Beijing, day three: The Summer Palace

The Summer Palace is a beautiful garden and an excellent example of Chinese landscaping. It is also an interesting place historically, because of its association with the Dowager Empress Cixi. The Summer Palace far predates Cixi, but its most recent imperial reconstruction was under her rule, and she famously used finances set aside for the Chinese Navy to refurbish the grounds for her upcoming birthday. Shortly thereafter, the Chinese Navy was obliterated by Japan.

The Long Corridor allows one to walk along the lake on a covered walkway

There are over 1,000 paintings in the Long Corridor

Not ready for a picture

Ready!

The marble boat that Cixi is said to have built as a nod to the source of funds! 

We took a boat trip across the lake for a good view of The Tower of Buddhist Incense. It was a little smoggy, though.

On the boat

On the Seventeen Arch Bridge (note to self: pollution gives me good hair). 

The bridge is covered with hundreds of lion statues, all unique

Then we went to some goofy hipster section of Beijing. I mean, these hipsters are everywhere: coffee shops, beer halls, ironic old factory equipment, art galleries, bicycles, the whole shebang.

Hipsters.

Just - hipsters. 

Hipsters on all continents. 

We had time for a quick hot pot lunch - you pick your soup ingredients and cook it over a hot bowl of broth at the table - and then headed to the airport. This was our first experience flying inside China, and Cindy kept telling us how easy it was. Well. I have a whole post on that for later. But up next, Xi'an and the Terra Cotta Soldiers!

Beijing, day two: the Great Wall

Our first stop on day two was the Temple of Heaven, a Ming dynasty temple built by emperor Zhu Di, who also built the Forbidden City, as a place of Taoist worship. The beautiful complex is steeped in symbolism, mostly relating to prayers for a good harvest.

The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, above, is lovely, but more fascinating was the circular mound alter - too crowded to photograph, though. The small platform in the center is positioned to allow voices projected from the location to bounce off the marble railings, creating a resonating sound and loud prayer to the gods.

The number of animal statues along the edge of the roof denote the buildings status: buildings used for worship, for example, will have more animals that those used to emperors.

The Imperial Vault of Heaven was also designed to echo: it is surrounded by an Echo Wall that used to transmit a whisper all the way around the circular wall to the other side. Now, years of names scratched into the wall have destroyed its ability to conduct sound waves smoothly. Stupid graffiti.

After leaving the Temple of Heaven, we drove two hours to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. So here are a million pictures. Because it's amazing. Parts were crowded, but the views were stunning. The wall itself is quite rugged, with lots of ups and downs and tiny steps. It's dotted with unique watchtowers and, as you might notice, lots of photo opportunities through stone windows.

We took a terrifying chair lift up the mountain to reach the wall, then walked from tower six to nineteen and back. This thrilled our guide, who has never had a group pass tower fourteen, and we are now basically Great Wall celebrities (I think Americans must have a really sedentary stereotype - everywhere we go people are amazed by the most basic athletic accomplishments. I mean, this was a walk of a few miles - no big deal. When we biked the Xi'an city wall later, the fact that we completed 13k in about an hour had our guide speechless. This ride included a million photos, bathroom breaks, stops to examine artifacts, etc.!).

The way back down the mountain was via toboggan slide, which was really quite fun, although it sounds cheesy! But I do love a good sledding, and this was super fun and fast. 

The Great Wall was one of the highlights of the trip: the scenery was beautiful, the structure is incredible, and the sheer size of just this small section is impressive. If you go, wear tennis shoes: it's fairly rugged; be aware that it's a bit cooler than in Beijing, so bring a jacket. 

We dropped our tour guide off at her house, which was on the way back to our hotel - a full two hours away, though. Unbelievably, this woman commutes two hours each way for her job: and that's in good traffic. She takes a series of buses every day. I can't believe her commute, but she told us that it was common. I talked to Cindy a lot: she was really interested in me and my life, and her life fascinated me. Some of her story made me a little sad, and I plan to post more about her - and maybe our other guides - later. 

Huge cups and dessert!

After getting back to our hotel, suddenly all I wanted was coffee. We found a little coffee place in the shopping streets of Beijing, and my huge Americano (no brewed coffee, which was common in the Chinese coffee shops we visited) hit the spot. I drink so much coffee that I tend to get caffeine headaches on vacation because I'm not mainlining coffee all morning. By the way, coffee is gaining popularity in China, but it is still very expensive for the most part: around $5 to $7 a cup. I gladly paid it: addiction is a terrible thing. 

After coffee, we did a little exploring in the shopping area. 

