Beijing

Hello Excellent Ones,

Sunday, October 2I.  I arrived in Beijing yesterday with my friends from school,  Marg and Gary Fleishauer and Vinci Ng.  We have a week off, it is Mid Autumn break so we are checking out Beijing.  I tried to get on the blog from here, but for some reason I can't get on.  I suspect the Chinese government has something to do with this.  Despite all the incredible economic and travel freedoms that the communists have given to their citizens freedom of expression is still a touchy topic here.  Interesting.  We are staying in a funky, hippie style youth hostel in the middle of a Hu Tong.  Hu Tong's are neighbourhoods in Beijing that are basically narrow winding streets with very cool buildings.  It is sad that they are ripping a lot of these neighbourhoods down.  Tragic really, cause they are very unique and full of character.  The hostel is relatively close to Ti'amin square so we checked it out and went up to the gates of the Forbidden City. 

Since it was pretty cold and raining we decided to move indoors to the National Museum.  It is a colossus, massive huge place where you could spend days wandering around it.  There was a vast mixture of ancient stuff, communist stuff, and very modern interesting  stuff.  It was impressive and the price, "free," was impressive too.  Yet we had to present our passports and get body searched before we were allowed in.  Soldiers in formation were constantly running around as well outside.  Still despite the no taking picture rule inside the museum everyone was taking pictures so we joined in.  Typical of China.  Lots of rules and show of strength, but there are simply too many people, Beijing has 20 million people, so I have the impression that most of China makes a show of following the rules but don't really respect them or follow them.  Corruption is a major problem here.

Anyway  here are some pictures from the day.  

Left to right:  Marg, Gary, and Vinci in front of our funky youth hostel.  Good price, great atmosphere and good beds/bathrooms.  Perfect.

A house in the Hu Tong.  Grass growing out of the roof?  Hmmmm

Kinda of plain, kind of slummy, lots of character.  Walking through the Hu Tong

In front of the entrance to the Forbidden City.  Tin'amin Square.

In front of the National Museum.

Old Lady.

Creepy baby.

Inside the museum.  Massive.

Chinese artwork.

Mao giving his great speech to start a new era in Chinese history.

The lobby of the funky youth hostel.  Very cool.  Italian, Chinese, German, English and a multitude of other languages were spoken here.

Monday, October 22.

The day broke in clear and blue and remained that way.  It is cool however, and it reminds me of Canada in the fall.  We headed to the Temple of Heaven, and after a rather lengthy detour, we finally made it.  The temple was set up for the Emperors so that they could pray and fast for rain and good harvests.  There were actually a few temples in a massive well taken care of park.  It was impressive but the most random think happened while I was there. Gary and I ended up playing a game with some Chinese men, not sure what the game was called but we threw coloured soft felt rings in the air and our "friends,"  caught them with their heads.  Think horseshoes, but with round hoops getting hooped on pegs.  After throwing about 5 of these things it was Gary's and my turn to catch the hoops.  And we did alright.  Rather fun but random.  After spending a few hours at the Temple of Heaven we headed to the Forbidden City.  To say it was amazing would be an understatement.  It was huge, a colossus, massive, huge place that went on and on.  It took us a good two hours to walk from one end to another and we only scratched the surface.  It took ten years to collect the materials for the Forbidden City and it took a million workers to build it.  Incredible. The place truly is a world wonder.  Tomorrow the wonder will continue as we visit the Great Wall.

Playing ring the head with some locals.

Temple of Heaven.

The Forbidden City.

Forbidden City!

FC!

FC

 FC

A crowd looking through the window at the Emperor's bedroom.  Hmmm.

A friendly smile for the big tourist.

Tuesday, October 23.

One of the top ten highlights of my life occurred today.   We went to a section of the Great Wall called: Mutianyu.  The Great Wall is astounding! The weather was clear blue sky with a touch of a breeze to keep things fresh.  Autumn colours and awesome view of the mountains made it even more special.  I hiked with Gary up to the wall eschewing the girls who rode the cable car.  More fun and interesting to hike up.  Once we got up the views were amazing.  The wall was not that crowded which was nice.  Our driver/tour guide, David, was full of info.  The wall originally was built to stop the Mongols from attacking.  Did not work, but the wall is still  an amazing thing.  It was once 21000 km long now "only" 8800 km long.  That is the length of Canada from east to west and back.  Twice the length.  WOW! David also translated these massive characters  that were way up on a mountain near the wall.  It said, "Loyalty to Mao."  Interesting that the characters were in disrepair and fading.  How symbolic of China.  Mao also said, "If you don't climb the wall you are not a hero."  Hmmm.  How incredibly ethnocentric.  Ok according to the late Chairman I am hero today.  Anyway I will let the pictures do the talking.    

