ADVENTURES IN
BEIJING (PART 1). From Hong Kong, our China Southern
flight of 3+ hours was made somewhat tolerable (I’m OCD about the A/C and the
flight had none that was discernable) by the Taiwan national sitting between us
who spoke great English. A resident of
North Carolina who happened to be in China on business, he explained some
things that seemed odd to us regarding the culture in China. A very kind man, we said goodbye as we collected
our bags and found our guide for the entire stay, a young woman named Evelyn
accompanied by our driver Shi (“Sure”) in a very nice Chinese-made sedan called Red Flag.
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| Our wonderful driver and guide |
Off to our hotel in
the downtown area and the first exposure to the legendary traffic here. Second culture “shock”: no Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, etc., and
anything via Google (like Gmail) is at best spotty. Government intervention on steroids!
Dinner the first
night was in the hotel, a very good Italian restaurant … of course after
engaging a couple of the chefs (one from Florence and one from Rome), here come
the food offerings: a small pasta
primavera and then remarkably a couple of Grand Marnier soufflés for dessert! Appears these folks love to show their
appreciation and skills and we were the happy recipients ..
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| Advantage of private tour: no hat required. |
Our first full day
of touring started at the Forbidden City, built over a period of 15 years or so
in the 1400’s. I digress to say I had
made all the touring arrangements prior to leaving Los Angeles via the China Travel Service based in So. California … of course we have the option to change
plans once here, but the basic outline was planned. This proved to be excellent, including
having the company secure our Visas, etc.
Back to the site – it is difficult to convey how vast this place
is. At the height some 90,000 people
lived here.
Each Emperor had just one
wife but apparently endless numbers of concubines, and then there is the whole
concept of men becoming eunichs just to gain entrée to the Forbidden City; that
was the only way to insure they would not be tempted by all the women there and the bloodline would remain intact. Seems
a rather steep price to pay all things considered …
We toured a typical
Beijing neighborhood (hutong) via pedicab or “rickshaw,”
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| Follow that cab!! |
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| Kitchen in private home |
also pre-arranged with
a different guide and driver for that area. Included
was touring a private home – really a series of rooms surrounding a
courtyard – this particular home had been occupied by the same family for five
generations. Obviously this is a way
for residents to obtain some income by opening up their homes to a few tourists
at a time or even providing a meal … we purchased some of their handicrafts as
a show of appreciation. After a typical
Sechuan-style (delicious) lunch, we had a private tutorial on the art of brewing
tea and all of the benefits of the various types of Chinese tea. Suffice to say, they saw me coming and I
bought plenty to take home.
And what would a
trip to Beijing be without experiencing the famous duck? Ask the hubby as it is not my cup of tea but
this experience was something, complete with tableside carving at well-known
restaurant Duck de Chine.
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| Buns on the side |
Of course
being charged for the hoisin sauce separately is not ok; sort of like ordering fries
and the bill arrives with a separate line item for the ketchup! That was an interesting “discussion” … after
dinner, should we have been alarmed when the cab driver pulled out a magnifying glass to look at the hotel
address we handed him? Uh, if he can’t
read how does he see the road??? Remarkably
we made it back safely and paid a third of what he thought a couple of naïve
tourists might fork over for the ride. Found
out the next day a move like that could land him in jail; that kind of behavior
is not tolerated here. But, in short, the taxi situation here is just awful. Even with printed maps/directions in Chinese many had no idea where to go. And the wait can be endless just to get a cab. China may be very advanced in some areas, definitely not in this one.
Big day today: a stop at the Olympic Village (constructed
for the 2008 games)
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| Bird's Nest stadium in the background |
and then on to the Great Wall and finally the Emperor’s
Tomb from the Ming Dynasty – well, technically a place of worship as the actual
tomb has never been found.
As for the Wall,
this particular section (Badaling) is accessed via cable car. I just ignored the steep upward climb and
focused on the goal at hand which is experiencing this historic site – one that is visible from space.
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| Oy. |
It is also known as
the Great Cemetery as there are possibly 1 million workers buried in the wall
-- they died either from fatigue or injury and simply became part of the
structure.
Steep and a bit daunting but
not too crowded for a Monday morning, we came, took photos, and carefully made
our way out. If ever I wanted to fully test
drive my now year-old (artificial) knees, this was a boffo place to do so (they
passed, but ice and Advil were definitely in order).
Beijing has many great restaurants, and tonight's meal at Maison Boulud (as in NY's Daniel Boulud) was no exception. Housed in a former embassy, the ambience was gorgeous.
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| Yikes. |
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| Yum. |
Our entree of veal shank for two was truly enormous, so we packed up the leftovers for our very grateful guide for her family's feast the next day!
Stay tuned for Adventures Part 2; in the meantime, please enjoy these random Beijing thoughts and observations:
There is virtually
no crime here except for pickpockets (so we were told); the police have neither guns nor knives
as they are banned from all.
Smoking is alive
and well (unfortunately) but dental hygiene clearly is not a priority.
All those jokes
made about Asians and driving? I would
NEVER consider driving in this country!
Wow, I lost count on the number of what I considered near misses …
Factories of
every type – jade, tea, cloisonné – were somehow connected to our daily stop
for lunch. In fact you had to walk
through them to get to the restaurants.
Not much difference from other countries visited: in Turkey it was rugs
and in Egypt it was alabaster – deals, deals, deals and calculators
everywhere.
You can get
perfect cell service on top of the Great Wall, but not driving on Coldwater
Canyon in Los Angeles. Oh, and some say
New Yorkers are pushy? Can’t hold a
candle to some of the elderly women we’ve encountered.
I couldn’t resist
taking photos of the many examples of “Chinglish,” as our guide called the
translation of some phrases on signage here.
And there are the most gorgeous children; with parents’ permission, took
a few snaps of them as well.
ADVENTURES IN BEIJING (Conclusion) ... Our itinerary continued with a visit to the Summer Palace, which was mostly used by the “Dragon Lady” or Empress Dowager in the late 1800’s.
She was the 7th Emperor’s wife or concubine .... or whatever and
mother of the 8th Emperor and hugely influential.
Most Westerners know
Tianamen Square as the scene of the famous stand-off between protesters and
tanks, but really it is the world’s largest public square (it can accommodate 1
million people). 
