Chickety China Part 5: Wednesday

OK, back on track with telling you my adventures (now a month old) in China.

Wednesday (the day after the 10k hike and bee attack) Janetta and I woke up before nine so we could trek to the Summer Palace, then the Lama Temple before heading back to the hostel for the Fall Festival party. The Summer Palace is an hour bus ride away, but only 40 min by subway. Janetta feels more comfortable on the bus, and I feel more comfortable on the subway but I didn't mind the idea of the bus since it meant we would be getting a free driving tour of Beijing out of it. So, we got onto the bus and sat down, taking in the changes between neighborhoods as we passed through the different rings of the city. We passed through some more Western looking areas, with streets that reminded us both of our hometowns (well, it reminded me of L.A. more than Tucson). It was a beautiful clear, blue-skied, sunny day and we were loving that we could see the sky so easily--unlike in Korea where the buildings block it out.

The Summer Palace tickets (much like those for the Temple of Heaven and different tourist places in China) were divided into five different sections--One for the main entrance and four smaller perforated tickets for the areas of the grounds with their own gates. I recommend buying just the main entry ticket and the ticket to see the Buddha Tower, it will save you 30 yuan and you won't be disappointed with missing the "Garden of Harmony and Virtue" that isn't a garden at all, but a museum to the (I'm not kidding) heating and cooling systems of the palace. We skipped the street at the north end of the palace that had a separate entry ticket and the gallery, but I don't feel like I missed anything--the lake (in the main area) and the Tower are the main things people seemed interested in.

Anyway, onto the beautiful Summer Palace!

This palace was built so the king would have a place to go that had greenery, since the Forbidden City had hardly any plant-life. As soon as I saw the human-cultivated lake in the middle of the grounds, with the iconic willow tree branches sweeping down to brush the water, I knew this was my favorite site thus far into our trip. I felt this huge weight leaving my chest. I had been starved for the beauty of greenspaces and water since moving into Bupyeong. Not only that, but even though you could hear the traffic of the city if you got close to the outside wall of the Palace, it was very muffled and the further into the grounds you got, the less you could tell you were in one of the most populated areas in the world. I had also missed silence--even with the windows closed, I hear the traffic seven stories below me as if I were on the first floor. With the window open, I might as well be sleeping on the street.

The more we walked in this beautiful place, the more I felt revived--sleepy as I was. As we got to the Tower of Buddha (or the Fragrance of Buddha... I can't remember), I was just amazed that so many older folks, with their hunched backs and tight hamstrings, were able to make the walk up the massive hill. The tower and temple next to the tower were beautiful, we weren't allowed to take photos of the interior but it's what you would expect--golden Buddha statues and statues of others following the teachings of Buddha, fruit offerings and incense.

The more we walked around the lake, the more dreamy I felt-I was ready to take a nap and the calm feeling I was getting from my surroundings compounded with my need for sleep and made walking difficult, but as we climbed up the steps for one of the bridges with a pagoda at the top I was able to wake up and get back into the groove of things--I was hungry. At this point, Janetta and I were just wanting to find our way back to the exit so we could find some thing to eat and our way to the Lama Temple before we went to the hostel.

We decided to take the subway back, since it would be faster and about only 1 yuan more than the bus. It was an experience, I thought I had seen crowded public transit before, but no. China has smaller subways than Korea and the States, and it seems there are more people trying to ride on it. You are standing up close and personal with so many different people (keeping in mind the pickpocket warnings are real here) and trying to make sure you can get out the door (or even to the door) for your stop. We made it to the Lama Temple without any hiccups, but we did have to ask for directions a couple of times, just to make sure we had turned the right way when coming out of the metro.

Walking down the street toward the Lama Temple, we passed shop after shop selling incense and prayer beads along with other religious items.
We bought our entry tickets (which came with a mini CD I have yet to play...if I can find it I'll let you know what was on it) and walked through the gates. Marveling at the giant bell, endless incense and praying people and the multiple Buddha statues. Janetta kept asking questions I thought I should know the answers to, but it's been so long since I studied the practices of Buddhism that I had to tell her not to trust what I was saying and that there was much I needed to look up.