The Great Wall on a great day.

Yours truly.  It was very exciting being up on the wall.

Cool

Cool

Very Cool

Fall colours were great.

Some parts were verrrry steep.

Steep!

Astounding!

Up on the hill you can see Loyalty to Mao.  In Chinese of course.

Wednesday, October 24.

We took it a little easy today.  Went to the 2008 Olympic site.  Saw and went into the Birdsnest and the Watercube.  Honest opinion:  Wow and disappointment wrapped in one.  Wow in that the structures are huge and interesting, disappointment in that both sites were dirty, rather tacky and after only 4 years are already showing signs of wear and tear.  Even the signs proclaiming the Olympic site were breaking down.  I find that really odd about China.  They have so many amazing structures, but upon closer look they all seem poorly maintained and breaking down far too soon.   It seems people don't know how or care to maintain the things they build.  Saw some interesting things today:

1.  Many babies don't wear diapers here, but have pants with holes in the back of their pants.  When it is time to go they just go.  Rather gross to see toddlers doing their business on the road, but when in Rome or Beijing for that matter you do what they do… 

2.  A small army of people scrapping the gum off the massive paved walkway by the Birdnest and Water Cube.  What a terrible job that would be…

3.  A tall guant Mickey Mouse gamely dancing with people for 10 yuan.  $1.60 Canadian

4.  Hanging with Gary on top of the Youth Hostel.  Not bad.

5.  Chinese musicians at the restaurant where we ate Peking duck.  

6.  Weird food market: shark, frog, starfish, seahorse, scorpion, pupas, snake, and pretty well any poor creature you could thing of including cat and dog were offered fried on a stick.  I decided to have some fruit on a stick…

7.  We came upon about 500 people dancing in tandem on a giant square in front of a catholic church.  Rather bizarre, but worthy of a picture...

Tomorrow this grand mini adventure comes to an end as we head back in the afternoon.  We will have time for one more tour which will be to explore the summer palace.  

No diapers.  Oh oh.  But hole in the pants will suffice.

Vinci and Marg in front of the Birdsnest.

Note the letters.  How unprofessional!

Inside the Birdnest.

Intricate, laced steel.  Inside the nest.

The Water Cube

Inside

Scraping gum off the Olympic plaza.  What a terrible job that would be.

Musicians at the restaurant where we ate Peking duck.

Starfish on a stick anyone?

Scorpians on a stick anyone?

Snake on a stick anyone?

Seahorse on a stick anyone?

Dancing the night away.

Thursday, October 25

It was off to the Summer Palace with our guide David.  He told us that the Emperor used to be carried on a throne then transferred by boat on a canal to the Summer Palace from the Forbidden City.  The Summer Palace hence forth known as SP was incredible like the Forbidden City now known as FC. The SP was built around a lake called Kunming Lake,  hey I was in Kunming city just a few months ago, and really it is a series of buildings linked by covered pathways.  The highlight of the SP for me is the Tower of the Fragrance of Buddha.  Very beautiful with lots of colour and interesting artwork.  After exploring that we went on a boat to an island and from there we walked over the bridge of 17 arches.  By then the haze from Beijing's air pollution started to envelope us.  Not good.  

We then had some dumplings with our guide and then he dropped us off at the largest most colossal airport I have ever been.  I have used that word a lot to describe Beijing and its wonders.  Colossal.  

Thus ends an excellent trip with some excellent people: Marg, Gary, and Vinci.  It was a pleasure being with them.  Take care everyone.  God bless you all.

Love adios and peng on!

Dirk

Two oldtimers at the SP having a chat.

SP  Fragrance of Buddha temple.

Writing on the walkways with a water brush.

700 meter covered walkway- longest in the world

A closer look at the Fragrance Buddhist temple.

Cool walkways inside the temple.

 Mulan.  Remember the cartoon?

Marg and Vinci going up the steps in the temple.

Little statues on the roof.

 Two fine men.

View from the top of the temple.

Gary, Marg, Vinci and yours truly.  Was great to be with these great people.

 Awesome color and artwork.

The Emperor had a marble boat.  Unsinkable like his reign!!  Silly. It is supported by cement underwater, like the thousands of nameless peasants who toiled for him in poverty while he lived in incredible wealth.

 The 17 arches bridge.  Not really 17 but the emperor liked the number so thus it became 17 arches.