China: Beijing

So I went to bed at 0530 and I had to be up and ready for when the buses left at 0830. I had set all my alarms the night before and we were getting a wake up call. Needless to say I woke up at 0839 when Carson asked me what time we were leaving at. The best part is that she was up at 0700 and showered and ready, she just thought we didn't have to leave til 0900.

I managed to sleep through every single alarm and the wake up call. I got dressed in 2 minutes and we sprinted downstairs. Literally 0842 we get downstairs and see buses. They're the other group. Ours had just left. Shitttt. We knew they were going to Tian'an men Square first so we grabbed a cab there. I knew it wasn't too far since we'd walked there the night before. On our way to the square we saw our group going underground to cross the street into the square. 2 minutes later we got out of our cab. At least the cab rides are really cheap, like $2 or 14 yuan.

Next we had to meet up with our group. Tian'an men Square is the largest public square in the world, so obviously, not the easiest place to locate people. It took us about 2 minutes of scrambling through the hoards of tourists to find our group. I still can't believe we found them. They clapped. It was deserved. Normally we leave a half hour late, this was the first, and only time, they left on time the entire 6 days.

We took a ton of pictures and got the history from our tour guide, Susan. Then we walked to the north side of the square called the Tian'an men Gate, or the Rostrum. From the balcony of the Rostrum on October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong, chairman of the Communist Party, proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China. There's a huge portrait of Mao hanging on the south side of the gate. Behind the Rostrum lies the Forbidden City, also known as the Imperial Palace.

The architecture is crazy and the Forbidden City is huge. I'll give you the basic history on it. It was home to 24 emperors beginning with its creation by Emperor Yongle in 1420 until the last Qing emperor, Puyi, left in 1924. The entire complex consists of 8,706 rooms in which an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 people lived including 3,000 enuchs, as well as maids and concubines, all within 170 acres. Behind walls more than 30 feet high and within the 160-foot moat, complex rules and rituals dictated life in the Imperial Palace.

The Forbidden City just keeps going and going. We spent about 2 hours walking through the gates deeper and deeper into the complex. The paintings on and around the buildings were beautiful and so colorful. At the end of the City we walked through a rock garden and temple out to the street.

We took the buses to the Hutong area. Here we all paired up with a friend for a trishaw ride through the area. Isaac and I got one together. It was really cool. It was esentially a man biked us around in a little carriage, complete with blanket. The Hutong area was beautiful in an old and grey sort of way. We were finally out of the big cities and into smaller, 1 and 2 story buildings. They were all slightly run down. The Hutong area was built during the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. It's basically a narrow network of lanes created by quadrangular houses. The whole area itself is closed off with wooden gates.

They took us for a 15 minute trishaw ride far into the Hutong area. They split us up into groups of 15 to go to local families for lunch. We went to Madame Fung's house. She had cleaned out her bedroom and set up tables for us all covered in food. We had some delicious sweet potatoe chips and chicken and corn and dumplings. Then after lunch finished, she taught us how to make dumplings. She pointed to mine and told me it was perfect. I should think so. I've eaten more dumplings than anyone else in China. Dumplings are a big part of celebrating the Chinese New Year. That explains why we've had so many since we arrived in China. Deliciousness. She answered our questions about the food and her house. We thanked her and went on our way.

We played around in the streets for a little while with a few of the local kids before we took our trishaws back to the buses. We scoped out the bathrooms. That was not happening. Bathrooms in China are disgusting. Japan had the cleanest, more high tech bathrooms I've ever seen in my 21 years of existance. China...not so much. And we haven't even hit India yet. Joy.

The ride back on the trishaw was just as enjoyable. We saw more of the area. We hopped back on our buses and headed for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Village.

I hope you all remember these obscene structures: the Birds Nest and the Bubble Aquatics center. We took pictures outside and then were able to explore the inside of the Birds Nest. For whatever reason, they only scheduled us to spend 15 minutes inside. Not enough time at all.