The Lama Temple was built by a king so he could hold impressive religious ceremonies. In the final temple, there is a huge statue of Buddha made out of a single piece of wood that's over 1,000 years old. We weren't allowed to take photos inside, it was impressive, but it didn't feel holy to me. Most of these places were starting to feel gaudy. I loved the courtyard and the sound of the bell, but you could pay to ring it and it cheapened the experience of a supposedly religious place. I enjoyed the temple, but both Janetta and I were ready to head back fairly soon after going through it all. I really want to read up on some of the different sects of Buddhism, there was an exhibition of different statues of Buddha and bodhisatvas that included things like demons and sex--things I didn't ever associate with Buddhism.

I'm glad I went to the Lama Temple, but disappointed it didn't have that certain feeling of awe I was looking for.

We pushed back onto the subway and headed hostel-ward. We got there and collapsed into the cushy red, velvet chairs around one of the big tables in the common area and watched as the employees set up the dinning tables for the "festival." I noticed dishes were coming out and that I couldn't tell if some of them were veggie friendly or not, so I asked them and it turned out that half the food was vegan and the other couple of plates were obviously meat (whole fish and chunks of meat), and that the whole meal was free for those who got a spot at the tables before it was all gone! I claimed the perfect spot between two veggie dishes and in front of some moon cakes (delicious!). We chowed down after the chef and our MC for the crazy games after the food made a speech about how wonderful it was to share this meal with people from all over the world, on a night when most Chinese were dining with family. Then we got down to drinking. We got free Tsingtao as long as we batted our eyelashes and giggled, and until the hostel filled up with more people.

Then the games began. There was a small talent portion of the night, the owner of the hostel (Leo himself) was dancing to Lady Gaga (my goodness, the amount of times I heard "Poker Face" and "Paparazzi" made me a little nutty), one of the front desk women did a traditional Chinese harvest festival dance and there was a conga line of drunkness out the door of the hostel and onto the street. They had cheesy prizes for those who won the games (how many peanuts can you get into this bowl using chopsticks--Janetta won some stickers; a balloon pop--Janetta won something else; drinking competition--I joined so I could lose and slowly enjoy the huge bottle of Tsingtao at my own pace afterward; and other fun silliness). After the party (and the Gaga) got less amusing, a group of us headed over to the other hostel (365) to drink some more and talk without Gaga interrupting our attempts at changing the music (pretty much everyone in the hostel other than the folks who ran it were trying to change the music at some point and it would always get put back on "Poker Face."

We closed that bar down, and walked back to the hostel, chatted until Leo came out and told us he had to close the common area for quiet hours, then we walked across the street for dumplings. The shop only closes for about an hour between 2-3ish in the morning, then they open up in time for the people coming back from the bars to sober up a bit on the food. We sat with am American guy who has been living in China for a few years now and speaks a fair bit of Mandarin. He was a bit awkward, but all was explained in that he carries his Bible everywhere and wants to be a missionary--he must have been uncomfortable with some of our conversational topics, but we all got along pretty well. At this point (4am) I was crashing and ready to go to bed.

I had been chatting with an American who was traveling around before moving to the UK to be with his girlfriend. He's my age, had majored in Computer Science, made enough money from a job he didn't care for to travel for a few months and relocate to the UK before he took up that same job again. Talk about awesome! He was telling me about how wonderful the Kindle was and I was set on buying one (when I came home, I found out Darcey Spears--my former YRUU adviser and permanent life mentor--was going to send me her old Kindle, perfect!) Yes, I'm now Facebook friends with Lawerence, he's doing a "Communist Leader Tomb Tour" totally unintentionally--he hit up Lenin's tomb and was trying to see Mao, but had the same problems Janetta and I had due to the holiday.

