Blog 24: Sandstorms and Ancient History

I’ve been looking forward to this trip since we arrived.  The Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Tienanmen Square, and the Temple of Heaven are all spots that everyone knows about.  You see these sites in movies, advertisements, and cartoons.  In most of the world’s eyes, this is China. 

The train left at 7am which is early considering we didn’t fall asleep until around 1am.  As a foreigner, you have to pick up your tickets at the train station counter with your passport as opposed to the kiosk for the Chinese nationals.  I was a bit worried we could have lines or trouble once we got there.  But, lucky for us, the lines were manageable and the tickets were easy. 

All of our seats were near one another and so it made a nice, easy 5hr ride to Beijing.  The landscape between Shanghai and Beijing is pretty nice, but normally only accentuates the pollution problems in the country.  You find yourself saying, “the picture would be great if…”. 

To be fair to China on the pollution front, they are making amazing progress to reduce the problem.  They have moved complete industries out of the cities and have started to implement state of the art pollution-reducing mechanisms.  And, sometimes pollution is just a nasty sandstorm blowing in off of the Gobi desert.  That’s not their fault… but, it still looks, smells, feels and tastes nasty. 

Our guide met us at the train station and we started our adventure.   We first stopped with McDonalds (comfort food that just always tastes the same no matter where you are in the world) and then headed to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.  The two are famous for very different reasons…  Obviously, Tiananmen Square is notorious for the student-led riots in the late 80s that led to their massacre.  No one really knows how many people died; the government quickly quarantined the statistics, pictures, and videos.  We heard several stories of people taking their film to be developed and all of the pictures came back ruined.  This is the dirty side of communism.  No one talks about the event while on the square because there are too many “listeners” around to stamp out descent.  We learned about the stories during our van ride on the next day. 

The picture of Mao is still proudly displayed.  It’s a very interesting political story and at the beginning he acted a lot like Robin Hood… However, in the end, his sole power was felt during the Cultural revolution.  Tiananmen square, for us, will be remembered by so many Chinese people taking our pictures.  That was totally fun. 

The Forbidden City was also cool… This is where the emperor lived for 2000 years (on and off), but I just couldn’t help but think about how much better it would be if the city walls hadn’t been destroyed (again, cultural revolution).  Our guide Xiao Wei did a great job of keeping us engaged with cool stories and showed us the best picture spots. 

We ended around 5pm and headed to the apartment.  Jacob and I ventured out to find food and after a bit of wandering around, we were successful.  The apartment looked a bit better in the pictures than in real life.  But paying 75$/night for a family of 9, I guess you can live with hard beds, rice filled pillows, and one bathroom in the kitchen. 

The next morning was fun.  We had to decide between the busy, touristy section of the wall and the “wild” section of the wall…  We chose the wild.  Our guide indicated it would be much less busy and that appealed to us (mostly Scott and Emma).  It turned out to be a good decision. 

It took about three hours to get to the wall, but the van was comfortable enough and it provided a lot of time for a Chinese history lesson.  Xiao Wei is a good story teller… keeps you engaged and pumps in a lot of easy to remember information.  I won’t bore you with the details, but we all learned a lot and the kids were good.

Our first sighting of the wall was cool… a moment fulfilled. It really does stretch on forever; up and down the mountains peaks and ridges. 

We didn’t eat much for breakfast and Xiao Wei said there was a good restaurant at the entrance.  Entrance is probably overstating it.  The entrance is actually a guy requiring 5 rmb / person to walk through his backyard to get to the wall.  This section was actually restored by the local farmers as an enterprising way to create a tourist trap in their backyard.

The lunch was phenomenal… seriously unbelievably good.  Maybe the best of the trip.  Afterwards we headed to the wall… and then spent the next 4hrs climbing up and down the hills… We stopped often for “pictures” … but, the pictures were actually opportunistic stops for those of us old, out of shape people to catch our breath. 

The pictures and views were amazing.  Cherry and apricot blossoms dotted the landscape, but smog was pretty heavy too… It wasn’t industrial pollution, rather the leftover impact from a minor sandstorm.  We still had an amazing time… really truly amazing.  It is so cool to watch people see things for the first time… it’s like a world was opening up to them. 

We finished the day at a local Peking duck restaurant…. It was also a good meal, but not anything close to lunch and about 4 times the cost.  The Peking duck was worth the stop; I love that stuff, but Scott (our family duck hunter, and accomplished inventor of the “bourbon-glazed-duck” dish) wasn’t impressed. 

