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...