I went to bed after a really awesome day.

Chickety China Part 4: The Great Wall

On Tuesday morning, we woke up early to get breakfast at the hostel and meet up with the group that was going to do the 10k hike on the "Secret Wall"--a portion of the wall that wasn't touristy and was supposed to have a great view. I quickly ordered my coffee and toast with beans (mmm, simple, but tasty) and Janetta ordered an American Breakfast and a latte (I had flashbacks to working at The Baker, but their American breakfast is slightly different as is to be expected in a different restaurant). The food took a while to come out and we had to take it to go or miss the bus to the Wall. I was able to finish my coffee in a nice relaxed fashion though. ^_^

We had to walk a few blocks with our guide to pick up some folks from another hostel, and then we got on a small bus rented out by Leo's. The bus ride took a couple hours and the AC was on full blast even though it was chilly, because the bus apparently didn't have the ability to defrost the front windows without freezing us all. It was bearable though and Janetta and I got to chat with some cool dudes from Belgium (yes! I have a contact for when I relocate to Europe and want to drink good beer!), though we had to talk over the ever increasing volume of the South Park episodes being played on the buses TV.

We got to the Wall, and that's when the stairs started. I swear, China is made of stairs and not enough of them go down, it's like going through an MC Escher. After the eternity of the climb up to the Wall to start the proper part of the hike--and it was a hike as this part of the Wall wasn't maintained in the way the more popular parts are and there were trees, shrubs and flowers growing out of this historical piece of defensive architecture--we paused to hear a brief history of this part particular part of the wall and the legend behind a huge break in it. The part of the Wall we were on was between old Mongolia and China and was built by farmers who lived on practically no food, many died and were buried in the Wall. There was some story about one of the emperors during the Ming Dynasty having previously been a farmer who worked on the construction of this part of the Wall who went crazy eating nothing but dumplings when he became emperor because he couldn't have them during the construction. The legend about the hole in the Wall was an angry or grieving (I didn't catch which) wife ran into it as a response to something her husband did or after he died (I'm great at this, I know).

The hike started off with more stairs. Going up, I was ready to turn around after 2 minutes of stair climbing, but I started a mantra of, "Nice ass" and I pushed through. When we got to the actual hiking part of it--with the mud and the trees and the dangerous holes for stairwells--I was quite happy to go the 5k up and 5k down the Wall. It was a misty, surreal, Lord of the Rings kind of day but the view when there was a break in the clouds was impressive. The Wall slithered its way across green hills and there was a town on the old Mongolian side of the Wall.

We passed through six watch towers on the Wall, some run down to nothing but the foundation of the tower and others still mostly in tact. It was sweaty and slippery, sometimes dangerous and totally worth it. I met some really cool people on the way up--chatted with an Israeli architect on holiday, the Belgian beer lovers (they spoke Flemmish, and it's close enough to Afrikaans that Janetta could speak with them, but I got no French practice *sigh*), some South Africans teaching in South Korea (we're Facebook friends now), and random other people from the UK, Argentina and Norway (we didn't talk as much, but they were cool).

While climbing down the slope to the stairs that would lead to the road we would walk down to get to the bus (why it wasn't in the parking lot where it dropped us off I don't understand), I was stung by a bee. This is the second bee sting since coming to Asia. I don't know why they are running into me, getting trapped in either my sunglasses or hair (this one made itself a trap in my dreads and when I undid my hair to try and free it, it stung me) and killing itself while make my life a little more painful. I was the third or fourth person to walk through this group of bees, and I was nervous because it sounded like a swarm and coming from a place with Africanized bees I have learned to avoid buzzing bushes. When I realized there were probably 40 bees on each side of me, I told the folks in front that I really needed them to go faster, but they couldn't because the way was steep and muddy. I didn't think to turn around. I kept on and I'm really lucky I wasn't actually in a swarm because I probably wouldn't have made it down the Wall if they had all gotten aggro and stung me. I now freak out at flying, buzzing things but don't feel as much pain with bee stings as I used to.

