Day 3 the great wall

Another great day with lots of travel. We started of with a visit to the tombs of the Ming Emperors.

Well actually we started off with breakfast.

 

Rice buns

 

Mystery buns

Chinese bean and sweet pancakes

 

On the first day this was her favorite. Rice Congee. Now she's starting to lust for a burger.

 

Then it was off to the Ming Tombs. Somewhat reminiscent of the Pharaohs there was quite the ritual for entombment including the favorite concubines. Can't seem to find those photos so maybe we'll be able to post those tomorrow.

and then of to the wall.

Anyone who has done any mountain climbing know the feeling of thinking you see the top only to find, when you get to the spot, there is another rise. you can see above and behind me sticking into the skyline a tower along the wall. By the time i got there some of those who had passed me were engaged in throwing up from the exertion. I sat for a while and figured i hadnt come this far to wimp out at this point.

 

 

So here i am at that tower i spoke of. Imagine my delight on finding two more towers behind now in sight.

 

 

I was pretty pleased with myself. At the end i was going up ten steps and then sitting for a bit but ended up being one of only three anglos from those we started with that made it that far. Was was recently out of the Canadian armed forces so he doesn't count. After a short rest it was time to decend. About 1/2 way down i passed a girl Eva's age heading up. Some of the steps came to her waste but she was still going strong.

Visited the Ming tombs. So beautiful and peaceful. Now at the Great Wall in 91 degrees. Davids climbing. I'm taking a raincheck. The wall isnt what i expected. You have to climb a mountain to get to the wall. Somehow I thought we could park at the top and start walking. Second its quite wide. I pictured The wall that Ollie walks on between his school and Dylans - very narrow. It is magnificent and amazing to think about when they started building it.

He did it! He walked 1 1/2 hoyrs just to get to what he felt was a good place to call the top. David you're amazing. I had a cold coke waiting for him. ( they didn't have gatorade).

Tonight is peking duck dinner. Aaron i'll save you a pancake. Deborah, i'm sure i'll order too much.

Beforea

After.

Sorry to keep focusing on bathrooms but maybe the secret to cultural diversity is toileting habits. When one enters a public bathroom theres a large roll of toilet paper. You take what you need before you enter the stall.

I have a friend who just returned from China with a group. There was a stomach bug outbreak. Seeing is she is a nurse she was sent to the pharmacy to get meds. The next day the guide informed them that she got them pregnancy drugs. I tell this story because my bunion is acting up - no big deal. We went to the drug store, where btw, the saleswomen wore nurses caps! I tried to take their picture but they declined. Any way i show them my foot and she hands me a box. I go to open it but (makes sense) i cant until i pay. It turns out it was bandaids. So we go to another sales nurse and she gives me a different box after David draws a picture of a bunion pad. I go to put it on today and its wart remover. Oh well. I'll live.

Now we're off to harbin where i give my talks and have 3 welcome dinners. The question is will they still welcome me after meeting me.

Serious musings from Melanie. China has been described in some ways as third world (whats the new politically correct term, i forget) . Anyway, in Peking they are so modern and the women here are dressed as they would in NYC. theres clearly money here. I do get not for everyone. Yet i dont get how in this entire country one cant drink the water. For me potable water has always been the defining issue for third world countries. I know Singapore (a much much smaller country) has made water a priority to the point where they are changing the natural course of rivers and they have a giant filter to filter sea water. This does not seem to be a pressing issue for the government here and i wonder why.(at least we heard nothing about it)

At the airport. Sent to a special line. Searched. All understood. Except apparently Chinese women dont wear underwire bras. Ok fine but that was no reason for the woman searching me thoroughly to giggle as she's looking

 

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Day 2

Quite the day. Included Tienemen Square, Forbidden city, summer palace, silk factory, Special dinner, and Chinese opera. I started writing this at 5 pm still have the dinner and the opera to go. By the way, i am liking blogsy for blogs however spell check is not working so be forwarned.

