China Trip, Day 4 - July 28

After the previous night's thunderstorm, we woke up to a cooler day on day 4. We're now used to our routine. Get up, have a great breakfast at the hotel, head over to the bus and go for a drive to someplace fabulous. Today it's the Summer Palace. As if the Forbidden City isn't enough, the emperors had a special palace in Beijing where they spent summer - April through October. Mostly Angie talked about the dowager Empress, who basically ruled through her children following the death of the emperor. I may not have that completely right, but essentially she was in charge. The palace is in a beautiful garden (like all of them) on a man-made lake. Lots of lotus on the lake. The palace was lovely, and there was a covered walkway, called the long walk, where the empress took a walk after each meal. Each meal consisted of 128 courses, so we can see why that might be necessary! It's worth noting that this was during the time of bound feet, so she did this mile-long walk several times a day on bound feet. What a woman! The long walk was covered with roof with the most magnificent blue paintings (pictured).

The street vendors were out in strength in the Summer Palace. The item of choice here was the fake designer bag. I must admit that I succumbed to the fake Gucci. Unfortunately, when you buy one, it seems to attract other vendors!


We took a boat ride across the lake to get back to the bus from the Summer Palace. Where we boarded the boat, there was also a really interesting decorative stone boat. The boat ride gave us the best views of the palace itself, which is on a hill overlooking the lake. We also got to see several beautiful bridges across the lake, including the 17-arch bridge that links to a man-made island in the lake. From there, we drove to a Pearl factory, government store. A little disappointing, basically there was a pretty hard sell for the pearls, and it wasn't nearly as interesting as watching the Jade master at work. We had lunch there, also a little disappointing, and then off to Tian'anmen Square.



Nothing disappointing about Tian'anmen Square. It's the largest public square in the world. The cement slabs that make up the square are designed to hold two people standing, and when they're full, it holds 1 million people. There's a big Mao poster on the wall of the Forbidden City facing Tian'anmen Square (photo below), plus Mao's tomb in the middle, which, of course, isn't accessible. Also, there's a memorial to the fallen heroes of the Cultural Revolution (pictured above). All in all, very impressive. The downside is that the street vendors are out in force, and are really very aggressive. Gordon did buy a Chairman Mao watch, and because it had heated up again, I really needed to buy a fan. We all learned the call of the street vendor - "special price for you!" Tian'anmen Square was also packed with foreign tourists and Chinese visitors. Again, many in our group were photographed with Chinese nationals and Aisling's cast was a major point of interest. As with the Forbidden City, the sheer size of Tian'anmen Square is breathtaking, and like everywhere else in Beijing, it is very crowded.


Our group had some "free time" then so we did a couple of our own activities. First, we went to a distinctly non-government shopping mall. It was a blast. There were lots of little stores with people aggressively bargaining better prices. Some of them might have been a little *too* aggressive. One of the vendors practically ripped my arm out of my sockets trying to drag me into her store when I tried to leave. We bought all kinds of stuff, I have no idea if the jade I bought is real, in spite of my lesson at the factory, but I am certain that the iPods we bought were fake! I mean, they were $20! Aisling bought one, and then I piggy-backed on her, and Don & Diane piggybacked on that purchase. But we were all overshadowed by Lauren's serious shopping! 40 Pashmina scarves, 20 silk ties and heaven knows how many strands of pearls! Absolutely amazing. She spent $200 and made out like a bandit.

We left our shopping frenzy and had a very nice dinner, although they clearly thought we were craving western food because in addition to the regular Chinese fare, we had fries! Our table specifically boycotted the fries, however. At dinner, we made plans to go out that night back to the Lotus market to go "clubbing". Some people had a pre-arranged tour to the Beijing Opera, those of us that didn't went back to the hotel and went swimming, and we arranged to meet in the lobby at 10:30.

At least 12 of us met up to go to the Lotus Market, including our student volunteer, Hunter, and Aisling. I don't know if it makes me a bad parent to let my 11-year-old daughter go clubbing in Beijing, what can I say? We also picked up four additional people from UCLA, and off we went in four different taxis. Aisling went in a cab with some of the other girls, while I rode with Siegrid, Hunter and Carrie. It turns out that Hunter told the company that he was going out with us, and they told him that he should keep an eye on us and not let us drink. However, Hunter indicated that beer doesn't really count as drinking. I think the Legends of China company was very concerned that we not do something crazy and miss our flight to Shanghai the next day. We arranged to meet at 12:30 at the Starbucks (there's one on every corner) but I honestly expected to run into people walking along the street, as that had happened the previous evening that we were there. However, we didn't run into each other for the first hour, so I was a little worried about Aisling, although no need to worry, she was with Alicia and Erica, who really look out for her. Siegrid, Hunter, Carrie and I went out on a boat on the lake, Hunter and I had sodas but Siegrid and Carrie had beers, so Hunter and I pedaled.

We all met up as scheduled at 12:30 at Starbucks, including the UCLA folks. Denise had connected with a friend of hers from Guatemala, who now lives in Beijing, who offered to take the group to a different area, more of a student nightlife area. Aisling was tired, however, so I took her home. One of the UCLA group, actually the father of a UCLA student who also is on the faculty at UCSF, Bob, decided to also come home in the taxi with Aisling and me. The UCLA group had been drinking bottles of beer, and Bob asked if I thought he could take his beer in the cab with him. My guess is that it wasn't going to be a problem, and sure enough, it wasn't, so he got to finish his beer in the taxi on the way home. Aisling finished her frapuccino.

As I've mentioned, the hotel is out in the suburbs, so sometimes it's hard to get a taxi to go out that far, however, the first taxi that stopped agreed to take us. However, he must not have read the directions on the hotel card too well, because he ended up driving in the total opposite direction! We went miles out of our way before he finally confessed to being lost, at least I assume that's what he was saying. There was a bit of a communication issue. He finally called the hotel and got more directions and took us back. We then had to haggle about the cost of the taxi ride, as it showed almost three times what it should on the meter. The hotel staff helped, though, and we got it to a reasonable cost.

I took Aisling to the room she shares with Siegrid. Siegrid was already back, even though she left way after we did. Her taxi didn't get lost on the way! The group that stayed behind decided to go get some pizza before going to the other area, and walked to a pizza place just outside the lotus market. The had to walk through a very deserted dark alley to get there, which was a little unnerving for some of the group. The pizza place was closed anyhow, and Hunter got more calls from Legends of China, so he came home with Siegrid and Kim. The rest of the group went on to the other area and by all accounts danced into the wee hours of the morning.