The fee for the hike also included lunch at a restaurant on the way home, it was decent and only a few of the dishes had meat in them. It was served in the traditional Chinese way of rice in the middle and lots of veggies and protein to choose from on the outside edge of a lazy Susan in the middle of the table. After lunch, most of the bus slept on the way back to the hostel.

When we got back, Janetta and I were too worn out to do much anything other than shower (this was when we started to go upstairs to use the communal showers with hot water rather than clench our teeth through the icy shower available in our room). Then we got some beer and chilled in the common room and chatted with more folks (I made more Facebook friends!) and went across the street to the more happening bar to hang out with our fellow hikers.

It was a good day, even if I looked like a lunatic asking people--who didn't seem to care/believe that I was stung by anything--to check if there was a stinger visible so we could pull it out of my head. Ok, maybe I'm still working on not being mad that people doubted I had been stung, but the rest of the day was pretty good.

Chickety China, Part 3: First night at Leo's and a Frantic First Day

Our room, a private with two twin beds--it costs $10 more than the bunks so we sprang for it (I wouldn't next time, but it was my first hostel stay and I had heard about folks being loud and other not being able to sleep), didn't have hot water. I let the shower run for five minutes and then finally jumped in and out real quick after rinsing the grime off. Janetta did the same. We were not happy.

We went to the front desk and they insisted that we just had to run the taps (the sink and the shower) at the same time for 5 minutes and it would heat up. It didn't work. We tried again the next day, it still didn't work. From that day on, Janetta and I walked upstairs to shower. I love hot water.

So, Monday was our first full day in Beijing and Janetta and I had planned our day with hitting some of the major sites near the hostel. Leo's Hostel is located 10 minutes walking distance from Tienanmen Square--and therefore Mao's Tomb and 15 minutes to the Forbidden City's South Entrance (the one with the huge portrait of Mao)--so we decided to strike out in that direction and take photos of the square, the portrait and the outside of the tomb (no cameras allowed inside and it's closed on Mondays). The north end of the square was blocked off, we later found out some dignitary was touring Beijing that day and had the central part (the main attraction) of The Forbidden City blocked off as well as the portion of Tienanmen Square. So, our touring was slowed because of whoever it was, but we made our way across the square and up to the entrance of the Forbidden City.

Before entering the Palace Museum, we watched some Chinese military drills. It was pretty amusing since they were practicing on a rec area--there were volleyball nets and a basketball hoop--and a couple of the guys weren't in uniform but were still marching around the square in formation. Several Chinese tourists asked Janetta and me to take photos with them, why they wanted photos with White tourists I won't understand. So, we spent some time hopping around taking photos with random people and eventually made it into the Palace Museum.

The Palace grounds are really impressive, just the size of the place. It really is a small city. But, after a while, all the buildings start looking the same. Janetta and I made our way through the Forbidden City pretty quickly, with only a few minor foot traffic jams because of the dignitary having areas blocked off while s/he walked through. The garden was nice, but not really that expansive and we decided to push on with our day--but first I had to exchange some more money.

We walked from the north end of the Forbidden City around the western edge to the place on the map that was marked as a Bank of China, but there was no bank. This meant we had to ask a couple different people for directions. Turns out one of the side streets wasn't marked on the map so we had just turned half a block early. I got the money exchanged and we were on our way to find food then press on to the Temple of Heaven (a Taoist temple used to pray to Heaven for a good harvest). The lunch was much better than the one in Qingdao and our waiter was really attentive to my vegan needs, even double checking that it was ok that Janetta ordered meat. When we gave him a tip he didn't know what to do, but his boss just told him to take the money and say thank you (or at least, I heard her say "shey shey" and gesture in a way that would mean that to me). We had figured out tipping isn't the norm, but we really wanted to let him know we appreciated his work.

