China!!! At last!!! Beijing

Blessed, blessed release. When we finally pulled into Beijing, I was one of the first off of the train. I'd already said my goodbyes and collected email addresses. There was no final lingering on the platform, bidding fond adieus. Nope, I was for a shower, food, and laundry.

The first obstacle to these worthy goals was getting a cab to my hostel. I had taken the precaution of learning to say my street name in Chinese, writing out the address in characters, and circling the location on a map of Beijing. Despite these elaborate preparations, I could not get one single metered cab to admit that he knew where Nan Luo Gu Xiang was. I tried between 10 & 15 before finally giving in and going through a tout. Thus, my entry to Beijing was marked by my needing to pay 70 quai (local for yuan - translates as buck) for my 26 quai ride. I was not pleased, but was so desperate for food and a shower that I didn't mind too horribly.

At my hostel, I was shown to my lovely 8 person dorm. There, I monopolized the bathroom for a good 1/2 hour. I scoured myself. I washed my hair twice. It was heaven. Hot water. Wow.

Then, I packed up almost all of my clothes and dropped them off to be washed. This left me in my pyjama pants, but hey! it's China. Loads of people were wearing pyjama pants. I had no qualms in walking next door to the cafe and getting a huge salad and mozzarella sticks, which for some reason seemed like the perfect meal.

These important tasks completed, I booked my Great Wall hike from Jinshanling to Simatai for Thursday (this was Tuesday), an acrobatics show for Wednesday night and a kung fu show for Friday night. That completed the duty portion of my day. I was now free to goof off online and then hit the hay.

Funny, I actually had a hard time getting my land legs. I kept feeling like I was still in motion and I had a horrible time sleeping. I missed the rocking motion of the train. Isn't that pathetic? All those days on the train longing for a bed, and then, I couldn't sleep.

I still got up at 8:30am to get a start on my day. First stop was the Bank of China to pull some currency out of the ATM. That was no problem. Next was find the Forbidden City. Easy enough. It is absolutely enormous after all. Nope. My sense of direction is completely skewed in Beijing. I walked in the opposite direction. For those who've never been to Beijing, it is immense. A block can go on for a mile. Everything is far apart. After walking for over an hour, I determined that I might be lost. OK, easily fixed. I knew that I hadn't gone far, so I jumped in a taxi, asking for Tienanmen Square.

Harrumph. I don't think that she did it deliberately, but instead of driving straight down the street to the square (I'd walked in the exact opposite direction), she went the other way and jumped on the ring road. So, not only did she add distance and price to the meter, she got us stuck in Beijing's worst traffic. A 10 yuan, 15 minute trip turned into a 28 yuan, 45 minute trip. I was not amused. I vowed not to get in another Beijing taxi. I was also dropped off about 1/2 a mile from the square, and my driver pointed me in the wrong direction.

I walked into the hutong for a bit, finally meeting fellow tourists who were at least able to point me in the right direction. I also found a camera shop that carried a battery charger for my lithium ion camera battery. This put me in a good enough mood to enjoy my sightseeing. I was starting to get nervous about finding a charger and I was down to the last of my three batteries.

The square...it is the world's largest public space. It is enormous. It dwarfs the Zocolo in Mexico City. I was there during the early afternoon, so I didn't see anyone flying a kite, but there were multiple kite vendors. Sadly, Mao's tomb was closed for renovations, so I am unable to offer a comparison between Lenin and Chairman Mao. However, I did find a wonderful clock/calendar counting down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until the Beijing Olympics. They are SERIOUSLY excited about the Olympics. Everyone talks about it, and practices English, and renovates for the tourists, even Mao's crystal crypt.

The square was fine, but really, just a square. I bought a pink parasol and continued on to the Forbidden Palace. I did the audio tour, which was excellent, if only for the pure use of Chinglish. For those unfamiliar with the form, it is English translated directly from the Chinese that comes off very strangely. See my pics for many excellent examples. I tried to snap pics of good Chinglish signs.

The palace museum is immense. It's an enormous expanse of stone and paint. Honestly, it looks very uncomfortable to live in, but extremely grand. I wish that I'd been there between 1911 when the last Qing Emperor was overthrown and 1924 when he was evicted from the Inner Palace. In1915, the Outer Palace, including the Hall of Supreme Harmony (I love it!), was opened to the public. Imagine, entering a place that's been closed off for over 400 years, and yet still not being allowed to even see into the heart of it. My imagination would have run wild! It must have been incredibly romantic.

I wandered through as much as I could take of the Palace's 800 buildings, making sure to stop by the Palace of Concentrated Beauty, the harem. This was depressing. Such a small space, enclosing so many women and keeping them from living any sort of a normal life. The garden was quite nice. Lots of gnarled Cypress trees and strangely shaped rocks. The 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties who ruled from here liked to sit in the small pagodas and write poetry.

After the Forbidden city, I didn't feel like walking and wouldn't take a cab, so I got myself a rickshaw to take me back through the hutongs. The hutong districts are old areas of Beijing that are filled with twisting, narrow alleyways and traditional courtyard houses. They are full of charm and are really an example of living history.

That evening, I went to see the Chinese National Acrobatic Troupe. First, I was surprised that they were all children. The performance they were putting on was of the "#1 top class - stars of the future". I really thought that I was seeing the training school perform and was disappointed. Some of the tricks were quite impressive - my favorite was when 12 girls rode in circles on one bicycle. After the show, I asked my driver when the adults perform. He was confused. We finally worked it out to communicate that the performers are fired when they hit 20. They are all children. During the show, there was an emphasis on particular performers being "so young aged", or "as graceful as a falling snowflake and as delicate as tender flower." I guess youth is the big attraction in acrobats in China. All of the 21 and over performers must join Cirque du Soleil.

For pictures, see http://picasaweb.google.com/christine7world/Beijing