We're experiencing rain from the typhoon which meant spending most of the day in damp clothes and less than stellar conditions for photos. it is fortunate we have a car and a driver to get between venues. But we did a ton of walking and an umbrella only helps so much. Kept the camera dry anyway.

Its Monday and Beijing looks a lot more like we expected it to today: lots more people, bikes and traffic. We started with Tienaman Square.

 

Strange to walk across it considering all the history that has taken place here. the space and the buildings surrounding it are impressive and despite the rain the place was crowded with tourists from China as well as the rest of the world.

This connected to the Forbidden City, called such as the common folk were not allowed there for much of its 600 year history. Each building is eye popping in its own right but the way the structures relate makes for another sort of visual delight.

 

 

I wish the weather had allowed me to capture some of the colors and views better. We definitly plan on watching "the last emporer" when we return. Much of it having taken place here.

 

Lots of thrones, not a lot of warm fuzzy space. Not an easy place to live or survive even if you were the Emperor. The place has 9,999 rooms and the Emporer had 73 bedrooms. One for each concubine and one with his wife. That was to make it harder for porential assasins to find him. We also heard an interesting game played by the Emporer and his concubines.

This is now melanie. Before you get the wrong idea. The game was hide and seek.

I'm not as linear as David so let me babble. Four is an unlucky number in China. There are no 4th floors in buildings here, like in the US no 13th floor. The emperor owned the number 9 and the color yellow. No one else could use it. Seems a bit capricious. I know youre the emperor but thats a bit over the top. There was someone in history called the dragon lady. Her husband died and her baby son became emperor. She ruled for him and he died of small pox at 4 so she appointed a baby newphew and ended up ruling for over 50 years. She's an evil charachter in chinese history but lets review this story from a feminist perspective. Women had no rights or say in anything. Shes my heroine I say hurray for the dragon lady.

I have been falling asleep at 4p on the nose the last two days. Luckily the guide took us back to the hotel at 4 so I could grab an hours nap. I still fell asleep at the opera. That was interesting but I'll let david discuss it. Apparently it is common for young boys (3 to 6) to pee in the street when the mood strikes them. I'll not comment on my assessment of that cultural habit.

Lets talk important stuff. My hair looks like Marlo Thomas in That Girl. Where did this flip come from? At worst my hair is totally frizzed. Oy.

Other nonsense. I have no problem with the shower but in order for David to get wet above the knees he has to lift the shower head up and it floods the bathroom.

Managed to forget a phone so no pictures from Chinese Opera but i did buy a program (first time for everything). Really glad we went but it is not an artform that grabs me. The martial arts component (a common part of the plot) was a surprise and impressive and i really enjoyed the live musicians and how they worked with the actors.

Oh yes we also went to a silk factory and decided not to spend $1000 for a silk comforter. We did, however get to stretch the silk from a double cacoon making a new layer for a quilt of some future purchaser.

It is Sarah's birthday her already! Happy Birthday!

 

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More thoughts on the Hutong

More thoughts on Hutong. At least there it appears babies don't wear diapers - or anything on their bottom half. So we're on the bicycle powered rickshaw and turned a corner and there is a rather well dressed woman holding an infant that's peeing straight out. It missed us thank goodness or there may have been an international incident. Later on we were walking in Beijing among the modern stores and there is another mom with a 5 year old. She pulls down his pants and he pees against the tree. Maybe they don't like the eastern toilets either.

Fell asleep at 4p and slept until 4a. Melanie managed to stay in bed until 6. David was out the door by then looking for coffee. We have a 12 hour tour today. Good luck to us.
Fg

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Off to the Hutong

First of our tours was a trip to the Hutong where we boarded a three wheel pedal cab to go through the narrow network of lanes created by closely built built quadrangle homes. Most all of the buildings are one story and each entrance generally opens to a courtyard of 4 homes. The area dates back to the period of Gengis Kahn and reminded me if the residential areas of the old city of Jerusalem.