On to the Temple of Heaven. Another expansive grounds with buildings that all seemed pretty much the same, but they were different from the Palace so that was nice. There was more greenery and it was really refreshing to be surrounded by trees and grass as opposed to the tall, grey buildings of Incheon. Beijing is built out, much like L.A., but Korea builds up like NYC, so Beijing had a much more open feel to it that Janetta and I both enjoyed. But back to the Temple...

The Temple has four gates; North, South, East and West, we entered from the South and took a route that lead us to the West Gate then up to the North Gate, down through the center a bit to see the Temple and animal sacrificial areas, out to the East and down back to the South Gate where we could catch our bus back to the hostel.

We took a wrong turn and missed the East Gate, but were too tired to care and walked back to the South Gate to get the bus back and sit down for a bit. On our walk out towards the East Gate, we were passed by several older men (looked 70 so they must have been 80) running, shirtless through the park around the TofH. They were all ripped. Then one middle aged guy comes jogging up with a pained expression on his face, about 20m behind the bigger group. Figure that one out.

The Temple of Heaven was worth seeing, but I wasn't floored by anything other than the amount of power the kings and emperors were. Look at the pyramids in Egypt and Central America, that took so many lives and people to put together. Same with the Great Wall, thousands of people died building it and are probably buried in it. Versailles was built and drained the treasury then the people in nation in which it was built starved. So, when Janetta and I were walking through the FC and the TofH, we just kept commenting on how it was so typical of people in power to build 1)a fancy house and 2) a fancy place to worship. The irony kicks in when you read that the temple on the west side of the grounds for the ToH was for abstaining from luxury.

We hoped on the bus back to the hostel and waited for it to drop us across the street from where it picked us up. This did not happen. We went up a different street than we had come down and up the opposite side of the square. No big deal, maybe it turns around at the north end of Tienanman and that's the loop? Nope. Hmm. It's got to turn around somewhere. So, we sat and waited for that "somewhere" to become apparent. We were both tired and a little hungry, and Janetta kept us awake by asking questions and making observations. Well, mostly kept us awake, I did doze off a couple of times.

Finally, we passed several posh looking buildings (the 5th Ave or Rodeo Drive of Beijing) and decided we should just get off the bus since it seemed it wouldn't be turning around anytime soon. The traffic was terrible, we weren't moving. We had been in the same spot for fifteen minutes. We had passed metro stations, so we decided to try our luck on the subway. We pulled out our little printed map and noticed the silk market that Janetta had wanted to see was right around where we were. We had passed a building labeled "The Silk Street Market" but thought it couldn't be the market we were looking for since the rest of the place was so upper class. But, it was the market on the map, and with traffic as bad as it was we figured there wouldn't be any harm in checking it out while traffic cleared.

We swung into a Starbucks so I could get a soy chai latte pick me up, since it was only 6 or 7 and I was crashing hard. That and I love any excuse to get a chai latte.

We trekked back to where the silk market was and went inside. There was no silk. Just booth after booth of knock off (some good, some bad) brand clothing and cheap looking souvenirs, five stories of it. All the sales people were about our age and spoke enough English, Spanish and Russian to try and talk you into their "shops" and trash talk you or threaten you if you didn't buy something. I got called crazy several times and when I tried to give a top back to the saleswoman, she threw it on my shoulder every time I set it down. Eventually, I tried setting it on a different shop area so she would have to pick it up, but she just screamed, "That's not my shop, I'm calling the police!" So I picked it up and threw it into her shop and walked away. Then, she chased me down and took an additional 100 yuan off of her last price. I bought the shirt for a tenth of the starting price (600 yuan down to 60 yuan). That place is not for the thin skinned.

I don't remember anything else happening that night. We just chilled at the hostel and went to a bar in a hostel across the street with a few people.