The next day hosted the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace.  The Temple of Heaven is the ancient place of worship for the Emperors.  There is a lot of symmetry and crazy numerology built into the construction.  We found a good vendor that sold Asian Hacky-sacks and did some early morning Tai Chi.  The highlight was the pagoda.  This is the original structure that Epcot modeled their China section after.  Luckily, the Chinese government stored ammunition here during the 70s, so it was spared destruction during the Cultural Revolution. 

After the Temple of Heaven, we experienced a new eating style (the Hot Pot).  Wow!  If you can find a hot pot restaurant in the US, you should try it.  It was like an old-school fondue parlor with an Asian influence.  What is a Hot Pot?  A bowl of water, with a small chimenea filled with hot coals sitting in the middle… The coals boil the water and then standard fondue fare arrives; raw meat, vegetables, and noodles.  You cook the food and then dip it in a peanut / sesame sauce that tastes great.  Everyone loved it, it was a highlight.

Our last stop was the Summer Palace.  This is a location where the Emperors would spend portions of the year… Again, aside from the smog, the place was fantastic.  Really, really amazing.  Beautiful landscaping, gardens, but it would have been 100 times better with blue skies.

Beijing ended with a trip to the train station for a late-night ride to Xian.  My take was mixed, but only because of the pollution.  The sights were fun, the wall was amazing, and the food was great… but, the pollution choked back this review from great to average.  

Picture 1:  A family affair - off we go for a 5hr train ride to Beijing.  Everyone got to sit next to someone they liked... especially Scott.

Picture 2:  Famous sites - we were treated like celebrities as we walked across Tienanmen Square.

Picture 3:  Fun everywhere - These are the moments that you remember.  Ava stole the show with a perfect straddle-jump.

Picture 4:  Greatness - The great wall was just awesome and so was the food at the entrance.

Picture 5:  Simple China - We thought you had to go to Japan or South Korea to see cherry blossoms... we were wrong.  China is a great spot for them too.  Jacob and Ava hit it off... that will probably stay until she's taller than him.

Picture 6 - Rustic Climb:  We had to climb a lot more than expected.  The entrance was through a guys backyard, on a trail, and up a hill. 

Picture 7 - Soaking it up:  Cool sights, lasting pictures, and memories for a lifetime.

Picture 8 - perfect pictures, almost:  just imagine how much better these pictures would be if there was a blue sky in the background. 

Picture 9 - Almost famous:  Ever wonder if these pictures will show up in a magazine someday because someone in your party hit it big?  There are a few good looking kiddos in these pictures.

Picture 10 - Leaping:  I'm pretty sure I had the best jump here, but Jacob is close, Caroline walking on air is impressive, Ava's splits impress again, and the 5 at one time is pretty cool. 

Picture 11- An impostor:  Take a close look at Emily's picture in the bottom-center and you will find a bumblebee trying to interrupt Emily's glamour shot. 

Picture 12 - Nearly perfect:  A great panaramic.

Picture 13 - Inclined lately?:  Getting to the Wall was the easy part, walking the wall was a real accomplishment.

Picture 14 - Center of Heaven?:  This is the center point of the complex. Not really much to see, but we took a picture here because everyone else was.

Picture 15 - Epcot? :  That's not epcot in the top center, but it sure looks like it.

Picture 16 - Peaceful, kind of:  It would have been peaceful if the Chinese dude would have left his boombox at home... Not sure why he thought it was necessary to blast the music, but he did.

Picture 17 - Pure China:  Pictures with random strangers, hacky sacks with feathers, and a 65 year old Tai Chi athlete doing the splits on a tree, and a random American mimicking park dancers.

Picture 18 - Epcot?  Where's mickey?

Picture 20 - da BOMB!:  This stuff is the best fondue ever.  I love Hot POTs!

Picture 21 - Summer Palace:  The gardens were beautiful and the stone width is the size of people's feet thousands of years ago.

Picture 22 - Speechless:  The flowers were unbelievable.

Picture 23 - Summer paradise:  I bet 1000 years ago, this place was incredible.  However... another story is in the late 1800's an emperor diverted militray spending to refurbishing this place which led to the loss of the First Sino-Japanese war.

Picture 24 - Just good:  Just a few good family pictures to close down Beijing.

Picture 25 - Emily's beautiful and Ava's eyes:  Ericka staged a great photo with the flower and Ava fell asleep with her eye's open.