Well, if this is what weekends are like here in Beijing, we’re gonna be exhausted all the time!
A couple of general observations:
- I’m amazed at the number of Christmas decorations here—they’re everywhere, and most stores/hotels play Christmas music, as well. Surprising, but true.
- I’m also amazed at how few accidents we’ve seen. For all the crazy driving, there are very few accidents, and none involving scooters or bicycles (fortunately).
- Cab rides are dirt cheap—we paid three dollars for a cab ride last night to go about fifteen minutes, and that included the driver getting lost. It was only two dollars to get back home for the ten minute ride.
- They use a 24-hour clock (think military time), which I think is awesome, but Tracy is not so happy about. I don’t know how she’s had a military ID her entire life without learning military time. She mumbles something about, “Communism” every time she has to figure it out.
Morning
We started our weekend, as you already know, by heading up to the Great Wall. Well, actually, we started our weekend at 3:00 AM, since our time clocks haven’t yet caught up with us. Anyway, Daryl (my boss) took us up to his favorite section of the wall, which is about an hour and a half away. On the ride, our tour guide for the day, told us many things about Beijing, Chinese culture and language, and points of interest along the way. We had a van (a Buick SUV—Buicks are common over here, along with Audi, MB, BMW, Hyundai, and a few Toyotas sprinkled in) and driver for the day, so the six of us arrived at the parking lot about 10:30 in the morning. The sun was blazing, but it was still below freezing, though Judy (our tour guide) told us that it was fairly warm (yikes!). As we started climbing the short distance from the parking lot to the cable cars that would take us to the wall, the street was lined with many vendors, most of whom were not shy about approaching us with their wares. The two most interesting things I saw that they had were those Chinese fur hats, and some jade that looked interesting. They also had t-shirts that said, “I climbed the Great Wall,” of course. We arrived at the base of the cable cars, paid our 40 RMB fee (about $6.00), and then jumped on board. Think of a gondola/ski lift type setup. When we got to the top, we were at the Great Wall.
It’s a pretty amazing site to behold. As far as the eye can see, it stretches across the top of the mountains in both directions. The number of stones in any one section make it seem like it would have taken years to build, and each section is only about 100 – 500 yards long. We walked along several sections, checking out the towers and lookout points along the way. A wonderful site to behold!
Now I should pause here for a moment, because I’m sure you’re wondering, “Hey, where are the pictures to back this up?”
But back to the story. The most fun part was coming back down. The have a sled that you can ride to get back down—it’s almost like a luge situation, where you sit in a toboggan with a lever in the middle, and ride down a smooth metal track. The lever allows you to speed up or slow down. So, naturally, we caught up all too quickly to the folks in front of us, and ended up going slowly the rest of the way. But it was still a blast—we’ve luged down the Great Wall!
After wading back through the merchants, we drove about a half mile away to a restaurant run by an American for lunch. We both complained (politely, of course) to Daryl that we didn’t come all the way to China for American food, but he correctly pointed out that we’d be a while getting back into town, and this was a great place in the meantime so we didn’t get too hungry. (And, he more than made up for it for dinner, but more on that later.) The lunch was pretty good, and we had a comfortable ride back into town.
Afternoon
We found ourselves right in the very center of town—Tiananmen Square. It holds half a million people, and has large buildings on all four sides, including Chairman Mao’s tomb, a large museum, the parliament building, and the Forbidden City, where the emperor lived back in the day. There were thousands(!) of people in the square doing the touristy thing, most of them locals. Our tour guide told us that it was lighter than normal volumes of people, since it was winter. I can’t imagine what the summer would be like!
We then headed across the street to the Forbidden City, using an underground walkway. On the other side of the street as you walk through the gate to the Forbidden City grounds, are all the bleachers where all the Communist dignitaries sit for the parades. Back in the day, to display their might, the Communist would have these large parades where they would show off huge numbers of soldiers marching in unison, along with tanks and missiles. It was an impressive sight, but I’m glad they don’t do it anymore!
The Forbidden City itself looks just like it did in the movie, “The Last Emperor.” They’ve restored much, but not all, of it, and you can see where the emperor, his wife, and his concubines all lived. Very large, covering over 180 acres, the grounds truly are a city unto itself. The family seemed to have everything, and it took a cast of thousands to support them. Much of the detail, including the marble carvings of dragons, and the painting near the rooflines of the buildings, are very impressive. After about an hour and a half there, we decided to head back to the hotel for a short break before dinner.
For dinner, we went to a dumpling house. The basic idea is that you pick out the type of dumplings you want, then they bring them to you, hot and steamy. Then, you eat until you’re stuffed. And stuffed you will be, because they are really good! We had pork, shrimp, and vegetable dumplings, with a side of fried rice. We also had this weird mushroom dish, and they were okay, but the dumplings and the fried rice were absolutely fabulous! We couldn’t put our chopsticks down for a second—the food was just too good!
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