is because the ones standing are on duty during the day and the ones sitting are on duty at night.

We left the tombs and headed back to Beijing. On the ride back most people slept. Thankfully when we got back the bus driver was able to drop us off at a subway stop so that we could go to the silk market for some trinket shopping. The Silk Market is a “mall” that is filled with street market like shops. I think it has 6 floors, and each is filled with stalls of different types (silk, clothes, trinkets, etc). We headed to the trinket floor. We each found souvenirs and bargained them down. It was convenient to have a group because we could start below each others’ prices, and tell them we had found them at that price elsewhere. We finished getting all of the souvenirs we needed for the trip and headed back to the hostel.

Beijing Day 5 (1/25/11)

Today we wanted to finish up what we hadn’t done yet. We started out by taking the subway to Summer Palace. Summer palace is a huge complex the emperors designed as kind of a lake house. We spent a few hours walking around the buildings and up to the top to get a nice view of the surrounding land, and the lake the palace is built on. We also walked out to an island, on a very cool bridge. One cool thing that we learned was the Summer palace is one of the first places a telephone line was put in in China. The emperors at the end of the 1800’s wanted a way to communicate with the generals in the Forbidden City. Up until that point I hadn’t really thought about how the emperors had existed during the more recent past (the last emperor was gotten rid of by the revolution is 1911). The palace was cool, but to really experience it you should look at my pictures. I am sure it would look better in summer but it was still very scenic in January.

After the summer palace we took the train to the Beijing Zoo to see the Pandas. Although the zoo is cheaper than the Minnesota Zoo (15 RMB), it is in much worse condition. The pandas have the best enclosure because they are what the zoo is famous for, but even their enclosure is in worse condition than the worst enclosure at even Como Zoo. It was cool to see so many pandas up close. The coolest part was watching them eat. Instead of grazing, they pick up the plants with their hands and bring them to their mouth.

As the pandas were the main thing we wanted to see we didn’t spend much time in the rest of the zoo. We saw some monkeys and some red pandas, both of which were cute, as well as some exotic North American species like a red fox. The tiger and lion enclosure was very sad. They are housed in what looks like a jail. There are animals behind bars in a room without any windows. All the cats have to do is pace back and forth on the concrete floor.

The last stop of the day was to the Temple of Heaven. We ended up getting there right after access to the actual temple was closed, but we could still enter the surrounding park and get some decent pictures from the outside. While there we tried to find a geocache, but with no GPS and relying on bing maps. Unfortunately, the maps were off so we were searching in the wrong place, oh well. We headed back to the hostel and on the way stopped for some dinner. I had some donkey meat, which overall was not bad tasting.

Day 6 Beijing and Travel

Today Matt and I woke up (Peter felt sick) and went to Lama Temple. Lama temple is a Buddhist temple with many large statues of Buddha. The main “attraction” is a 26 meter tall standing Buddha made out of a single piece of wood. The sculpting of the Buddha itself wasn’t very impressive to me. What was impressive was they found a piece of wood that was that big and able to be carved. Pictures are not allowed but it would be hard to capture its size with a camera. The statue has a Guiness World Record, and there is a virtual geocache related to that record, so I logged my first find in Mainland China.

Matt and I headed back to the hostel and then we all packed up our stuff and checked out of the hostel. We took the subway and then a bus to the train station. The bus was absolutely packed. What was dumb was that we spent about 10 minutes with everyone trying to fight their way onto the bus, even though everyone could have fit if it had been done in an orderly fashion. Instead it wasted time, was uncomfortable, and some people got left behind. Oh well such is there culture. At the train station we went through immigration then boarded our train.

Our cabin had 6 beds in it, 2 sets of 3 stories. They were surprisingly comfortable, and after talking and buying some food we all went to sleep. The rest of the train ride was mostly filled with sleeping. We made some trips to the dining car for eating and drinking, but other than that we spent most of our time in our room. On one trip to the dining car we got to meet some drunk Americans that were doing their part at contributing to the world image of Americans being assholes. They were yelling obscenities, that hopefully weren’t understood by everyone but I wouldn’t be surprised if at least some of them were.

By 1 pm the next day we arrived in Beijing, headed through immigration again, and took the MTR back to campus.