Also -- I appologize for all the misspellings.
This is us getting on our train. It drove at about 300km/hour most of the way there. The whole trip took about 5 hours - only about twice as long as flying. (The person sitting next to me on the way home told me that you should never fly in the summer because the flights are so unreliable.)
Our first day we didn't get to the hotel until about 2:30 -- so only a little time to "tour" before the jet lag took Mike out and the attractions closed (generally at 4:30 or 5:00pm). So, we walked down to Tienanmen Square. The green grass and plant sculptures behind me were more greenery than I'd expected. Mostly it is a stone-covered city block. To get into the square you had to go through airport-like security.
From the square, we could see the famous portrait of Chairman Mao. The guidebooks said that it would be difficult to get this photo because the Chinese tourists croud this photo site so much. Apparently the heat wave was keeping them away.
This is Mao's Mausoleum. It's only open in the mornings, so we decided to skip it. But, we did enjoy the proletariat-style statues out front. The poor soldier in front did not look like he was enjoying himself, and in fact seemed close to keeling over. We saw a small group of soldiers marching around shortly after taking this photo, so hopefully he was being relieved.
This is the gate at the south end of the square. To get the most majestic view of the Forbidden City, one is supposed to start at this gate and walk north, rather than the southernly route we took. The center of town was full of gates of one sort or another. The size of the endeavor is impressive, though. These dragons were guarding the gate from the south.
Just south of Tienanmen Square is a bustling "hutong". These are the narrow-streeted neighborhoods where the locals traditionally lived. My understanding is that the government is rather systematically knocking them down to replace them with high-rise apartment buildings in preparation for/to handle current increases in the urban population. The ones that still remain seem to consist of a few central pedestrian streets dedicated to tourism knick-knacks, surrounded by the housing where none of the tourists go (except for us). If you look closely in this photo, you can see that the Starbucks has kept faithful to the color scheme of the shopping (tourist) street. The last photo is one of the most honest shop signs we saw.
Mike briefly considered "Donkey Meat Sauce" for lunch, but then thought better of it.
This is me after a 3-hour bus ride up to the Jingshanling section of the Great Wall. We did not realize that choosing a bus company with relatively fast busses would be an issue. So, we spent a few more hours riding a bus than intended. But, at the end of the day we had a great (if hot) time on the wall. We took the cable car to the top (in the interest of time and in consideration of the heat), and then walked on both restored an unrestored sections. The views were spectacular, and well worth all that bussing. My appologies for posting so many photos, but I had a hard time narrowing them down.
Mike petered out just before these steps. I left him to rest, and explored a few more guard houses on my own. It turned out that the steps were well worth it, since the next guardhouse had a second storey floor but no walls, so you could get a beautiful 360 view.
The stairs on the way down were even more harrowing than on the way up!
The architect here may have been a forebearer of the architect that built our house in Columbus, as they had a similar wall-window mismatch problem.
After a long day in the heat at the Great Wall, we opted for some street food for dinner. This is the night market in Beijing, where the street vendors sell lots of things on sticks to tourists. A few (scorpions, snakes and starfish) I think are to attract the crouds. I didn't see anyone eating them. I opted for veggie dumplings.
This is the main high-end shopping drag. I can't remember the name of the street. It's pretty tame in the morning (when this photo was taken) but comes alive at night. The stores are all just a bit different than you'd expect in America.
House painters in China have to be real artists.
Back to the Forbidden city bright and early Sunday morning. The place was already awash with humanity. There seemed to be endless gates to get into the city; I suppose this was by design :) As everywhere here, you wait in one line to get a ticket, and then another line to get in. All the lines have "Chinese characteristics" in that there are many people cutting into the front of the line, so obvious people like us have to wait extra long.
Once we finally got into the city, there were still more gates!
There was a lot of really nice ceramic decoration -- all in green and yellow.
The first real buildings were the three halls that were used by the emperors to interact with their subjects and visitors to the realm. The Hall of Supreme Harmony, Hall of Middle Harmony, and Hall of Preserving Harmony. Very harmonious. They all looked very similar to us, in that you can't really see inside them. The doors to each hall are open, but roped off. You have to nearly literally swim through the croud to get near the front to see in. I did this for the first hall, but never really got a good look at the throne within. Mike did better by reaching above the croud to get a photo to look at later.
From the three Halls, we tried to find the living quarters, which theoreticlaly were through the big doors in the walls. We were only moderately successful.
Here is the imperial garden. We learned that "garden" in China often means something different than in America. Chinese gardens focus a lot on these giant rock sculptures/structures. This one was used for an imperial ceremony honoring a holiday I unfortunately don't remember where the emperor, his wife and his concubines would all climb to the pagoda. Also, the plants in the gardens are chosen more for meaning than for looks. Not pictured are some pretty impressive large trees, though.
Once out of the garden, we happened upon one of what appeared to be a "back alley" in the palace. This is the first time that I really got a good idea of the sheer massive size of this place.
We joined the throngs of people leaving.
A better view of the size of the city is to be had from the large hill that sits directly behind it. The hill was constructed from the dirt excavated to make the giant moat. We climbed up to the top, where there's a pagoda with a temple where you can look over the whole city. This is also a good indication of the smog problem that Beijing has. We could barely see to the other side of the Forbidden City due to the pollution, rather than the distance.
Mike really enjoyed this "intersting" English translation. Apparently there was nothing remotely pool-like in the restroom.
This shopping street (Nanluogo) was billed as "pleasant" and filled with boutiques and cafes. I think that publishing its name in the guidebook changed it considerably, as it's now a shopping street packed with tourist shops and people - just like everywhere else we went.
In the same part of town are the bell tower and the drum tower (I don't recall which is which now). There were some enthusiastic drummers serenading us from the bar 1/2 way in between. At this point, most of the towers are starting to look the same, and we are quite hot and tired. Before heading back to the hotel we take advantage of Mike's favorite photo op.
Getting a taxi turned out to be difficult. We weren't sure if it was because of the time of day or that the drivers didn't want to go that far from tourism central (or maybe didn't want to get that close to it). So, we resorted to an electric rickhaw ride. In the end, it was the best 20 yuan we spent all day. The ride was a little harrowing at times (I didn't think we were going to make it around that blind left turn), but was very fast and a fun experience.
Back to the main page