Back from Beijing

We went to Beijing last week. We left Wednesday night, and got back really early Monday morning. As most of you know, Beijing is ginormous. There are about 14 million people who live there. That is a whole lot bigger than New York. Soon after arriving there, we went to the hostel where we stayed. It was really hard to find a cab. It wasn't that there wasn't enough taxis, its just that they didn't want to take us. We basically had to get on our knees to get someone to let us in. The driver that took us had to stop and ask for directions three times. I really don't blame him, either. Our hostel was deep in a tangled web of obscure alleyways. We were relieved to get there, and even more relieved that they had small cards with directions to the hostel that we could give to the cab drivers.

There is a lot to do in Beijing, and we did a lot. There are a lot of cool things that we missed, but we got to see what the savvy travelers like to call "the big five". It consists of The Great Wall (of course), Tianmen square(I don't know why), The Forbidden City, Summer Palace, and Temple of Heaven.

Temple of Heaven was the first thing that we saw. It was really beautiful, and really big. We had a good look around, and took lots of pictures. After that we went to a pearl market, and I didn't see a single pearl. However I did see a lot of Chinese women looking at me and saying,"Hi Lady, you want cashmere scarf?" or "Looka, Looka, Looka, I have Rolex." Nah, no thanks. (However, if anyone wants ANY cheap knock offs of ANYTHING, I'm pretty sure I can help you out.) Ted and I have created a new language for such merchandise. Anything that is reproduced to look exactly like the name it is boasting is stripped of its first letter, and replaced with an "F". So if I were looking at some "Puma" shoes, we would call them "Fumas". Of course the "F" stands for fake. I'm sure you get the picture.

Friday morning we woke up at five in the morning to go to the flag raising ceremony at Tianmen square. A member of our party said that one of her friends did this, and said it was one of the coolest, most spiritual moments of his life. So, like sheep we followed. To those who might visit Beijing, and might think that this is something that they want to do: do not be fooled. Stay in your nice warm bed and sleep till nine. First of all, Tianmen square is nothing but a huge concrete square with a flag pole in the center. I know that a bunch (by a bunch I mean an unknown number in the thousands) of people were killed there in the 80's and that there are no pictures or documentation of this event, but that is not something that is significantly thrilling to me. Staying in my bed happens to be significantly thrilling. But, we got up for the flag ceremony, and we watched soldiers march and we watched the flag of China rise to their anthem. However, I did get a good sunrise picture out of it. Later that day we went to the Forbidden city. That was pretty cool, a little overpriced perhaps, but cool. A lot of the buildings were closed because they are renovating for the Olympics, hence the up in price. After that we caught a bus that took us to Summer Palace. I think this was the best part of that day. It was a really peaceful place. We spent the afternoon exploring beautiful ancient buildings built into a hillside. It was well worth the trip.

On Saturday we went to the Great Wall. We got up early in the morning, and got on a bus that we had arranged to take us the night before. It was a three hour ride to the section of the wall that we were going to, and it was an exciting one. The road there was a windy, hilly two lane highway. However, the Chinese turned it into a four lane river of madness. Cars weaved in and out of any lane they wanted. On numerous occasions our bus driver would floor the gas and try and pass people. One time was especially memorable. Our driver mashed down the pedal and began to pass a huge dump truck with an oncoming car in plain sight. By the way, the bus is gutless. No power at all. So we get up to about 55 mph in about 35 seconds, and this other car is still coming right at us, and picking up speed. I thought for sure that somebody would back down, but all trucks kept on truckin'. Horns blared and lights flashed, but everyone stuck to their guns. It wasn't until we could see the facial features of the driver of the oncoming car, that our driver decided he needed to slam on the brakes. Oh, what a rush. But, we got to the wall safe, thank goodness. We went to a section called Jing Shang Lin and hiked to another section called Simatai. It was about a six mile hike of steep stairs going up, and steep stairs going down.

It was so gorgeous. I always new that the Great Wall was huge, but I didn't realise that it went over such extreme terrain. From our hike we could see the wall for many miles, and it followed the ridge line of some very steep and jagged mountains. They almost looked like the Sawtooth Mountains. It was a pretty hard hike, but we managed just fine. We stopped a lot to take pictures. Along the wall we met this old Chinese woman. She and another sketchy looking guy followed us for about 45 minutes. They didn't talk to us for the first ten minutes, and I was a little worried that they might try to steal our stuff and throw us off the wall or something. But, she was actually quite friendly and knew pretty good English. It took me a while to figure out why she was following us, and my suspicions were confirmed after we met the halfway mark. She pointed out a small trail that led down into the valley. " I go home now." I said good bye, and she said, "Wait, you but book. Great Wall book." She had followed us up and down, and up and down, just to sell us a book. I wish she would have brought it up sooner to save her the trouble.

Hope that everyone is well and happy. Thanks for reading and keeping in touch!

-a.