It was massive, full of typical mall brands and higher-end stores. I found my way into a store selling Chinese paintbrushes and ink, and in the back were stacks of finished art. I bought a piece, my first experience bargaining. I am pretty sure I overpaid for most of what I bargained for, but I got this piece for 80 yuan (about $13) because the edges are torn. I'll just mat over that part. 

Then we packed up, because the next day was the last day in Beijing, and we were flying out in the afternoon. Next up: The Summer Palace.

Beijing, day one

Our first full day in Beijing started at Tiananmen Square. We used a travel agency that supplied us with a guide and driver, and they picked us up at the hotel. Cindy, our guide for Beijing, brought us to the square, where we immediately got a taste of what our China visit would be like: the square was filled with people, hoards of people, all Chinese, all wearing matching hats in large tour groups, all lined up to visit Mao's body. Right away we saw how important Mao still is (or ought to be!) and also how many of the tourists we'd see would be Chinese. In fact, the only place we saw some non-Chinese tourists was at the Great Wall, because the section we visited wasn't open to large tours, and the Chinese people tend to travel with large tour groups. 

Big decorations from National Day were still up in the square.

Mao's huge portrait

Right across from Tiananmen Square is the Forbidden City: what a treasurer of architecture and opulence! 

Yet so little is clearly set forth in any language. There are no labels, signage, or descriptions. Luckily we had a tour guide, but sometimes her history was hazy if we asked a question off-script. I would have loved better lighting or access to the interiors, but my overall impression was as intended: here was a ruler with wealth, power, and favor of the gods. If you go, I would definitely recommend reading up on the area first: I hadn't, and was relying on years-old memory to understand the palace. 

Following our visit to the Forbidden City, we climbed to the top of Jingxian Park to experience the incredible views of the Forbidden City and Beijing. We were blessed with an unusually clear, smog-free sky and the views were stunning. Beijing is enormous and sprawls miles and miles farther than it ought to; ring road after ring road create six concentric circles. Traffic intensifies within each ring as you near the city's center. 

Our afternoon included a hutong tour and a visit to a local family's home. Our guide made a big deal of this visit: we would see a section of the hutong (the small, winding, residential streets iconic to China) preserved as  it was originally designed: a courtyard with four surrounding buildings. Most, if not all, other such structures have been divided into small rooms that house individuals or families. These rooms have no plumbing or heat, and renters have to use public toilets and showers down the block. A wealthy businessman from Hong Kong bought this particular block several decades ago and his family still lives there. The choice of this tour seemed strange to me, because normally such tours look at how an average family lives. This one, however, was obviously the wealthiest dweller in the entire hutong. But like much of Beijing, his courtyard was filthy, heaped with trash, broken furniture, and refuse. His four little dogs rooted in kitchen garbage and fought over a dead bird. Time and again, we were surprised by the dirty streets, buildings, and homes in Beijing. Touristy shopping areas were kept clean by government workers, but other streets were unbelievably dirty. And I say that coming from New Orleans, which isn't exactly spotless. 

I ran the first, and every, morning in Beijing. I love getting out to see a new city that way: watching the workers heading to their jobs, seeing the compact city garbage trucks picking up trash, glimpsing the (very) occasional local runner out, too. 

Some things about the culture really surprised me. For one thing, although English is a mandatory language in school, very few people in Beijing spoke English. This struck me as odd, because it is such a cosmopolitan city and many street signs are in English. However, while we saw many tourists, most were Chinese nationals. Very few were English-speakers. Perhaps that is why we found few people in Beijing who spoke English. 

I was also struck by the unusual child policy. Of course, China has had a one-child policy for decades. Many economist predicted that the birth rate would be so low that china would have difficulty sustaining its economy and supporting its elders with such a smaller new generation. Sure enough, a few years ago China began allowing a second child. But what I didn't consider is that this will lead to a housing crisis. Much of the housing in Beijing was built recently, and most are one or two bedroom apartments. These apartments are already crowded, because since each household only had one child, that one child must bear the burden of caring for elderly parents. So some household may have both sets of grandparents, my mom and dad, and a child in a very small apartment. Add in a second child, and there are a few apartments large enough to accommodate a family of this size. 

The traffic and smog were every bit as bad as people describe them. Even when we were there on a clear day, my eyes and throat burned. On smoggy days, the sky was a hazy yellow. Traffic is intense and kind of a free for all, and our driver drove just as crazily as everyone else!

We had lunch at a restaurant our guide recommended. She ordered for us, as the menu was in Chinese, and while the food was good, it was far too much! This was a pattern throughout the trip: whenever our guides ordered, we had too much to eat, and ended up skipping dinner.

We wrapped up day one early, which was good since we were still jet-lagged! And the next day was a big day: The Great Wall.