That structure is huge and has some crazy angles and pieces. Unfortunately I didn't bring my phone with me so I can't post pictures from it til May. We walked down the aisles to the first rows to look up and see the inside. The entire center was set up with sledding and ice skating and little kid activities. We didn't have tickets or the time for that. Otherwise we all would have been in there. It was really amazing.

We rushed back to find the rest of our group before we missed our bus. We could only admire the Bubble Aquatics center from afar.

We were rushing out to go to a Silk Factory....

A few people were remarking about how more time should have been spent in the Olympic Village because it was so much cooler and we'd all watched the 2008 Summer Olympics. One of the teachers on the trip heard this and flipped out at them saying she didn't plan it, blah blah blah. Astounded they tried to explain this conversation wasn't directed to her. Sometimes they really act as though we're ungrateful 8 year olds. We're all pretty capable 20 year olds actually. Thank you very much.

So we headed to the Silk Market, where we learned about how silk is made. It was interesting to see the different parts of the silk-making process from the silk worms to the threading to the finished products. I could have skipped this, and I don't think I was alone. It was a Silk Market, the end result was to sell us their silk products. They had silk everything, but it was wicked expensive and by this point everyone was exhausted. Only a few of the 98 people bought anything. They weren't willing to barter with us and we had limited cash. Fails on their part.

We were told if we got out of there quickly they'd take us to the Pearl Market before dinner. I've never seen people clear out quicker. The Pearl Market was one of the many markets in Beijing, it's more of a mall. It has 3 floors of fake designer everything: jeans, North Face, bags, luggage, etc. These aren't like the flea markets at home, everything looks almost exactly like the designer it mimics, including the name. I heard this is actually illegal and can be a problem going through customs, but I don't know how true that is. You barter everything down to what you want and pay fairly inexpensive prices. Caitlin and I went for the bags and tshirts and pearls. China's also known for its pearls. We got a bunch of stuff really cheap. We only had a half hour there before we had to get back to the hotel for the buses and dinner.

The buses left us there and told us to find our own way back. Nice. Especially considering all by 2 people on our bus got out at the Pearl Market. We started running back, then decided it was too far of a run. We got a cab. Again, really cheap. We threw everything in our rooms and got on the buses for dinner.

Dinner was at the Tangyuan Restaurant. We were having a Beijing duck dinner. I'm not a big fan of eating Daffy Duck and typically wouldn't order it, but it was phenomenal. I highly recommend duck. We had all sorts of appetizers: pork fat, noodles, vegetables and then even more food with the duck. It was all served family style, so you really get a good variety of foods. I've come to like this better than getting one meal and one taste. We had some really sweet red wine with dinner, apparently similar to the rice wine. I didn't like it as much.

After dinner we all headed back to the hotel to shower and head out for the night. Amy, Lauren, and I had some wine before we went out. We met up with Carson, Michael, and a few others. We went to Bar Street again and went to Skyline. At Skyline we ran into a bunch of other SAS people who had been traveling around Beijing. I saw Pat and a few other people I knew.

The girls headed down the road to a small, local bar, not overrun by SASers. It was all international students studying and traveling through China. Really cool. And cheap drinks. We got a few shots and toasted to Beijing and SAS and all those good things before heading back to meet up with everyone at Skyline.

We had another beer at Skyline. A bunch of people were heading out to Club Mix. We decided we'd chill for a little while at Skyline and head back fairly early. We didn't need to be out late again. Amy and I split a cab back. Our cab got hella lost in the abyss of Beijing and couldn't manage to find our hotel. He didn't speak any English. He pulled over and made some calls and all I could think of was that we were getting sold into some foreign market and I'm planning how to find my way out of it. A minute later he motions to see the room key again. Nods and continues. We get within a block that we recognize and see Carson and Michael running towards us. We get him to stop and just pay the double cab fare fro
m what it should have been. Trying to negotiate the equivalent of an $8 cab instead of a $4 cab just wasn't worth the effort.

We all get back to the hotel and say our goodnights and manage to be in bed by 0200. Thank God.