China: Beijing, Day 4

Our last day in Beijing. Up at 8a, packed, enjoyed our breakfast, then boarded the tourbus. 

We stopped to shop at a popular Beijing shopping center for a couple of hours and instead of going into one of the many modern buildings, we walked until we stumbled upon a busy local marketplace. Dozens of touristy giftshops and Chinese street-food stands lined the narrow alley while lanterns hung happily above the heads of the locals and tourists that filled in any empty space below.

While we were tired of seeing the same touristy goods sold in all of the shops, the street-food sparked much interest.

 Sure there was candied grapes, deep fried ice cream, skewered chicken, and different kinds of dim sum, but we were more intrigued by the skewered live scorpions, seahorses, caterpillars, tarantulas, snake meat, frog legs and donkey meat. First Courtney ate snails, then the two girls from Tempe ate seahorses, and then the 4 of us ate snake. It wasn't bad at all, it was seasoned and tasted like chicken.

After a quick stop at our first sighting of a Starbucks, we boarded the tour bus and headed to the city center. Here we rode rickshaws through the tight and windy hutongs ( narrow roads that are less than 9 meters wide ) which were packed with tiny shops and homes.





Most of these homes are very old, run-down spaces that once belonged to the wealthy, were seized by the government, and now, in most cases 5 families will live in one of these homes which are called Si He Yuan in Mandarin. Families live in these homes for years, passing them down generation after generation. Because of their location, at the very center of Beijing, these very small (think 2 door garage size) spaces are worth $5,000,000 US dollars...each. Unless the families have money, which most don't, there is no toilet in the house. There is a shared toilet for the community every couple of feet, and electricity is about $80 US dollars a year per home. I have to admit that I did not expect to see the degree of poverty that we did riding through those hutongs, it was a hard pill to swallow.

That said you can imagine the way I  first felt when we stopped to have lunch at one of these homes. Mr. and Mrs. Liu's home to be exact, their family has lived in this particular space for over 5 generations.

Mrs. Liu prepared fried vegetable balls, bean sprouts, leek shoots, rice, carrots and potatoes, steamed pork potstickers and chicken with celery while Mr. Liu told us about his family and made sure our glasses were always full of beer. This was by far my favorite meal in China. It was so fresh and homemade, I loved listening to Mr. Liu as he told us about him (he went to school with Jet Li and taught Kung-Fu his whole life), his son who teaches Kung-Fu in Houston and has won many awards, and about the history of his home.

Full and content we all said goodbye and boarded the bus for the airport.

A sad goodbye to Vicky, a quick 2 hour flight to Xian, and there we are at the Titan Times Hotel...it was AMAZING! Traveling with Rewards Travel China was SO easy. They planed our entire day, checked us into and out of airports, flights and our hotels, we got to cut lines and we never had to worry about transportation or where we're going to eat next. It truly makes for such a carefree trip, especially in a foreign country where you don't know the language, city or culture-- but I digress....

Jax and I sat next to a software engineer from a more rural part of China on our flight to Xian. We were the first Americans that he had ever spoke to! His name is Lee, and he has been practicing English since middle school. He was very eager to speak English and excitedly talked to us the entire flight. Lee was extremely nice and his English was quite impressive.

China: Beijing, Day 3

Ok, it's been almost 2 months since my last post-- way too long. To catch you up, three girlfriends and I took a chance on a Living Social 8-Day Trip to China (Beijing and Xian) back in April of this year. Our bold move paid off, the trip was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had. Day 1 and Day 2 can be found here and here.

Day 3 was my favorite day. We left the hotel at 7.45a and went straight to the Temple of Heaven which is Beijing's equivalent to New York's Central Park or Japan's Yoyogi Park. Vicky (our tour guide) was telling us that many young adults here don't want to have kids. Instead, they want to focus on their careers and "enjoy their lives." These young adults travel a lot or leave China all together leaving their parents alone. So many of the parents like to go to this park, Temple of Heaven, where they are able to meet friends, exercise and take in Chi (energy) from nature.

