Beijing, Day 2

Busy days in Beijing with exhausted people that wanna be at home isn't the best-- but I'm not letting them get me down!! (I still wanna stay)

We went to a lotta temples yesterday- which is surprising considering how I thought Mao had destroyed them during the Cultural Revolution... According to our guide, only select houses of worship were destroyed b.c. of their controversial role they held whereas others were saved for historical preservation. So we so the Tibetan-Buddhist Lama temple which is where the Dalai Lama was right before he fled for India.. It is a currently worshiped in temple so we couldn't really take any pictures but the Buddha statues were utterly amazing. One was something like 27 meters tall!! Wow!! It was inside a building and we just stood with our necks craned up and mouths open at how monstrous the thing was...

We went to another Confucian temple and to be honest-- even though they aren't in the US and I've never seen anything like them before-- there's only so many temples (and gardens) that a person can take!!

We did see the "Temple of Heaven" which was pretty amazing-- it's where the emperor would make sacrifices to the heavens for good harvests and good, healthy male offspring and stuff like that. It's crazy how large of buildings they would build for the sole purpose of sacrificing to the Gods-- not churches or places of worship but simply sacrificing buildings... man, those emperors really had it going for themselves.

Last night I saw THE most AMAZING acrobatic show that I've EVER seen!! These Chinese really know how to do acro... I've seen Cirque Du Soleil and it's pales in comparison to what these guys and gals can do..

Then we had the culinary dish that Beijing is most popularly known for: Peking Duck.
It will be nice to say that I've tried but I don't much care for duck... plus- they put it on this little plate shaped like a duck and it's too depressing...

We went to Tienanmen Square today which is the largest public square in the world! (It really is quite large) In one humongous building Mao Zedong is buried in a glass coffin for all the world to see (except the line was outrageously long so we didn't go in, :( ) In one building there was the "legislature", there was a museum on the other side and the main attraction was the building Tian aman, where the Chairman Mao stood to proclaim China "The People's Republic of China" in October 1949. This was where the shootings took place in 1989 where student protesters wanting reform in the gov't were shot and tanks were rolling around in the square to maintain some order... Since then the whole "Tiananmen Square" incident has remained tremendously controversial throughout the world where we Westerners look at it one way whereas the Chinese feel the leaders of the uprising were corrupt and no one was killed... interesting POVs.

As a result of all that, guards are placed all throughout the square and the entire vicinity. Standing at attention the entire time not flinching or moving an inch-- a lot like the British bobbies..

Through the gates there is the Forbidden Palace which is the largest palace in the world. (Now, I liked places like Versailles and Hampton Court and all but this one is like a humongous maze in comparison to those) It covers 7million sq. ft. and that's just crazy... The emperors would build whole buildings for sacrificing so inside the Forbidden City they had whole buildings for just "receiving visitors" or "eating breakfast". Crazy. (the one below was the place where he'd receive visitors!!)

Now the Forbidden City is called so b.c. for centuries China was closed off to the entire world. No one was allowed in OR out of the country. The Forbidden City was a "city w.in a city" in the capital city where only the emperor, his women, children, and others royals were allowed. The emperors wanted to keep them commoners, and esp. the foreigners, out. Also, there was a whole section to the palace reserved just for his concubines (some would have up to 10,000!!) But to ensure the validity of his line (that no other royal men were comin' in and kickin' it with his women then kicking him outta power) he made it so that any man that came into contact with his concubines were eunuchs!! (that means w.o the balls, lol) Well, these eunuchs (from underprivileged families ) would have to carry their balls around with them, preserved in little boxes, to prove their authenticity! How crazy is that?!? (The emperor's bed)
(A concubine's bed. The hall outside was termed: The Hall of infinite happiness)

Anyways... the Forbidden City was closed to the public until 1949 when the People's Republic opened it as a museum to the world and I think those old emperors must be rolling over in their graves right about now with all these tourists... It was crazy-- like the Disney World on the hottest day letting everyone in for free (the F.C. wasn't free... I just want you to picture how crazy crowded the place was)

Tomorrow I come home...
I'm looking forward to seeing my family and friends, my own bed, and getting back to a normal diet (oh, Thank God for that!!)
I'm sad that I'll be leaving my friends I've met here, the awesome times and once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and the escape from the nitty-gritty.

