Descending into Beijing, we were met with a nearly-impenetrable haze that hung lazily over the city like the top sheet of a furniture fort. But this was not a freshly-laundered sheet. No, this was a soiled, stained, yellow sheet that someone meant to wash at some point, but that had accidentally fallen behind the washing machine where it sat for 7 years until the washing machine was sold and someone exclaims in surprise, 'Oh! That's where that sheet went.' Yeah, it was kinda like that.
My initial impression of Beijing was that it was massive on a scale the likes of which I had never before seen. A truly massive city. Surface streets the size of US freeways. A concrete jungle of apartment building after apartment building. Smoke, smog, and a general grimy feeling that I can only describe as grunge. That being said, it was not without its fair share of beauty.
Started off the drive to the hotel by seeing some
rather unique architecture.
As is standard, I dropped my things off at the hotel, and immediately set off to find the nearest zoo. Bear in mind, it was properly chilly there (snow, frozen water, lack of feeling in my nose / other extremities). More on the zoo when I catch up on my zoo blog.
After departing the zoo, my appetite for shy animals and poorly-maintained habitats sated, I wandered, optimistically - and perhaps with a certain amount of naivety - over to the taxi stand. And by 'stand,' I mean curb. With no taxi markings. Wandering perilously out into the street, I stuck up my arm with the hopes that I wasn't insulting an entire culture in the process of just trying to get home. After a short while, a taxi veered across 19 lanes and came to a screeching and rattling halt directly in front of me.
I open the door with a screeching of ungreased hinges and sit down in the passenger seat. I turn to see an expectant driver, impatient that I didn't shout my destination at him as I was approaching the cab so we could already be on our way.
The following transcript is written, word for word, as it occurred.
"Ni hao," I exclaim through an overtly-goofy grin (that was one of two phrases I managed to learn prior to my trip).
"Ni hao," the driver responds, already busying himself with another task other than listening to much of what I have to say.
"Wenjin Hotel?" I ask. This was the name of my hotel. After providing my destination, I turned to face forward, smiling. We didn't go anywhere. I look back at the driver. He was staring back at me, mouth slightly agape. Had he been smoking, the cigarette would have fallen into his lap. Or mine.
"WHAAAAAA?" he exclaims emphatically. Admittedly I knew very little Chinese, but I got the sense that this was not 'Sure thing, sir! Buckle up - safety first, you know!'
Hmm - time to try another approach. Same thing, but slower.
"Uh...Wen...jin...Ho...tel?" This had to work, I was sure of it.
"WEN-JEEN-HO-TERR?" Ah! Success. Surely we were on our way now. I nodded, and faced forward again. No movement. I slowly turn again to face my driver. He had a deepening furrow in his brow that was beginning to resemble a confused pug.
One more time - double speed.
"Wenjin Hotel?"
He breaks his gaze from me and looks around his immediate surroundings. I frowned - look, guy, if the hotel was in our line of sight, I wouldn't be sitting here right now.
I give him a helpless, defeated look, and he responds with a shrug. That was my cue - I exit the cab.
Not to be dissuaded, I walk a bit further down the street to another waiting taxi. Avoiding another potentially awkward moment, I lean in through the open window and lob the name of my hotel at him. Halfway through the word 'hotel' he looks perplexed and shakes his head. Awesome.
Ok, time to get creative. Seeing a nearby subway station, I decide to try my luck there. My plan was to go stare intently at a subway system map until I got lucky and saw something I recognized. A cursory glance of the map told me very quickly that this was in no way a possibility, as most of the stops - Ji Shun Tan, Da Zhong Si, Wan Shou Lu - sounded like my stop.
At this point, I was quite convinced I was going to die cold and alone on the streets of Beijing. Cutting some holes in the toes of my socks, and donning some fingerless gloves and a scarf, I cozied up among some other people around a trash can fire, prepared to live out my remaining days there. Some conversation with my present company revealed that they, too, were foreigners who were unable to get back to their hotels. This somehow made me feel better about the whole situation.
Then it hit me.
I reached slowly into my back pocket, pulled out my wallet, and examined the hotel room key card.
It had the address on it in Chinese.
I was saved.
I promised my compatriots that I would send help. Bounding enthusiastically up the stairs and frightening a good 40 or 50 people, I hailed the first cab I could get (when locals weren't stepping out in front of me) and showed the driver the address. He glanced at it for a moment, nodded, and we were off.
It's a humbling feeling being stuck in a place where you don't speak the language, and most people don't speak yours. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't energized by the challenge.
Back at the hotel, I took a hot shower, went downstairs to Joe's Bar (or something to that effect) for dinner, and ate myself silly. Dinner consisted of a massive burger, a heaping portion of nasi goreng, and a local brew. Quite full, I waddled back to my room and retired for the evening.
Waking up for work the following morning, I opened the curtains and did a double-take. It had snowed quite a bit during the night, which had transformed the city from a dull, gray, industrial expanse to a snow-covered, dull, gray, industrial expanse. Still, the kid in me was excited to tromp around in some fresh snow, even if it would result in the sprouting of a third arm (useful) or lead poisoning (not so useful).
