China Trip, Day 2 - July 26

We still weren't over the jet lag, waking up at 5 a.m. There's not much of a view from my room window, given that we're out on the fourth ring road, but even out here in the suburbs, it's interesting to note that there are 12 huge cranes visible. Our hotel is pretty new itself, and right next to it, there's a building that looks like an old motel that seems to be housing construction workers. Breakfast at the hotel was great, I went with the Asian breakfast, noodles, rice and congee, a kind of porridge. But I didn't skip the coffee! The bus was due to leave at 8 for our first stop, but left a little late, so Angie spent a lot of time talking about our first destination the "number 1" jade factory in Beijing. Our bus driver, Mr. Wu, is the "number 1" bus driver in the company. The jade factory is government approved, and the store there is a government store, so we were encouraged to shop there for the better quality. We took off, and then got a good sense of the driving style in Beijing. There are lots of bikes as well as cars, but the rules seem to be that the largest vehicle has the right of way. Bike riders in this city must have nerves of steel!


The jade factory was enjoyable, we got to see the jade masters carving away at big blocks of jade making my personal favorite, four jade balls, one inside the other, carved from a single piece of jade (pictured in various stages at left). We also learned how to tell good jade from bad jade, although I can't say I really know how. The government store was somewhat disappointing, quality may have been good, but prices weren't. However, Aisling spent a fair amount of time looking at all the jade jewelry. We then returned to the bus to head for the Forbidden City, which is in the center of Beijing, so it was a fairly long ride. On the way, we continued to get a good sense of all the construction and a better view of the "birds nest" Olympic stadium. The other Olympic venues for various sports are designed to look like they are related to the sport, for example, the aquatics center has a "wavy" kind of look. The Olympic village, also under construction, is pretty darn large and imposing also. We were joined on the bus by Hunter Lee, a student volunteer from Peking University.

We drove from the Jade factory, which wasn't far from our hotel, into Beijing to go to the Forbidden City. On the way, we passed lots more construction, and also the older part of Beijing. In the old city, there are little buildings called Hutong, where people live in very close quarters, usually with a lot of little alleyways running in between the houses, and with most of the houses facing into a communal square. While many of them have been destroyed and replaced with high rises, they are now protected and it's not so easy to tear one down.


We arrived at the Forbidden City. Now that we're in the center of Beijing, we could really get a feel of just how crowded a city it is, especially at a major tourist site like the Forbidden City. Our group tried to stay together, and we were fairly identifiable, as we all had our yellow "B3" tags on. The Forbidden City is huge. There are 9999.5 rooms in the Forbidden City, and I believe it covers 250 acres. Plus, there's a moat around it. The land dug out from the moat then was used to make a hill directly across from the Forbidden City. As we waited in front of the entrance for Angie to buy our tickets, several members of our group were approached by local people who wanted to have photos taken with them. This was particularly true for members of the group who are African-American, a very interesting phenomenon. We also got our first taste of street vendors, selling us everything from postcards to fans to umbrellas. The fans became very popular as we got into the trip and the heat wore us down. We got into the Forbidden City and started our tour. It was fabulous, just the sheer scale of the buildings was enormously impressive. The wife and concubine quarters, however, were smaller than the other sections. Angie tried valiantly to keep our group together, through the large distance and the huge crowds, however, we unfortunately lost four people! Everyone took lots of photos, however, my camera picked that particular day to die, unfortunately. We spend several hours in the Forbidden City, going from building to building and courtyard to courtyard, finally getting back to the bus minus four people and very hot and tired.

We went to lunch in a building called the "Bonding Center". I thought the group was already pretty well bonded, but it didn't seem to hurt. It was a good lunch, also Aisling got her photo taken in a traditional Chinese costume and then shopped at their little gift shop. Even in that shop you could bargain! You can bargain anywhere that it's not a government shop. We left lunch and headed for the Temple of Heaven, where the emperors prayed for good harvests. The temple buildings are in a very nice garden, and while we were waiting for Angie to get the tickets, we read the rules of the park. Some of the English translations were pretty funny including:

Don't be lying on the benches.
No leaking.
No percussion.
No teaching dance for profit.
Don't hang items from trees.
No recycling.
Don't stay at the entrances and exits for a really long time.

The garden itself was lovely. Also, like the Forbidden City, the sheer size of the buildings was most impressive. In the Temple of Heaven, the roofs are all blue, like the sky, whereas in the Forbidden City, the buildings are yellow with red roofs to signify that it's an emperor's home. Aisling's aircast on her foot attracted a lot of attention. People would just stop and stare at it, and finally a Chinese man who was walking with a cane insisted on having a photo taken with her.

We found our missing four people at the Temple of Heaven. They had taken a taxi (or two) back to the hotel and then called Angie, and arranged to meet us there. We then went to dinner at another very nice restaurant. Aisling thought the highlight of this restaurant was the shop next door. Gordon figured out that you can but a second bottle of beer for the table for 10 yuan (about $1.50) and that became a standard practice at our tables. The food was good, however, we're noticing that the same dishes seem to be showing up at all the meals.

We then headed back to the hotel. Some of the group signed up for the Chinese Acrobatic show, but we hadn't done that so instead we walked around the hotel and got a fairly early night.