Beijing!!

After our flight was switched around w.o anyone notifying us, our tour guide not showing up at the airport to pick us up, and broken AC in the hotel room-- we finally got settled into Beijing!

Beijing, the capital city of China, is actually very gorgeous and they've done a very good job cleaning up the smog here. Due to the Olympics coming in less than a month, the gov't has placed a lotta restrictions on automobile driving-- who can drive, when, and where. Despite the news reports on the BBC that Beijing still has way too much smog-- we don't see or feel it. :) Which is nice, b.c. according to friend Amanda-- the smog was so bad last year that it was burning her eyes!!

Beijing has 15 million inhabitants and the avg. salary is the highest in China-- 4000RMB/mo. (That's about $550 USD). They have spent so much money on cleaning her up for the Olympics that it's not real China.. they have westernized toilets (you know, normal ones- not JUST those squatting urinals), they've torn down the ghetto-looking buildings and those they haven't gotten to-- they just built a wall around them so people can't see how really ghetto China is. (Not "Ghetto" just not as privileged or developed as the US) So basically, what you will see on TV as "Beijing" or what you will see if you come here, is nothing like the REAL China.

Yesterday when we got into town we went to a "Hutong" which are centuries-old alleyways with courtyard houses ("Siheyuan") that were built with their backs to the outside world. They are rather rare now b.c. the gov't has been tearing them down for nearly 60 years to attempt to clean up the "slums", as they call them. Interestingly enough, part of our tour took us to a Hutong to visit a family that lived there..which was actually kinda freaky but really nice of them to welcome us in. There was an old retired couple that lived in something no larger than a studio apartment where they had raised 2 children and had been living for 40 years. It was actually one of the nicer little "houses" in the courtyard area which is shared by @ 5 other families. There were parrots there saying "Nee how" which is hello in Chinese! lol. so cute.

We took rickshaws around the Hutong area where there were nice canals, bargaining shops, and a lotta bars. Our rickshaw driver was funny and kept laughing at my Chinese! lol.

Then we went to Bei Hai park which was an Imperial garden during Mongol rule (Kublai Khan, Yuan Dynasty). All the gardens we saw in Southern China sucked in comparison to this one (in my opinion) but then again it's understandably b.c. the Northern gardens were built for the emperor while the Southern gardens were private ones built by rich guys. We took a dragon boat across the very extensive lake to "Jade Island" which had the "White Dagoba"-- a Tibetan style stupa built to honor a Dalai Lama back in the 1600s.

After dinner at this really cool restaurant where every party had their own little room (picture like in the movies) we got back to the hotel and attempted to get the message across to the people that our AC didn't work in our room. After about 3.5 hrs, we got a new room and CUSHY beds!!!! THANK GOD!!! I'm so glad to be rid of that rock-bed!!

Today we went to a tourist trap Jade factory where we learned how to tell the difference b.n fake jade and real jade then ushered into a largely overpriced, gov't run store to shop around. The only thing I bought was this really cool hat with my roommate, Barbara, to show off our "Imperial Importance".

After that we headed to the Great Wall at Juyong Guan. It was probably one of the hardest workouts I've ever had as I climbed the very, very steep steps up a very steep altitude jump. There was so much of a jump from one step to the next that my knees were killing me by the end. I am proud of myself though-- I didn't make it all the way over the mountain, like some, but I did make it to the 3rd battlement (fortress-looking-thing) which is the one at the top of the steep, windy climb. There was this long cloth that spanned the entire section of the Wall where we were of all the different flags of the world for the Olympics. Once it was all spread out with guys holding onto it, they broke out into song for a period of time then wrapped it all up. According to our guide, they just started doing this once a week in recognition of the Olympics coming up. It was a real cool thing to get to see... the whole things was a good experience and I'm glad to say that I've seen the Great Wall. (essentially the "symbol of China")(Me with a guy dressed up as a Mongol... he's a tourist too!!)

