China - Day Three

Our last day in China was a little bit more low-key, especially after a day of climbing the Great Wall.

In the morning, we spent two hours at the Temple of Heaven.
The main complexes within the Temple of Heaven are the various temples and sites where the Emperors would come annually to offer sacrifices on behalf of their subjects for a good harvest.

This building is the main temple which was built without using a single nail. The roof is supported by something like 30 free-standing pillars.

Everything is incredibly symbolic in Chinese architecture including the color of the tiles used on the roofs. The blue was used because it represents heaven.

So this picture was taken only two weeks ago but I already feel like my belly has doubled in girth in that amount of time. I should really take some more photos.

Anyway, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests includes other buildings and a few beautiful carvings. Of course, there's never a dragon far away when you're in China.

And here are the many fire pits where the sacrifices were burnt. As David says, the Chinese are really Jewish....they just don't know it. There are a remarkable number of similarities between traditional Chinese beliefs and the laws and ordinances practiced under the Law of Moses.


More dragons. This was near the altar, where the animals were sacrificed.

The Temple of Heaven has three main components: the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, the Imperial Vault of Heaven and the circular mound altar. We only entered the first complex because you have to pay to get into each of them. After visiting the first complex with our tour group, we were allowed to wander through the rest of the place, which is just a really large park where many (mostly retired) Chinese come to exercise, play cards, or hang out.

We even passed this large group of singers which had congregated in the middle of the park and were having a great time singing Chinese songs. They even had a keyboard player and several conductors to lead them all.

The park also had a lovely rose garden which fortunately still had many roses in bloom.


This is really just hundreds of individual potted plants set up along the stairs.

After the Temple of Heaven, we were taken to a Silk Quilt Factory where we learned all about how silkworms are raised and how the silk (from their cocoons) is used to make clothing and quilts. A single thread of silk used to produce cloth and clothing is taken from about 10 cocoons woven together. But, when two silkworms build a cocoon together (which happens more frequently than I imagined), the threads become so intertwined that they cannot be separated to form a single strand. Instead, the cocoon is opened and stretched out in layers to form a soft batting. (Silk is amazingly stretchy.)

David and I were both big fans of this silk bed set. Of course, we weren't big enough fans to spend the hundreds of dollars to purchase it. We did, however, buy an adorable set of red silk pajamas for our baby.

After the Silk Quilt Factory and lunch (at an unimpressive Mongolian restaurant), we drove further out of Beijing to visit the Summer Palace. On our way, we drove past the Olympic stadium. This was the best photo I was able to snap from the bus as we drove by. The water cube is right next to it.

The Summer Palace was, as its name suggests, the summer residence of the emperors and includes this rather large man-made lake and has lots of trees and shade, which David greatly appreciated.

There's even a marble boat......which just seems a little counter-productive if you ask me.

After walking halfway around the lake, under a mile-long corridor, we rode one of the boats back to the entrance of the palace.

It was a beautiful area, but three days under the hot China sun and six months of pregnancy finally caught up with me and I was simply exhausted. I was ready for a break.

The tour bus then took us to a market complex full of designer knock-offs and Chinese products where we were given some time to shop around. While most people high-tailed it to the basement to buy knock-off Coach bags and Nikes, David and I spent most of our time on the top floor bartering for Chinese items. We've really wanted to buy a huge fan and we had scoured most of Korea and Taiwan looking for one with no success. We found one woman who had several big fans for sale and we were able to talk her into cutting the price in half. (Of course, they start the prices extremely high anyway.) But she also gave me a little stuffed tiger because our baby will be born in the year of the tiger which I didn't even realize but which is really awesome because I love cats. David also bought a traditional calligraphy set with brushes, ink, and paper in order to practice writing his Chinese characters. Then, to kill time, we ate some delicious ice cream at Coldstone.

After shopping, we were taken back to our hotel and given free time. By this time, it was nearly 7pm and David and I were so beat that we just decided to stay in our hotel, pack, and watch a little TV. It's so lovely to just lay in bed.

The next morning, we ate breakfast, checked out of our hotel and were driven back to the airport. It took us nearly an hour to get through immigration (apparently, it's harder to leave the country than to enter it) and then boarded our plane which then promptly sat on the tarmac for an hour for no apparent reason.

Before we left, however, David and I took a photo with our tour guide, Bibo. She was a fantastic guide and had some very fascinating things to say which I'd like to talk about in another post. (And I'd especially like David to talk about his impressions of China and his interactions with the Chinese since he, you know, actually talked to them.)