Chickety China, Part 2: 5 hour delay and no hot water

Upon our arrival to Qingdao, Janetta and I asked which bus would take us to the train station, waited for Albert (our new South African acquaintance) and walked to the bus stop. Albert and Janetta needed change for the bus, so we went to the convenience stores near buy and made the store owners a bit upset by cleaning out their small bills. Qingdao is not a place I would recommend visiting. The only thing to do there is tour the Tsingtao brewery. The city is huge, but dusty and kind of boring. It feels a lot more like a small town than a big city in that it's got no real entertainment or cafes in which to pass the time. How do I know this if I was just going to take a train out?

Albert got the last spot on the bus that came by (argh) and the bus pulled away before Janetta and I could try to squeeze on. We got on the next bus and met up with Albert at the train station, he had planned on taking the night train into Beijing but the window attendant on the west side of the train station just gave him the soonest ticket out of Qingdao to Beijing (the joys of language barriers). I'd printed up the train schedule and underlined the train Janetta and I wanted (it was the same one Albert had a ticket for), the 11am train. The attendant gave us tickets for the 5pm. When we tried pointing to the 12, 2, and 4 trains she just pointed at the 5pm. A man behind us, helped us clarify the matter and told us all other trains were sold out. WTF? It had been mere minutes since Albert had purchased his ticket. Janetta and I were kind of miffed, especially since I'd checked a couple different sites to see if I could book the tickets in advance and had had no luck. Albert hadn't even wanted to leave Qingdao that early.

Whatever, we made the best of it. There was a coffee shop (over priced, yes) in the train station, so we settled down at the 'SPR Coffee' with a coffee (me) and a Tsingtao (Janetta) and started to plan a bit about how we had to shift our schedule and where to look for food in this dusty, large port city. We had another drink and asked the young Chinese guy (who spoke English) working the register if we could leave our stuff in the store room since there weren't any lockers in the station--yes, a blind leap of faith on our part. The owner/manager/boss was an older, middle-aged woman and she kept asking us to sit down and relax (that was the extent of her English). They agreed and Janetta and I walked off, a little less weighed down, to find a place to eat.

The plaza of the East side of the train station looks out onto an intersection with 5ish spokes, and we just started walking down the closest one. We wondered for a couple blocks and found a restaurant that looked a little pricey, so we went across the street to the restaurant advertising cheaper prices. I whipped out my Vegan Passport and turned to the page with the Chinese translation of what vegans do and do not eat. We should have looked around the restaurant first, there was an awesome looking lunch buffet for only a few Yuan but it was hidden behind a divider wall. Instead, we just pointed at what looked good (the server showed me the veggie section of the menu--OMG a veggie section!). We ended up with super oily potatoes and peppers for me and deep fried pork bits for Janetta. We decided to take our time at the next restaurant we visited, despite the servers habits of hovering over us like we should know the menu and be ready to order.

After eating our slightly disappointing lunch, we walked around the block. There were shops with all kinds of awesome looking fruit- one had Dragonfruit, which I have yet to try fresh. The craziest thing about this area were the clotheslines going from lamp post to street sign to whatever else. Businesses were using these street clothing lines to dry sheets and towels and residents were drying clothing.

We went back to SPR and found the folks sitting and eating, the guy rushed to the back room and promptly brought us our bags (everything still inside, see, people can be trusted sometimes) and asked us to sit down. We were given some water (hot, all water is boiled in China since it's not safe otherwise) to sip on while we waited for our train to board at 5pm.

I was surprised to find out that Google did work on the computer at the coffee shop, and it was a good thing too because I had to email our hostel to let them know there was a delay in our arrival time.

The train was full (but no standing seats on this one, more on that in the entry on the train ride back) so we sat, read, napped and looked at the packaged food for sale in the "cafe." My favorite name was Jew's Ear Juice, but we saw things ranging from Trail Mix to Duck Tongue to Fried Tofu strips. It was a nice ride through the Chinese countryside.

We got into Beijing at 11:30pm, it was a long day. With some help from an English speaking Chinese man, Janetta and I got a cab from the Beijing South Train Station to Leo's Hostel. We checked in and looked forward to a hot shower and a place to sleep.