After our big workout at the Great Wall, we went to the Ming Tombs. We saw some Ming tombs in Nanjing but that was only the first 2 emperors there. The 3rd Ming dynasty emperor decided he was better than the previous ones and moved his capital from Nanjing to Beijing (there's been a LOTTA moving capitals in China's history) so when he died (and everyone else after him) they were all buried here. There was the same "Sacred way" of larger-than-life stone animals to protect the tomb. This is where the emperor Yongle is buried along with his wife and 16 concubines! (and yes, he sacrificed them just like Hongwu-- the Ming emperor who lived in Nanjing) Yongle was the guy who sponsored Zheng He, the Chinese equivalent to Christopher Columbus.

We went to a Chinese medicine guy who told us what could be wrong with us while we got AWESOME 25 minute foot massages for $3 USD!! It was a pretty unique experience. Then we went to the Olympic arena which was AWESOME!!! It's really exciting to be in the same place as all the major athletes in the world and see where the 29th World Olympics (the first in China) is going to take place (also, there are these HOT athletes staying in our nice hotel... mmm, so nice looking!):


Also, our tour guide is pretty biased against women (and there's 8 of us on this trip)!! It's quite obvious that his idea of women is not quite up-to-par as much as we would like and this has caused a bit of stress and tension amongst us tour members. He's also pretty dry and a tad-bit on the monotonous side which makes learning from him quite fun...

I only have 3 days left here, which is crazy to think about... I feel like I've been here for so long when in reality it's only been @ 2.5 wks...

Marijuana and some walls...

We've been in class all week learning all there is to know about China's culture, history, music, writing, minorities, religions, etc... I know so much more about China now that I shouldn't have a problem teaching about her anymore (which is a good thing b.c. that was the purpose of me coming)

We took a trip to see the city wall the other day. It's the longest city wall in the world which is Nanjing's small claim to fame. It was miniscule in comparison to what the Great Wall will be like, but it was still neat to be able to see the city skyline and all. Also there was a Buddhist temple right next to the wall and we toured around that-- we felt like intruders b.c. it was prayer time and about 50 or so Buddhist nuns were singing and chanting and praying-- which is actually an extremely reverent time for them so it was neat to see them in action. (Naturally we had some rude, socially awkward individuals in our group that were loud and taking pictures of them and being disrepectful-- but you always have a few of those in every group)

Everyone's been getting sick with all this Chinese food every day- day in, day out... so we've stopped the change in diet and started finding some sort of Western cuisine to nourish our palates. One night we went to Papa John's where it was sit down, with fancy plates and silverware and all... I had to take a picture of the delivery guy's ride:

Most nights we've been frequenting the local Mexican restaurant "Behind the Wall" and getting quite sloshed. (Well as sloshed as you can get on the weak Chinese beer! lol... but we have pitchers, and pitchers, and pitchers brought to our table. By last night they knew us so well that we got the special seat next to the AC!! Woohoo!!

Now it's a habitual thing that every time we order our food someone's never comes. Of course that person has been me most times-- I dunno why though.. lol. We've realized that the workers' habitual pot smoking must be getting to their minds b.c when we finally ask about the missing food (which is usually when everyone else is done) it's like they have no clue what we are talking about!! It's quite humorous to watch the servers sway back and forth while staring at the wall during their "downtime" even though they've forgotten all these things. We had one girl take a picture of our group and she couldn't stay still-- she kept swaying back and forth with the camera and couldn't focus on us at all! lol. So we don't know what the marijuana rules are here in China but it's blatantly obvious that this restaurant is the place to work if you want some all day and all night! lol.
I'm sad that today is the last day here but at least there's a really good group of people going to
Beijing tomorrow... whew, am I relieved that we get along! 