If I haven't said it already, China was amazing and I kinda fell in love with the place. Which is a very good thing, I suppose, since David likes to tell me that there's a very good chance we'll live there someday. And from what I've seen of Beijing, at least, I don't think I'd mind living there at all. I guess I'd better go learn a little more Chinese than just "I love you," "I'm tired" and "good." Thankfully, I've got a good teacher.

China - Day Two

Day two in China was even better than the first day, mostly because it involved climbing the Great Wall. If there was one thing I was most excited for, it was to see the Great Wall of China (in Chinese, it actually translates to Long Wall) in person. It was more incredible than I had anticipated. (And also, a whole lot more taxing to climb. Sheesh.)

Our day started with a trip to a jade carving factory. This sculpture is made from one solid piece of jade. We saw various statues made of jade, watched artisans carving the jade, and learned how to distinguish real jade from the fake stuff. (Real jade should look cloudy when held up to the light because of all the minerals inside it. Fake jade will look clear or solid.) Of course, this was mostly a ploy to have people spend lots of money on jade jewelry and sculptures. Even though the jewelry was quite pretty, it's not really my style and so we opted instead to purchase a small carving of a jade owl and a jade ornament for our Christmas tree. (We buy ornaments from every place that we visit.)

Our next stop was the Great Wall. There are several passes along the Great Wall's 4,000 mile long stretch where you can easily begin a climb of the wall. This spot was particularly full of tourists because it's only an hour drive from Beijing. This gate serves as the starting point for a journey up the wall on the sides of two mountains.

You can see that the wall at this particular point forms a circle. The buildings in the center once served as barracks for soldiers but have now been converted into a whole host of souvenir shops. The majority of the Great Wall has greatly deteriorated in the 400 years since it served as China's main protection from northern invaders. Mao--doing something uncharacteristically good to preserve China's heritage--decided that certain sections of the wall should be re-built and reinforced. The wall we climbed was well-maintained and had much needed hand-rails. But there's also sections of the wall that's called the wild wall that are overgrown with vegetation and missing many of its stones. In fact, if you want to climb along the wild wall, you often have to pay residents to walk through their courtyards in order to stay on its path. Apparently, many people took the stones from the wall to build their homes. Someday, I'd love to walk on the more out-of-the-way and wild parts of the Great Wall. Still, I'm glad for the experience I did have.

Look how excited David is to start the climb. We had two hours to climb the wall and we had to choose between two sides:

The easier, less steep side.....

.....or the insanely steep, almost vertical side.....

.....with steps that were sometimes over a foot high.


Naturally, we chose the really steep side. Being six months pregnant wasn't going to stop me from getting the best view possible.

Though I will admit there were moments I wasn't so sure we'd made the right choice. But it was worth it in the end. Plus, it was really funny to watch people's faces (particularly Asians) when they realized this pregnant woman was beating them up the wall. Two men (from Spain, we think) even stopped on their way down to applaud me. (They literally stopped and clapped as I climbed past them. It was hilarious.)

The view was incredible and we had another absolutely beautiful, clear day to enjoy it which was extremely lucky.

I had erroneously thought that once we got onto the wall, it would mostly be a paved, flat walkway like what you see David standing on. I didn't take into account the fact that the wall scales China's mountains and would be very steep at parts. (But then again, all my previous impressions of the Great Wall had been informed by Mulan. And Disney is not really known for their historical accuracy.) But now I know better.

Along the way, there are outposts and towers which you can also climb to the top of to get even better views of the valley.

About an hour into our climb, we decided to head back down (which took us waaay less time than it took to climb up). We'd managed to make it to about 4 towers, but I did have to move at a much slower pace than usual. Still, we made it a lot farther than the majority of our tour group, so I felt pretty good about that.

After reaching the bottom again, David and I had to buy ourselves some Great Wall T-shirts (which will hopefully fit me when I'm not carrying around a basketball-sized belly) and ate delicious frozen treats. Thankfully, our next stop was lunch at the Friendship Store which felt a bit like a big roadside rest stop. The restaurant served a smattering of different Chinese foods (and it was all delicious but that could have been because of my immense hunger by this point). Attached to the restaurant was a big store full of every kind of Chinese art, craft, jewelry, silk, tea sets, scrolls, fans, and souvenirs possible. They had some nice things but the majority of it looked like all the same stuff you can find in any Chinatown in America.

