We were overtired so we kept waking up every hour, finally at 3:30am,
we just
decided to get up and pack for the tour…. Rudy could not decide on
what bag
to use… he ended up with 3, the document bag which he slung on his
shoulder
and attached to his belt for extra security measure, his fanny pack
and his
walking shoulder bag. In it went water, umbrella, raincoat, handy wipes,
toilet paper, guide books and map, extra shopping bag and notebook.
Our 6am wake up call came around to our door personally (no phone calls)….
We
were up and running so we decided to walk around the block of the hotel…
On
Goldfish Lane we turned left to Wangfujing Dajie, the shopping district
of
Beijing… The streets were relatively empty, with some people on their
bikes
or walking on their way to work… People are sweeping the sidewalks….On
Wangfujing, major road construction was going on…. 2 foot square blocks
are
being pounded into the pavement by hand, marble insets are also put
in for
interest. Everything was manual labor….. Dust was flying all over…We
said we
would walk for half an hour and then go back, breakfast will start
at 7am…
Half an hour only took us to less than half a block of Wangfujing
Dajie(it
was a very, very long block.. we later learn, that the city blocks
in Beijing
are about 4 of the ones in downtown Chicago)..
By the time we got back, my allergies were acting up (dust!)…We had
to buy
kleenex at the newsstand. Many nice items there for souvenir, did not
buy
since we might find them cheaper outside the hotel. Oh, we bought
some
Chinese calligraphy interpretation of western names… got Josephine
and
Benjamin (50 yuan each)…Breakfast at the German Beer garden was
American
buffet (bread, eggs, bacon, juice, milk, cereal, potato) with fried
rice,
rice porridge and dumplings. Went back to our room to pass the time…
from our
window watched a program of singing by grade school kids, a few of
them
received honors…. Very disciplined.
At 8:30 am, we boarded the bus for our city tour… The streets were much
crowded now.. You feel like there will be an accident every minute…
Our bus
comes within an inch of cars, bikes and people but nobody seems very
concerned except us tourist… The first area our guide pointed out was
Tiananmen Square which was under construction… it is HUGE… half a million
people can fit comfortable and if you include the street, another half
a
million... In the middle of the square is Mao’s mausoleum and flanking
the
square are 2 enormous buildings, the Hall of the People and the Museum
of the
Revolution, both were just built in 10 months in 1949. We did not stop
here
because the square was under construction for their October celebration
of
the 50th anniversary of their socialist republic. Most of the gates
and
buildings are also under scaffolding being repaired for this event
and many,
many streets, also. We were told that all this construction will be
done by
October 1. ‘It will be done. It has to be.”…. From our vantage point,
we
can’t see how it could be… for sure it will not be done by October
first if
this was the States…. But they seem to have faith… Most construction
was by
hand… We saw very few motorized equipment…We saw one crane that almost
hit
our bus as it came swinging by….We all tried to shield ourselves… it
missed
us narrowly….felt like an IMAX ride….The streets were being done up
the same
as what we saw on Wangfujing - block by block…no cement being poured,
no
asphalt… any cement used were mixed by hand. According to the guide,
a half a
million construction workers and artisans were brought in from the
countryside to rebuild Beijing for the celebration. By October 1, Beijing
will shine….Jessica pointed out several gates…. Beijing itself is a
walled
city with many gates…It also had a moat around it…. The walls are gone
but
some of the gates are still in existence…Many of the walls and gates
were
destroyed during the revolution…
We are now at the western gate to the Forbidden City… We get off the
bus to
enter the palace complex walking from the Western gate to the Northern
Gate…We are assaulted by what are the first of hundreds of street vendors
we
will encounter on this tour. ‘Hallo, hallo, postcards…one dollah, scarves
(silk?) 5 for ten dollah… good price …good price,,, 6 for ten… 10 for
ten….
How much you pay…how much you pay…Lookee…lookee’…The family of four
(who will
be referred to by the entire group as The Family) bought scarves and
postcards, the first of their many purchases at every stop…The Forbidden
City
is surrounded by walls with 4 gates and a moat which will be filled
with
water by October 1. Many gates and halls … We have a group picture
taken at
the front gate, Wumen gate. We enter through this gate and it
takes your
breath away. It is a large sprawling complex…All I can think
of is this is
what we saw in ‘The Last Emperor’. Imagine the splendor available only
to the
Emperor and his closest family and officials… We saw the emperor’s
throne,
his bedroom as well as those of the empress and his concubines seemingly
frozen in time. This area is truly impressive. All the roof tiles were
glazed
yellow, the color representing the emperor. Again more renovation going
on
within the city. Nothing in the States can compare, maybe even in the
entire
western world… Most of the treasures in the City were taken to Taiwan
or
museums all over the world… I’m sure the Chinese government will give
their
eyeteeth to get those back.
[Unable to display image]
Jojo at one of the many gates in the Forbidden City
Except for the Imperial garden (rock gardens and cypress trees as depicted
in
many watercolors), there are no trees in the Forbidden City, for security
reasons, we were told. But the imperial family did have a large garden
for
their exclusive use complete with a large lake, bridges and pagodas
just
outside the walls, this is now a park open for everyone called BeiHai.
We
will visit Bei Hai park on one of our optional tours. We breezed through
the
Forbidden City exiting through the South gate. Our guide said it would
take a
week to see everything in it.