Suzhou and Yangzhou

People don't know how to drive here!! There's no rules and you pretty much have the faith that no one will run into to you.. lol. We have spent SO much time turning around and u-turning and almost running into mopeds that it wasn't even funny.. Our tour guide just kept saying "Just close your eyes and listen to me instead" lol.

A group of us went to Suzhou over the weekend which is about 4 hours south of Nanjing and 1 hour north of Shanghai. It is called "The Venice of the East" b.c. of the canals and picturesque views. It's in no way a small town with it's 7 million-ish citizens living in the city! (The largest city here, btw, is in the center province of China at 32 million citizens!! Whew, that's more than the state of Cali!)

So Suzhou was nice- we saw one of the four most famous Chinese gardens called "The Humble Administrator's Garden". (If you ask me, anyone who builds a big "garden" for himself is NOT humble, lol) So there's 100+ gardens in China and just a little bit about them: There are two types of gardens: the Imperial garden- those made for the emperor, or the state; and Private gardens- those built by high ranking officials. The Imperial gardens are found in the north and the private gardens are in the South. There are four characteristics found in every garden: rocks, water, plants, buildings. They are all different and I'd have to say that the Humble Administrator's was my least fave.

We also went to Tiger Hill which is the #1 tourist spot in Suzhou. (I have no clue as to why! lol) There was a pagoda at the top of the hill which was built in the 900s, but we couldn't go in.. It's like the leaning tower of Pisa--if you notice it leans to the right!! (Also, it was built before the leaning tower of Pisa-- how like us Westerners to copy some Eastern idea! lol)

Also there was an emperor buried there and it was he who had the "hill" built for him. He was buried somewhere underneath the man-made pond with 300 swords and lotsa treasure. People aren't sure where exactly his tomb is b.c. if we try to find out all the rocks on top will cave in... so there he stays with his swords and money.

This was also the only place in all of China that has a representation of Buddhism and Confucianism together in one place: the column has representations for Confucianism and the little building behind it is for Buddhism.

We went on a tour of a Buddhist temple which was quite intriguing.. there was this building with representations of all the past Buddhas and you can chose the one you like the most then buy his little souvenir card where it tells you your "fortune"..

On Sat night we went on a boat tour of the Grand Canal. It was pretty neat even though everything was said in Chinese. Suzhou is known for it's canals and the fact that this is where Marco Polo spent a considerable amount of his time before coming back to Italy and suggesting the strategic planning for Venice!! Interesting. So the Grand Canal tour was neat to see where Marco Polo had been... Also the Grand Canal is the largest man-made waterway in the world! It was built during the Sui dynasty for the emperor to get rice and other goods from the south quicker.. it still remains the connection between the North and South to this day. Well it was interesting b.c. it's a major tourist attraction, even for the Chinese, to take this Grand Canal boat tour... So people were AMAZED by us!! esp. us blondes! Some of them had never seen a foreigner so they were taking pictures with us like we were celebrities! This one girl was walking behind me and touched my arm then it scared her away... lol, once i turned to look at her-- her friend snapped a picture of us then it started this whole line of girls getting pictures with me! lol. I felt rather popular.

On Sunday we went to the Silk factory which was really neat. Suzhou is the #1 silk producer in the world and supplies most of China and most of the world with silk-- this is why Suzhou appears "richer" than the other places we have been. So we went to the factory to learn how silk is made from silk worms. Without boring you, they basically harvest the silk worms and wait until they get to be 50 days old-- once they are old enough they spin their cocoons and then a lady figures out whether they are a single cocoon (the majority) or a double cocoon (only about 5% of them)... after that is done they are put into really hot water and a lady takes the silk off the cocoon and the threads are pulled off and spun... THEN it is turned into cloth! (basically it's a pretty complicated process)