After lunch, we visited the Ming tombs, where 13 of the 16 Ming dynasty emperors are buried throughout the valley. We only visited one burial ground and its complex.

By this time, dark clouds had started to roll in and we were even treated to some lightning and thunder.

David and I bought a Chinese scroll from an artist's booth at the tombs. It's just Chinese cherry blossoms but I didn't realize quite how big it was when we bought it. It takes up our whole wall! By the time we were leaving, it had started to rain but it was over by the time we reached our next destination, a pearl factory. This was even more of ploy to buy jewelry than the jade factory was but David and I found no need to spend our money on jewelry I'd hardly ever wear. (Although the purple pearls were quite pretty.) Luckily, the Suchuan restaurant we ate at that night was right next door to the pearl factory.

Our last stop that night was Wangfujing Street in downtown Beijing. It's the ritzy shopping district in Beijing full of stores like Gucci, Prada, and more, but it's mostly famous for its night markets which are stocked with the grossest, most disgusting street foods imaginable.

All along this stretch of food is booth after booth of food on a stick. And I use the word "food" very loosely. I would never want any of this stuff to come anywhere close to my mouth.

Centipede? Snake? Sheep's penis? Sounds tasty, right?

Or how about a fried seahorse?

But the most disgusting thing were the scorpions. And I actually witnessed several people eating these things. One man on our bus ate them and it said it tasted like extra crispy fried chicken. Just....ew. As David says, there are only a few creatures that he considers pure evil and centipedes and scorpions top the list. I'd have to agree.

In the short amount of time that we were given to gawk over the street foods, David and I managed to find a bookstore where we bought a children's set of encyclopedias in Chinese (to help David study) and several Chinese children's books (which tell traditional Chinese stories and include both Chinese and English, thank goodness).

We arrived back at our hotel that night exhausted but extremely satisfied. We went for a quick swim in the hotel's pool before showering and hitting the bed. Only one day left.

China - Day One

China was amazing. Fantastic. Awesome. I didn't want to come home. Now granted, we were only in Beijing for three and a half days which is just one tiny portion of the vastness of China. It's like saying you've been to New York City and have seen all of America. Beijing was incredible but I won't be satisfied until I've seen more of China. And being married to a man who loves nothing better than to speak Chinese, I'm sure I'll get another chance to spend time in China. I really can't wait to go back.

I really wanted to go to China before our baby is born and time was starting to slip away when we heard about this tour package through David's work. Now normally, I'm not a fan of those big tour groups that clog up all the tourist spots and take you everywhere on a big bus. But because we had such a short time to spend in China and because the tour package was such a great deal, we had to do it. So everything just worked out perfectly. We packed a whole bunch into those three days.

We woke up ridiculously early on Saturday morning, took a bus to the airport, and boarded our Asiana flight to Beijing. After a two hour flight, we landed in Beijing's massive Capital Airport (newly expanded for the Olympics) and waited in line to go through immigration. We went on a group visa so we had to go through in groups. It took forever. (But it took even longer to leave the country.) Once through immigration, we got our bags, exchanged money, and met our tour guides. There were three buses and I think we picked the right one. Our tour guide, Bibo, was fantastic and said some very interesting things about China which I'll talk about later.

Our first stop on our tour was lunch at a Catonese-style restaurant. In China, you get a bowl for rice and soup, a tea cup, a small plate, chopsticks, and one tiny glass of water, Coke or Sprite. Then, they pile 8-10 different dishes onto the Lazy Susan and you grab what you want to eat and go to town. Even though everyone in our tour group lives in Korea, I swear some of these people must never venture out of their comfort zone because some people seriously struggled with eating with chopsticks (although most of the restaurants did provide forks) and they complained constantly about the bathrooms (mostly squatter toilets) and the levels of sanitation. You're in Asia, people. Not America. Very different standards. Bibo just laughed when people asked her why the toilets were so nasty because they've greatly improved in the last ten years. They used to be just holes in the ground. At least now you can actually flush them.

After lunch, we headed to the Forbidden City, which was the palace complex of the emperors, called the Forbidden City because no one was allowed to enter it without the emperor's permission. It sits in the center of Beijing and the rest of the city is laid out in rings around the Forbidden City. We didn't know it at the time, but we came in through the back entrance. It's a massive complex, full of throne rooms, bedrooms, and other official buildings.

