Day 1: May 18 Onto the Mainland and Beijing
We arrived in Beijing PEK airport at 2:00pm, a 3-hour flight from Hong Kong. A fast train moves passengers quickly from gates to the terminal. Immigration and Customs dealt with quickly and efficiently. Our organized tour starts at Beijing airport where we were met by guide April, holding a sign with our names. The tour, organized by Lycoris with Tibet Vista/Travel, it is a 19-day adventure, tour includes guide, car and driver, hotel rooms and breakfast. We are on our own for other meals.
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| Arrival at PEK |
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| Nice Room! |
The mobile service was excellent; China has cell towers everywhere that provide high speed service. At $30/5GB or $50/10GB, we did not bother with a VPN.
After a long day of travel, we were too lazy to go out for dinner, we dined in at the very nicely appointed dining area in the hotel. We enjoyed Peking Duck (they did call it that in this establishment, saw others later calling it Beijing Duck, some colonial vestiges still exist). The Duck was awesome, carved by the table, we enjoyed it with delicious fried rice.
This morning after an excellent breakfast buffet our next guide Angela met us at 8:00 at our hotel.
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| Paragon Breakfast Buffet |
She will guide us for our remaining time in Beijing.
First on the agenda was a visit to Tian’anmen square. A very busy place, a reconnaissance drive by revealed there was at least an hour and a half long lineup on entry.
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| Monument to Peoples Heros: Ming Dynasty Gate: Mao Mausoleum |
We opted not to join that Tian’anmen Square fun, instead a drive by viewing from the car window was deemed sufficient. A few obligatory “we have been there photos” as seen above and we were onto the next one.
The Forbidden City, located on 180 acres, was China’s Imperial Palace during the Ming and Qing(pronounced Ching) Dynasties. For almost 500 years (1420 to 1912) China was ruled from here.
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| Fine Jade items |
This is the largest Palace on the planet, 3 times the size of the Louvre. Took 14 years to construct by over 1 million workers including 100,000 craftsmen/artisans. It is said to have 9999 and ½ rooms, one half a room less than Gods Palace in Heaven was reported to have. Apparently, the rulers did not want to offend God by having equal or more rooms. Clearly, they felt themselves to be as near to Gods as could possibly be. Hardly any ego. Beautiful, well-maintained buildings, priceless furniture and appointments. The Chinese are very proud of their dynastic past.
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| Queen Victoria a young Woman about to start the humiliation of China |
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| There is rule of law and folks to enforce |
In 1856, the second opium war was instigated by Britian and France to further expand western trade into China and to legalize opium. This concluded in 1860 with expanded trade granted, foreign presence in Beijing and further reparations. The Qing Dynasty became a puppet of Britan, essentially colonizing the country.
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| Forbidden City moat |
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| Queen Victoria near end of Reign Still subjugating China |
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| Dynasty Costume Dress |
Queen Victoria (or her bankster handlers?) did not give up cash cows easily. Not until Mao pushed the western backed “nationalist” government of Chaing Kai Shek into the sea and onto Tiawan did China regain real self-government. It took until 1997 to regain Hong Kong from the British and 1999 for Macau from Portugal. Thus the 150 years of humiliation by “the west” ended as the rise of China moved forward.
At Forbidden City we first caught a glimpse of ladies dressed in period costume, more later.
We followed up the Forbidden City with a visit to the Temple of Heaven, part of which is a huge outdoor park where citizens participate in fitness and social activities. This beautiful area occupies over a square mile(685 acres) in downtown Beijing. Many trees and green spaces, as well as amazing buildings.
The Temple was used in the Qing Dynasty as a place of prayer to heaven for good harvests. It suffered vandalism during the “Cultural Revolution” with the main alter being destroyed. Today it is a highly regarded and well-maintained world heritage site. The Cultural Revolution was another disastrous policy of Mao, no doubt to maintain his firm grip on power, not as bad a death toll as the Great Leap but still a few million perished as many cultural and religious buildings and icons were destroyed.
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| Dynasty Costumed Ladies |
The Cultural Revolution inflicted much hardship from 1966 to 1978. The chaos finally ended with Mao's death. Eventually Deng Xiaoping gained power and stopped the madness and started the rise of China. At the Temple of Heavan, we again saw many examples of young ladies dressing in dynastic period costumes and posing for photo shoots.
These extensive tours complete we were in need of sustenance (Angela for sure, as did not have the luxury of the extensive buffet breakfast). Someone also wanted a beer. We found a place for lunch that my friend Jackie would have described as a “Hole in the Wall” . We shared a tasty noodle soup and a beer. (Angela enjoyed a meal to herself).
The afternoon plan was to attend a Chinese acrobatic show
at 2:30, we still had some time to
kill so we went to a tea shop near the theater. There we were treated to a
demonstration (sales pitch, possibly a commission-based event?) on how to
properly drink tea, the correct hardware and of course various types of tea. Even had a Cricket pet inn a cage!