The park was packed with locals and foreigners engaging in a variety of different activities: a Chinese game like hackie sack, tai chi, and badminton. Most were just walking around like us, taking in the sights and admiring the perfectly manicured gardens.

// the photo is a bit blurry and it looks like a double exposure, but ladies, this is how you go to the bathroom in China (it's the same way in Japan) //

// a bike with a wheelchair attached to it...genius //

// these traditional Chinese hats saved the day (later in this post) //

We stayed at The Temple of Heaven for about an hour then we hopped back onto the tourbus and began our journey to the Great Wall of China. We drove through the traffic of Beijing which is comparable, if not worse than that of LA for about an hour and a half then stopped at a government owned jade factory. Admiring the architecture of the buildings in Beijing made the long bus ride not so bad.

// not jealous of those guys //

Jade is to the Chinese as diamonds are to Americans. According to our tour guide, the Chinese didn't know what diamonds were until the 80's. We got a very quick lesson on jade, then we're encouraged to look around the showroom of the factory to purchase some of the jade goods sold there. Once released from the tour guide, the saleswomen flock to you and haggle you to buy, it's really uncomfortable!

// jade phone //

Stop #3 was the cloisonné factory where we learned how traditional Chinese enamelware is made. Cloisonné is an everlasting art that is loved by the Chinese. Cloisonné was at one time only used for the royal families, it's a symbol of authority and status.

Upstairs from the cloisonne factory is a Chinese restaurant, Jindian Restaurant, where we had lunch. A restaurant on top of a factory? Yeah, we were skeptical at first as well...but it ended up being quite good. All of our meals included a glass of free soda or beer. A glass of water on the other hand-- that will cost you. This meal in particular included some 56% alcohol by volume "fire water" which we took shots of from little mini chalices. Free hard alcohol + Shopping = Smart Move (for the business). We got a little buzz going then they gave us some time to peruse the goods and of course,  we wanted (and did) buy everything!

// 'resraurant' //

// le fire water //

// le mini chalice //

// the artist and me //

Many yuan (Chinese currency) later and we're back on the bus to endure our final 45 minute drive to the Great Wall. As we made our way through the mountains we were able to see our first glimpses of the wall...it's absolutely breathtaking and impossible to describe. This 6,000 mile Wonder of the World took 800,000 men 200 years to build. Its essentially double the distance from LA to NY. There are no words to describe how expansive and majestic The Great Wall of China is. Once we arrived we had about 2 hours to climb the wall and explore. It was probably in the high 80's if not low 90's and there is barely any shade on the wall. Thank goodness for the traditional Chinese straw hats Jax wanted to buy earlier at the park, these provided some protection from the blazing hot sun that was beating down upon us.

The climb was comprised of different sets of very steep, stone stairs which ascend to watch-out towers. Every couple of stairs you had to stop to catch your breath, the combination of the incline and sun were almost unbearable. We went pretty far then stopped to take some pictures which gathered a crowd of Chinese men who sat on the stairs and watched these four sweaty American girls jump off of the stairs to attempt to catch that perfect "jump" shot. There was also some Kung-fu fighting and various yoga poses because, well, we were on the Great Wall of China and you couldn't just take a normal photo!

At this time of year, 6 out of 10 tourists visiting these popular Tourist destinations are Chinese citizens that live in the countryside, many are not accustomed to seeing foreigners, especially tall blond ones! They wanted to take pictures with us and after about 10 minutes of taking photos we began our decent. With uncontrollably shaking legs and a trail of men asking us to stop to take pictures every couple of steps we finally made it to the bottom, safe and victorious.

Happily back on the tour bus, it was a 2 hour ride from the Great Wall to the world famous Peking Duck restaurant where we dined on-- Peking Duck of course. This restaurant has 300 locations worldwide, as you can imagine, the duck was delicious.

Full and exhausted we came back to our hotel and went up to the 28th floor to enjoy a nightcap at their rotating rooftop bar which gave us a 360 degree view of the city of Beijing which stretches 100 miles by 120 miles.

Our elaborate plans to go sing karaoke and stay out til 2a were never executed, but I think it's safe to say we were all very content when our heads hit the pillow.