The garden, in the back, was my favorite part perhaps because it actually had trees and vegetation and the rest of the Forbidden City was all brick and stone and wood. Plus, it was really hot. I was not prepared for how hot Beijing would be. Plus, we were there on one of the rare weeks when there were blue skies instead of just smog and haze.

A lot of the Forbidden City has been renovated and re-done, but there are still spots where you can see that nothing has been touched for hundreds of years.

This is one of the main palace buildings but don't ask me which one. I was mostly focusing on staying out of the sun and keeping somewhat cool at this point in the tour.

Massive courtyard. Not surprisingly, everyplace we went with few exceptions were quite crowded.

Which made getting good photos somewhat of a challenge but you get the idea.

We spent about 1.5 to 2 hours wandering through the Forbidden City before we came out of the main gate. By this time, I was melting so we quickly ran into one of the little tourist stands set up along the way and bought an ugly straw hat. I didn't care how it looked....I just wanted the hat with the biggest brim. Thankfully, the hat and some sunscreen I borrowed from a fellow member spared me from getting any sunburns though David did get a little red.

Across the street from the Forbidden City's main entrance is Tiananmen Square. Of course, they've got a huge picture of Mao hanging up on the gate.

Tiananmen Square is just that, a huge open square. (Yet one highly secured area. You can't enter the square without having your bags scanned and there are literally ten camera on each lamp post.) I understand why, of course, being the site of a massacre during the 1989 student uprisings in China, but it seemed like such a peaceful, uneventful place when we were there. (And, according to Bibo, not as crowded as it usually is.)

In the center of the square, though, is Mao's mausoleum where you can view Mao's body (or wax copy....no one is sure which is actually on display). It was too late in the day for us to pay our respects to the Chairman which is probably for the best.

There are two big statues outside the mausoleum, a tribute to the workers of China.



Tiananmen Square is bordered by two huge national museums and several older, western style buildings. This one was once the old train station and is now the Beijing Train Museum.

After sweltering in the heat for nearly four hours, we gladly boarded our buses once again and were taken to an acrobatic show. I wasn't particularly excited for the show but it proved to be a very interesting hour of entertainment. It's absolutely amazing what these people can do with their bodies, especially the girls. For the big finale, they had one of those huge spherical metal cages in which a motorcycle rider rides around in circles all along the sides and top. After a few minutes, a second motorcycle rider showed up and joined the other one. And then a third came. And a fourth. And then a fifth! I was sure they were all going to crash and there was going to be carnage and wreckage all over the stage. I almost couldn't watch but of course, I couldn't look away either. Crazy.

After the acrobatic show, we were taken to a hotel restaurant for a Peking Duck special dinner. I normally don't care much for duck (it tastes rather greasy to me) but I thought this was pretty good. I really enjoyed almost all the food we ate in China, which was a nice change after my disastrous culinary experience in Taiwan. But really, I think it has to be mostly blamed on being newly pregnant and nauseous. Luckily, I'm in the state now where I'll eat just about anything if I'm hungry enough.

After our dinner, we finally got to check into our hotel. It was located about two miles away from the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. It had very nice accommodations and a fantastic breakfast every morning with everything from waffles and french toast to eggs and bacon, fresh fruit, breads, and typical Chinese fare.

The interior of the hotel.

Our hotel room. Unfortunately, I forgot to get a better shot during the day, but the room was very nice. And our bed was surprisingly comfortable. All the beds we slept on in Taiwan were rather hard. But after the exhausting pace we kept each day, the bed felt heavenly. We also got a few channels in English--including CNN--which our guide told us is available to foreign guests in hotels, but regular Chinese cannot get access to it.

The view of Beijing from our hotel. I guess Beijing has really changed a lot in the last ten years, since that's when most of these buildings were built.

Now, what I find funny about every hotel I've stayed in in Asia is that the rooms are always very nicely decorated and well-maintained and the bathrooms are sad, pathetic, small little holes. (Okay, so not that bad, but they're nothing special either.) The bathtub is always too small and the showerhead is always set too short, the toilet is serviceable (at least it's not a squatter) and the tile is always dingy. Yet despite all this, they always provide you with all the toiletries you could possibly need. They don't stop at just some soap and shampoo, they also provide toothbrushes, toothpaste, combs, razors, shower caps, and lotions. So that's cool.

After taking a shower, David and I fell gratefully into bed around 10pm and got much needed rest until it began all over again. Day two, the Great Wall. Coming up soon.