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| Pet Cricket |
a tin of tea and some hardware. She also suggested how to hold a teacup and what the proper position of the pinky finger is. I believe she said it should be pointed away for ladies and not for men. Who knows? The internet says it is rude to point the pinky like Shirley Temple does, it also notes that it may have been a way for ladies to indicate interest in a male or to signal that for at least, for French ladies, that they had syphilis. The latter seems very unlikely as the facial scars would give that it away and who would advertise that?…
Can another body be piled on the mass of contorting humanity? Can another chair be added to the tottering pile? How many ladies can hold onto a bar with their mouth? Beijing
is a city of over 21MM people, massive road network, with at least 4 ring roads .
The traffic is pretty busy; motorbikes, bicycles and cars co-existing, mostly
harmoniously. The motorcycles/scooters are primarily electric as are many of
the automobiles and buses. Their noiselessness, particularly scooters on
sidewalks, can be unnerving. They are the world leader in uptake on electric
vehicles as well as their manufacture. Very smart for a country with limited
oil reserves who imports most of their needs. Not quite as much a driving free
for all as India, but still less angry drivers than in North America, didn’t
hear many horns honked in anger. The city is very clean and manicured. The medians
of many roads are full of lovely rose bushes, a beautiful city.
After a rest we ventured out on the streets of downtown Beijing. A very safe city, no issue walking around in downtown after dark. Chinese cities are some of the safest on the planet.
And Cats!
There is a significant police presence and people respect the rule of law. (almost like canada in the 1950’s/60’s). There are also no homeless, everybody seems to have a role. Maybe because there is little or no drug problem? Trafficking is dealt with severely.
A few blocks walk in the evening took us to section of an ancient city wall in a nearby green space area, a pleasant outing amid much traffic on the adjacent roads. Felt very safe.
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| Evening Walk in downtown Beijing |
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| Hot Pot Delight |
Day 3: May 20 The Great Wall and more!
Today was our visit to the Great Wall. Another experience that we hadn’t thought that we would ever have. After a another over the top buffet breakfast at the hotel we were picked up just after 8 for our trip to visit the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall.
This is one of several sections open to foreigners. About a 75km drive to the site from our hotel, took about 1.5 hours.
The Great Wall of China is a massive structure built over more than 2 millennia by multiple dynasties. Supposedly a physical barrier to keep the “Mongol Hoards” from pillaging the more sophisticated Chinese. Nearly 22,000 Kms in length (a little over ½ way around the globe at the equator). Possibly this was merely an excellent make work project that kept on giving for centuries to keep the peasants busy and not thinking about changing government.
Not a continuous wall, rather many sections that are parallel and some are isolated. The most recent segments were built by the Ming dynasty between 1368 and 1644 when the Ming dynasty fell and Qing was initiated. Our visit to the Mutianyu section is to a rebuilt segment from this era, a little over 2kms is open to visitors, did not quite see the entire 2kms.
A
partially cloudy day, but still pleasantly warm. On arrival we took a shuttle
bus for a short distance, then walked for a while past the obligatory souvenir
shops and into a cable car. The cable car takes you near the wall crest to a paved/cobblestone
path that leads to watchtower Number 14. There were a few steep uneven steps to
the top. Some difficulty for us with aging joints. There were many people
jostling for the best photo spots but we persevered and had great views of the
wall stretching out in both directions.
We
didn’t walk too far past the watchtower as the terrain was fairly steep and we
thought that we had had enough fun climbing. Our guide pointed out people say that
”they climb the Great Wall” not walk it. We spent about half an hour exploring
the gate house before heading back down on a slightly different route avoiding
the steepest steps.
We
reversed the cable car and we visited a couple of the souvenir shops and picked up a few trinkets including a Mao green cap with red star, a have to have. Suitable retail therapy and back to the shuttle bus.
Once again folks were
obsessed with my beard and asked for selfies with me. Leaving the bus a lady
wanted her photo taken with me, I complied (not free had been advised by a friend to charge $5, rather than cash I requested that they allow me to take a selfie too) she then insisted that her whole family have their photo taken
with me too. My ego has been massively inflated.
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| Mobile Coffee Station |
Soon we were headed back toward Beijing and to lunch. Our guide had played up a certain dish as a local delicacy, something that we have, not unsurprisingly, had not previously dined on(think Shrek/ Eddie Murphy).
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| Donkey Burger |
Indeed, it was donkey on a bun washed down with a beer (the guide and driver did not have a beer). The donkey bun/burger was quite tasty, a largely nondescript flavoured meat that certainly was not chicken. Was just the meat on a toasted bun. We also had a very fine spinach and egg soup. All the food has been good. Back to the car and a long restful drive back to our hotel. Today was not as strenuous a day as the previous few days. For dinner we weren’t very hungry but were very lazy.
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| Excellent Dim Sum |
We went downstairs to the
fancy restaurant in the hotel again, this time we ordered four delicious dishes
from the dim sum menu. Mmmm.
Tomorrow,
we take the train to Xi’an(Shian), will explore Xi'an for a
few days. Train day should be an easy rest day? It’s just the two of us with our
guide who will get us to the station and onto the bullet train. We’ll have a
different guide in Xi’an our next city. When we go to Tibet we’ll be in a
larger group tour.
Day 4 May 21 Bullet Train to Xi’an
On to the
Beijing to Xi'an bullet train by 9:30.
