Travel Account #3: Beijing

The first morning we met up with a few of the other American teachers who were traveling in Beijing too.  We went to Tian'anmen Square, walked around a bit, had an overpriced Japanese meal, chatted, etc.  I know Tian'anmen is historically significant but it just seemed like a huge flat area with a lot of tourists.  I had been worried about the pollution in the city, with all the hype about it being worse in the winter, but we had bright blue sunny skies. 










That night we went to this pedestrianized street that was really beautiful lit up for the New Year and marvelled at the Western-brand clothing store options.  In general, though, Beijing felt a little dead - I think most folks were probably sitting at home on the couch with a bowl of dumplings counting their lucky money.  It seems like that would be a welcome situation, as I am always complaining about the number of people everywhere, but maybe that's what makes China fun.  Without crowds and crowds of people, and without any quaintness to make up for it...maybe more of the dirt shows. haha.
The next day we took one of those organized tours to the section of the Great Wall that was farther away, and hence a bit more expensive, but supposedly better.  The tour also included visits to a jade factory, silk factory, tomb (or...something historical?), and tea house.  These places are not even shy about the fact that they are tourist traps, but if you just stick to your guns and don't buy anything, which we didn't, you get all this cool information for free.  Of course the other members of the tour included this Midwestern family of two pretty old parents and their middle-aged son, who was living with his Chinese wife somewhere in the south of China.  After these people talked my ear off the whole bus ride, blatantly complaining about living in China and the disorganization of the company where this guy was working, they proceeded to buy the tourist shit at every stop along the way.  They were also very interested in C, and both parties were trying to be friendly but they weren't really catching on to just how much English he doesn't speak, and for some reason I was feeling embarrassed to translate, so after a few awkward mini conversations, they just stuck to whining.

Anyway the Wall was very cool.  We had to take a cable car to get up there, which C has never done!! and it was the kind they have on ski slopes that comes up behind you and you have to sit down really fast, so that was fun.  It was pleasant weather, and not too many people, so we walked as far as we could before we were exhausted, but those were some serious stairs.  The view was nice but would be beautiful in Spring or Summer when stuff wasn't looking so dirty.

  And THEN came probably my favorite part of the whole trip: tobogganing down the mountain.  We look like we're on the same sled there, but we weren't - traffic was a bit backed up at that point.  I could have tobogganed down that track all day, yo. 

Then we ate dinner at a sweet Arabian restaurant with live belly dancers.  C goes crazy for this (the restaurant, not the belly dancers) which makes me happy.  I mean I was happy anyway because they had hummus. HUMMUUUUS.  I have a million pictures from this restaurant, on account of C liking pictures of himself in the first place, and being very excited to be somewhere with Arabic on the menu, but...I'll spare you.

cute phone

 The next day we went to the Forbidden City, a huge complex where the emperors used to live, that was off-limits to normal folks.  This bored me.  Maybe I shouldn't admit such things in such a public venue.

Then we went to a cafe that would be cool even in the states and drank ginger milk tea from a clear teapot.  I tell you this because the half hour we sat drinking the tea, before I accidentally spilled the last cup all over the table, was a highlight of the trip.





Then we went to one of those hectic underground malls to find a suitcase of some sort to replace the one whose straps were already torn.  Then...we saw this guy, batting away the throngs of little Chinese women trying to sell him "Gucci" handbags.  If he's not some famous American basketball player I'm gonna be really disappointed.  Anybody know?

That night we shelled out to go to a Beijing opera performance, because I thought it was important for me to witness, but it ended up being overpriced and lame.  Maybe the other tourists there didn't think so but the Chinese can't fool me on the topic of musical performance.  To begin with, the show was in some fancy hotel and not a real theater.  Lame #1. And the only other people in the audience were white tourists.  Don't real Beijingers go out to the opera? Lame #2.  Then, the performance started and there were no live instrumentalists.  WHAT THE HELL.  The vocalists were really singing, thank Confucius, but the rest of the music was all recorded.  I don't know if the Chinese think this is OK in general, or if they just try to pull that prank with the foreigners, but it is not OK with me.  Lame #3.  Also they had screens with subtitles so you could follow what was happening, but the girl pressing the button on the computer to change the subtitles, who happened to be sitting within sight, was texting on her cell through the whole show.  So all this dialogue would happen and the same subtitle would stay up, then she'd look up and flip through five at once. Lame #4.  Maybe I should write a letter of complaint or something to get it off my chest.  Other than those points of lameness, it was pretty cool.  I'll do impressions of the vocal style for anyone who asks.  I think I've got a knack for it.

 

The next day we were really pissed about the opera tickets, because we went to this temple festival and saw all these totally better performances for 10 yuan.  I mean, the instrumental music was still all recorded, but nobody was pretending that it wouldn't be. They also had the dragon (lion?) dance thing that I was going to die if I didn't see in Beijing.  It wasn't at a parade, like I was imagining, but it'll do.  For some reason I think in my childhood I associated China with this dance.  Like that is the symbol that has been assigned to China for much of my life.  So I was really excited to see it in real life.

This temple fair was insane - so many people packed into this park, carrying meat on potentially dangerous skewers and all these weird and useless-looking toys.  I didn't even see the temple.  I don't even know if there was a real temple in the middle of all those people.  We stood around elbowing people to get a better view of this stage, and watched the performances for a good while, then stayed just long enough to buy some snacks, but then started to fear we'd get separated or skewered in the eye and so left. 

After that we went to see the Olympic stuff, which I am not really interested in but C had been asking about it.  You can ice skate inside the bird's nest building, someone told us, but the ticket to get in was sort of expensive so we opted out even though I would have had fun watching him try to stay upright like a struggling lanky animal baby.  teehehe. 

Then, that night we took an overnight train to Harbin.  We had the "hard sleeper" kind - there is also the "soft sleeper" option - and I was sort of expecting to be uncomfortable but I was toooootally not prepared.  Looking back it wasn't that bad at all.  But it felt bad when we boarded the train.  We had top bunks (three bunks on each side of a doorless cabin) and it was rather difficult to get up there, and then when you did, you had no choice but to lie down because the space from the bed to the ceiling was too small to sit upright.  Oh, big deal, fussy American.  I know, but it was also way too hot, and the toilet was terrifying, and the ride was not smooth - rickety and swaying, in fact.  So it took me a while to calm down but after I fell asleep I actually didn't sleep too badly.  As per usual.  Just one of my superpowers. 

Beijing was so big, we could have easily spent two weeks there and not seen everything we were interested in.  We didn't get to the funky new art district, or the summer palace, or the Mao memorial thing, or many other things that I've already forgotten about so maybe they're not actually that important to me.  Overall I got a good vibe.  In terms of the major cities I've been to around here, Beijing felt the most Chinese.  Like even though there were all these non-Chinese food choices, and all these international stores, it definitely felt like China-China, rather than international-city-with-slight-Chinese-flavor.