While we rode in the pedacab, our guide was riding a bike next to or sometimes behind us. The alleys go anywhere from .5 meters to maybe 9 meters wide. Gets interesting when you meet a car coming the other way

 

An interesting tidbit was that each family is allowed one tree and many of the alleys were shaded by walnut and other species. We paid a visit to a "typical" home where a daughter was painting bottles. The interesting part of this is that she was painting the inside of the bottle through its neck with a handmade brush. David got a chance to try - not easy. Because of the drainage in the Hutong area no one has toilets. There are communal toilets all over but none in any houses.

We then went to the bell tower were we participated in a tea ceremony. In this the tea was more important than the ceremony and we had the chance to try 5 different teas. It was fascinating to see the tea prepared and the quickness of the brewing. Steeping had no part of these teas.

 

After returning to the hotel we took off looking for a Chinese foot treatment. On the way we had to check out another tea shop. Melanie was looking for reflexology but no one has heard of it here. They most have another name for it. Anyway a 45 minute foot massage was wonderful. In the room was a sign saying no drug taking or drug trafficking here.

How could could you not live a country that has wonton soup and pork buns for breakfast? And they have shoes that fit my feet! i bought a paIr of hand painted sandals. We had lunch at a noodle shop that was not a tourist place.

 

 

I had the worlds slipperyest noodles. I ended up eating them by winding them around my chopsticks the way you wind spaghetti around a fork.

Bikes are a common form of transport. The are all utilitarian but we found an interesting bike sharing program with newer bikes.

The bikes latch into the meter system. Couldn't read the instructions though.

 

It is clear a little more language prep would have been useful. Next trip we'll be sure to have less, more, yes and no in our vocabulary.

 

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China - we've arrived

Travel was pretty easy. We had booked an aisle and window seat and the center seat was never sold so we had a little room to stretch out. In Melanies case that meant she could actually sleep fo several hours on her stomach(with her husband funtioning as human footrest).

We arrived at terminal 3 which seemed big to us but i guess predates the olympics. We seemed to be the only flight arriving at the time so it was a bit eiry how empty it seemed as we landed we could already see the haze which shrouded Beijing. Reminded me of mornings is El Paso when the smelter was still running. we had to be under 1000 ft to be able to see the ground although there were no clouds.

Anyway, with no checked bags we made it easily through passport control, were politely waived to the "nothing to declare line" and out to reception where our guide "Bambo" was waiting for us. 86 degrees and 80 % humidity made it feel just like home except there was no sighn of recent rain and the yellow haze blurred the details of all the buildings. Bambo walked us to the car where "Mike" drove us the 1 hr to the hotel in L.I.E. rush hour like traffic. (being a Sat. The traffic was apparantly quite light for the S12Airport Expressway.). While i could identify many of the vehichles, it was clear that Detroit and Japan have no lock on the auto industry in China. Going to have to do a little research on the trees along the the roads. There is something that looks like an aspen along with a variety of fir trees.

After checking in at the Crown Plazza we took off downd the main drag to (one of )the 5th Avenues of Bejing where we experienced getting iur eyes treated for the bags under them by agressive saleswoman, checked out a couple deaprtment stores, a music instrument store, a pharmacy complete with attendents in nurses caps with all sorts of drugs, medical equipment along with dried seahorses, spiders, worms and other "naturals of unknown origin.

We skipped the ralh lauren, versace and other chain stores but Melanie did find a couple of booths with shoes of her size to try on. lots of sign language-very little English.

 

Early this morning David went out for a walk. Streets were quietbut by no means empty.

Street on side of hotel leading onto the shopping street. It is 6 am and you can see the imfamous Beijing haze.

Street on entrance of hotel. In a few hours it will be crowed a noisey.

Breakfast - first course fried noodles , egg, sweet roll, rice congee, wonton soup without wontons (somehow got translated to rice noodle) Melanie has fallen in love with congee.

 

And for the second round sesame twisted roll, tea egg chinese sweet pancake watermelon and meet roll of dubious origin

More later. Off to meet our guide.

 

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