During the walk through the Forbidden City and some of the rest stops
at
shaded areas (it was very hot and the sun was shining brightly, it
felt like
the temperature was close to 102 degrees F.. weather report says
mid 80s and
cloudy) we meet some of our tour mates. Martha and Kirk are traveling
with
Dave and Dena. They are from Minneapolis. Kirk is a pharmacist at Children’s
Hospital, Dave is a Doctor of Psychology and teaches at Concordia University.
Both Dena and Martha are teachers and have been friends for 20 years.
This is
their first vacation together and the first time they ever joined an
organized tour. There’s Dave and Allison who live in the Detroit area.
They
have a thirteen month old son who is with Allison’s parents while they
are
touring. Allison teaches piano and has 18 students. Dave accepted a
position
as musical director at Bethel Baptist church in Schaumburg so they
will be
moving to our area after they return from Beijing. Then, The Family,
both
parents according to the gossip hold high powered positions, the father
deals
in foreign currency investments, not sure what the mom does, the 2
kids
(under 10) are both adopted, Maraj from South America and Akmed looks
Indian
or Middle Eastern. The parents seem so proud of their children
and hang on
their every word. They bought the kids everything they pointed at.
So they
ended up with beanie babies, chinese hats, chinese musical instruments,
dancing panda bears, sabre sword, chinese dress, safari jacket, pearls,
jade
and so on and so forth. They have a male au paire who is currently
watching
the family pet and are moving to Bloomfield Hills, Michigan soon…
At the toilet ( I did not go in… I now have a fear of holes on the floor)…
Before you go in, you pay 30 jiao or about 3 cents at a glassed in
counter
(just like going to the movies)…We now boarded the bus for the Temple
of
Heaven, where the emperor prayed to the gods… On our way, Jessica points
out
western food establishments, Mc Donalds( there are 50 in Beijing),
Pizza Hut,
Dunkin Donuts, Hard Rock Café, Dairy Queen, KFC, Baskin Robbins.
The Temple
of Heaven was said to be bigger than the Forbidden City… and is featured
with
round, representing heaven and square, representing earth. Large
incense
burners and light post are featured and so are acoustics that allows
a
whisper to be heard across the way….The largest temple, The Imperial
Vault of
Heaven was built entirely of wood fitted together, no nails or
pegs were
used…It’s about 1:00pm and we are all hot and hungry…..
[Unable to display image]
Kuya Ruds in front of the Imperial Vault of Heaven
We stop at Friendship Hotel, a government-owned hotel for lunch….. It’s
a big
hall where they must take a lot of tours through…. First, we had cold
cuts
and cold pickled vegetable, then came the hot dishes, sweet sour pork,
stir
fried vegetables, etc… about 6 dishes in all, then came the soup and
then
fried rice. The meal is capped by watermelon… We are to see watermelon
with
every meal… We are told watermelon is the fruit of Beijing nowadays.
We ate
out of small saucers with chopsticks. We meet more of our tour mates
at
lunch… Brooke is a high school teacher in Tinley Park and lives in
downtown
Chicago. She is traveling with her mother, Dottie, who lives in Kansas
City.
Mara is taking her doctorate in artificial biology at the University
of
Oklahoma. She lived for 7 months in Madagascar by herself and also
toured
India… She is traveling with her 67 year-old grandmother, Barbara.
Eric is
an inventory auditor in the Toronto area and is traveling alone… He
was
teased a lot about shopping since he managed to buy an item everywhere
we
stopped…. Sammy, the Vietnamese, was in a concentration camp for 10
years. He
now lives in Minnesota.
After lunch, we went to the Summer Palace where the Empress moved their
quarters to cool off for the summer…. The summer palace featured a
huge
man-made lake (bigger than Lake Geneva) with pagodas and temples….
It was
copied from one of the natural lakes in one of the provinces that the
empress
visited and liked…. This is truly decadent …. Again, no modern
playground of
the rich and famous can compare. Legend has it that the empress likes
to fish
and the eunuch will swim underwater and hook fish to her line so she
can have
a successful day of fishing. We ferried on a boat across the lake…
Other
people were on pedal boats…. This is a truly beautiful and enchanting
place,
especially to think it is all man-made, yet everything looks so natural.
After the Summer Palace, we stopped at a pearl factory (typical touristy
fair
exactly like the one I saw in Maui). We bought some Pearl Creme.
On our way
back to the hotel, it was rush hour… Volkswagens, Mercedes Benz, BMWs,
Jeep
Cherokees, Daewoo, Jaguar, Nissan, Toyota and other brands we can’t
identify
and a sea of bicycles…. We must have seen 10.000 bikes. The traffic
was like
a choreographed dance, congested but no accidents - except when we
ran into a
bike rider… no big deal… a lot of shouting that’s all…… Oh, then, there
was a
man fixing a manhole, crouched down with no warning flags, who we narrowly
missed…. Otherwise, we got to our hotel safe and sound….
Evening was free…According to Dena, we walked almost 7 miles today…..
We went
up to our room to freshen up for dinner… A few minutes after we entered
the
chamberlad rang our door for the turn down service (I swear the rooms
are
bugged, just kidding…)…. He gave us two bottled waters, laid a white
linen
napkin on the floor between our beds and placed our slippers on it
(god
forbid our bare feet should touch the carpet!)…Then, fixed the beds….
After
he left, I tried the turned down bed and immediately fell asleep….
Both Rudy
and I just slept through the night… no dinner…