Day 1 -- Beijing

The bus ride from Tianjin, the port closest to Beijing, was a little over two hours of boredom as the landscape was flat and barren.  As I previously wrote, we rode over reclaimed land that was covered in hundreds of thousands of newly planted trees that will later be used for windbreaks against the Gobi Desert winds.  There were brand new freeways that looked like they had never been used.  The driver turned off at one ramp to another freeway and stopped dead in his tracks, pulling over to the side of the road.  Did we have a flat, was the bus broken?  No, there were vehicles coming at us from the opposite direction!  The driver was yelling (and I think cussing).  He started backing up off the ramp back onto the other freeway we just left.  He stopped again and made a phone call.  He was LOST!  Well, I guess he figured it out because he went forward again.  We made it safely into Beijing.

Our first stop was to a very nice restaurant – Chinese of course.  This place could seat hundreds it was so large.  Throughout our eating excursions, the food came fast and there was one course after another placed on the lazy susan in the middle of the table.  Michael was in heaven as Chinese food is his favorite.  We were spinning and using our chopsticks to grab morsels of stuff that was familiar or some we had no idea what it was.  One of our group said he did not like Chinese food and would not eat it; well, we challenged him and he found out it wasn’t so bad.  You can only eat so much rice and if you don’t want to be hungry you better figure out that you get Chinese food in China.

The weather was not so good.  It was cold, windy and haze blanketed the sky casting a flat look on everything.  Visability was awful.  Picture taking in this light was awful.  On our first official outing we dressed up ready to walk Tiananmen Square.  I thought it was warmer than it actually was so I left my gloves and my newly knit alpaca scarf on the bus.  Boy, was that a mistake.  By the time I realized it, the bus had already taken off.  The wind was biting and Michael was freezing (he refused to pack a jack or coat for the trip). 

Tiananmen means “gate of heavenly peace.”  This is the largest public square in the world.  Remember, I said everything in China was huge.  Mao’s crystal coffin was housed in the mausoleum but we could not go in to see it.  There were huge bronze statues celebrating the four occupational categories:  workers, farmers, scholars and soldiers (scholars seemed to be pariahs).  There were spy cameras facing every direction, covering every square inch of the plaza (I am guessing this because there were soooooo many pointed every which way).  We learned a lot about the history while we stood there freezing on this vast square of concrete.  Our guide reluctantly mentioned about the student uprising on June 4, 1989 when student protestors were killed.  Sensitive subject, eh?

Now it was time to go to the Forbidden City.  I have a picture of the gate that we thought was the entrance to FC.  Oh, us naïve tourists.  Everything is big and there are gates to the gates.  To cross the street we used an underground tunnel.  I am so thankful that my legs are working as this was the first of many, and I mean many, stairs to climb. 

The FC was built from 1406-20 during the Ming Dynasty.  Emperor Ju-di built all of the great landmarks that you see in Beijing today.  The FC was only for the emperor, his concubines, servants, guards and eunuchs.  Surrounding the FC is the Royal City where the princes, princesses and other relatives lived.  Sons of emperors had to move out of the FC when they reached puberty.  It was built in a perfect square.  The last emperor to live here was in 1911.  The FC is now a museum.

We kept walking through one gate after another, over thresholds where the woman stepped over with the right foot and the man stepped using the left.  Traditions are very important here.  Dragons are a legendary animal in Chinese history and we saw many carvings with the image.  Lions are also central to the history, seen in pairs guarding gates.  The male lion is on the left hand side and has his right paw on a ball; the female is on the right with her left paw on a lion cub.  This is seen in many of the places we have visited.

This was one overwhelming place.  The vastness, the immense size of the outer walls, the decorations, the moat … Most of the façade was refurbished for the Olympics.  Color is important to the Chinese.  Red is for happiness; yellow for royalty; blue represents heaven; and green the earth.  The colors were so bright and vivid.  The areas that had not been refurbished were faded and peeling, it was such a sad sight that something so incredibly beautiful and old was not properly taken care of.

We spent approximately two hours exploring the many buildings, walking the alleyways, and viewing the breathtaking gardens all the while listening to our guide regal us with stories from Chinese history.  I had my handy little notebook with me so I could take notes, but my hands were freezing.  I could barely read my handwriting.

The gardens were unlike anything I have ever seen before.  Chinese gardens always have three components:  rock, water and trees.  These were not rocks, but carved boulders with interesting designs made by Mother Nature herself.  Moats of water, bridges, and twisted and knurled tree trunks made this the highlight of the FC for both of us.  I will let the pictures tell the story.

We returned to the Regent Hotel and were we delightfully surprised.  No standing in line to check in; our guides had done all the legwork and just handed each of us a room key.  All of our luggage from the ship was waiting there in the room.  Did I say this is the only way to go?  The room was beautiful and well equipped, and very luxurious.  We were on our own for dinner tonight, and after having a huge lunch we decided to eat a light meal.  I also wanted to get a large soft and collapsible storage bag so we could just easily move stuff around without having to repack everything as we checkout of the hotel tomorrow and head to Xian.  The hotel will store all the rest of our belongings and we only need to take an overnight bag (hahaha, you should see the size of the Walker’s overnight bag compared to everyone else’s).

We walked two blocks to the nearest mall where we encountered our first crosswalk near miss adventure and locals approaching us on the street to talk and visit (I described this in China – an Overview).  The mall was huge, bright and had trendy stores.  I mostly saw young people probably because there was a university nearby and frankly, there is nothing for a “regular” adult to buy that they would wear or could even fit into.  Most Chinese people are on the small side and not too terribly tall.  There was so much designer stuff (mostly knock-offs) that still were expensive and I wondered how they could afford the clothing, shoes and handbags.

We couldn’t bring ourselves to eat Chinese again, so we found a Pizza Hut and had a small pizza and beer.  Boy, I miss my caffeine free diet coke.  The menu was interesting in that there were all kinds of Chinese foods on it in addition to the pizza and pasta.

We returned to the hotel with our coveted soft sided bag and managed to pack our overnight bag before collapsing in bed.