On the way home our bus broke down! (I kept thinking, "hey-it wouldn't be a summer for me unless I broke down!" lol) We were on the side of the highway for about 2 hours in the 100+ degree heat waiting for a replacement bus. (There was a 3.6 Earthquake when we were standing there but we didn't even feel it b.c. of the traffic! :( )Eventually Curt came up with the idea to bet 5Yuan on the time that the bus would get there-- naturally it got quite exciting at that point! (and yes, Curt won the bet! lol)

We eventually got home, went to bed, and went to Yangzhou today. ("zhou", btw, means "state") It was HOT!!! At 116 degrees F we were all frying and sweating and felt like dying. ugh. Esp. since we saw two other gardens today-- being outside really made us all want to collapse. We did get to see a lacquerware factory which is insane the amount of work that is put into things! I felt REALLY bad for the workers b.c. the avg. salary here is like 1500 Yuan/month (basically $215 in the US!!) It's crazy...

I've met SO many nice people here that I will miss them when we're gone-- we've started eating at this Mexican place b.c. the Chinese food is not really agreeing with our bodies anymore (If you get what I'm saying! lol... PLUS trying to relieve our systems on these urinal toilets is NOT fun!!) The Mexican place is a lot of fun with Chinese guys playing Mexican music and the entire Mexican ambiance-- also, the cheap beer!! yay- that's what I'm talkin' about!!

It rocks here, I LOVE it!!

Nanjing Museum, Sun Yet Sun

Yesterday we went to the Nanjing Museum which was awesome! It had artifacts there from all the dynasties in China dating back to 2500 BCE!!!
There was a burial site that was only found @ 20 years ago which was from the Neolithic age (for those of you who may not know: think caveman) These were important ritualistic burial items like the Bi and Cong which represented wealth in the afterlife.
The Bi represented the currency and the more you had the wealthier you were.
Another interesting thing about their burials back then was that they used to stick clay pieces into the "apertures" of your head, a.k.a all the openings... icky!

There were some other rather amazing pieces like jade, ceramics, bronze. (all things that the Chinese are noted for finding and mastering first)(Picture of the Qing throne- the last dynasty in China)
(Picture: A Jade woman during that same dynasty-- China is really well-known for it's Jade)
(Picture: a bronze pot used for making food @1000 years ago)
It was quite impressive to see everything there and I enjoyed it.

Afterwards we went to the Temple where the Taiping Rebellion began back in the 1850s. (The Taiping Rebellion was basically all the Han Chinese (the majority here) rebelling from their foreign rulers who had come in a few centuries before and took control-- it failed) It was a quintessential Chinese palace with the rock gardens and Feng Shui. Unfortunately my camera died while taking a picture of porcelain so those pictures have yet to come....
We went shopping in the early evening and I got some bargains.. during one bargain I was with Sherry (who is African-American so they went crazy over her) well.. we were in this alley way and people swarmed us trying to force us to buy stuff- worse than the Caribbean, way worse.. Once we had to leave and really decided we wanted nothing they started throwing stuff down our shirts attempting to force us to take them! lol. It was a funny experience.
That night we went to a Mexican restaurant which was so much fun! We laughed and drank and met some French pilots. It was a raucous good time. (Which is why I didn't blog last night b.c. I came home and passed out instead, lol)

Today we went to Dr. Sun Yet Sen's Mausoleum-- 392 steps to the top to look at a coffin that you can't even take a picture of! lol. I did it tho and was rather proud that I got up, back, and still had time for the Ming tombs. (I walked 7 miles today, btw! If I don't lose any weight at all, ugh)

The Ming were the last Han-Chinese rulers (that's the majority of the population in China named after the Han dynasty [220ish BCE-220 CE]...around the time of Jesus... so they like the Ming)
I'm glad I got to go to the tombs b.c. there was this Emperor Hong Wu which is known for having 46 concubines and having them killed and buried with him!! Imagine that?!?

Anyways so today was fun and tomorrow I head to Suzhou which is like the Venice of the East. I can't wait! Happy Fourth!!