It's not a lot of snow, but all it takes is a little
for the perfect snowball.
Surely, snow falling through that fluffy whitesmoke would only make the snow fluffier, right?
Wrapping myself in an extra layer, I made my way out into the cold. The office was right next door, but a 2-minute walk was made into a 10-minute walk by what appeared to be a very unnecessary iron fence. It was not even a high fence. I could have hopped it. A lame baby deer could have hopped it (no offense intended to deer). That being said, I assumed it was put there for a reason, and begrudgingly circled it to the entrance gate.
Fun fact: the Beijing office is one of the few offices
with signage out front. Thought you'd like to know.
Being an early riser and staying next door to the office has its advantages, namely, being able to wander around the hallways and play with stuff without the judging and watchful eyes of others. Case in point...
Springy stilt things. This would have been a
hell of a lot more difficult if there had been 50
people watching me, rather than 2.
Debating getting a pair of these for regular use.The one slight problem is that a fall from these
would result in an utter, utter catastrophe. I'm
a bit top-heavy.
As the morning wore on, the snow came down inlarger and larger flakes. It was torture being stuck
inside on a great day like this...
...so naturally, I went outside. Check it out - theonly person wearing short sleeves in all of China.
Enough about work. Wait...there wasn't actually anything about work. Moving on regardless.
That night, a couple of my friends / teammates / wonderful hostesses from the Beijing office were taking me out to a quintessential meal: Peking duck. Before I arrived, I can't tell you how many people told me I had to try Peking duck while I was in Beijing. Actually, I can - 18 people. Ok, already, I'll try it. That evening, Tina and Maria took me (conveniently) right across the street to a restaurant well-known for Peking duck. We were seated, and I left the ordering to them - knowing my luck, I'd end up ordering something like duck brain...
...which we got anyway. And yes, I did eat it.
It tasted like you would expect brain to taste.
And with no noticeable side effects. Quack.
It goes without saying (or perhaps it doesn't) that I am quite adventurous when it comes to food. I'll try anything once, if only to retell the story to other people later, resulting in the oh-so-satisfying 'are you effing kidding me?' grimace. I thrive on stuff like that. Over the course of my week in Beijing, I ate duck brain, tripe (cow stomach), jellyfish, and congealed duck blood. I don't feel a particularly strong urge to try any of them again, but that being said, none of them were particularly disagreeable. Except the tripe. That was just awful. Imagine eating cold rubber textured like a cat's tongue and with no discernible taste other than the seasoning on it. That's tripe.
Anyway, back to more delicious food.
Peking duck is nothing short of a performance. The ducks are carefully selected (I got an identification card for my duck, which included a unique identifier number, an assurance of quality, and a list of the duck's likes, dislikes, and turn-ons), glazed, cooked, sliced, and served. I'd never found anything that could actually compete with the taste of smoked American bacon until I tasted crispy duck skin. Divine.
The master chef at work - he carefully slices
off a small section of the duck skin...
...and brings it to you on a small plate for you totry prior to bringing the whole duck out. I felt a
bit like I was tasting wine at a winery for the first
time - was I supposed to chew it? Swirl it around
in my mouth? Lick it and smack my lips before
nodding to the waitress?
Our duck came (right), and the rest of the foodjust kept coming. It was all absolutely spectacular.
Lotus root stuffed with meat and then fried.
Walnut salad. A whole chicken someone apparently
tossed into a food processor (which I avoided after
finding a bone shard in my first bite).
And the food kept coming. These were amazinglittle sweet / meaty dumplings. That murky brown
liquid in my glass was pear juice. Pretty darn good.
As we were finishing our meal, Tina asked me if I liked spicy food. 'Do I ever!' I exclaimed. She then mentioned that I needed to go out for spicy fish the next night. I like spicy, I like fish - what's not to like? So, the following night, Maria took me to another massive restaurant, this one specializing in a sort of spicy fish hot pot.
When we were seated, Maria went back and forth with the waitress in Chinese. I sat there pretending to listen, but even that could not hide the dull, listless glaze in my eyes, and they began to wander around the room. Like the outside portion of Beijing, the inside of this restaurant was positively enormous. They say everything's bigger in Texas - it would appear Texas hasn't made it over to Beijing yet.
Maria told me we had to go select our fish, so we followed the waitress over to a wall of tanks, and a man in an apron behind the counter fished one out of the tank.
Not a great picture, but for those who can't tell,
it's our fish in a net.
The man held the fish out for me to inspect. As though I knew more about fish inspection than I did about duck skin tasting, I pretended to give it a once-over and followed that with a nod of approval. Before I could do anything else, the fish was placed on the counter and had its head smashed utterly to bits by a metal rod that I was now painfully aware the man had been holding in his hand (see picture above). Thank God I didn't name him.
Still slightly surprised, I made my way back to our table, and began to chow down on what was another fantastically huge meal.
More food than I possibly care to remember. In
the background, you can see the massive pot of
spicy fish, which I'm fairly certain was mostly
chili oil, judging by the lack of feeling in my mouth
following the meal.
With the remaining free time I had on weekdays, I took it upon myself to explore the surrounding area a bit more.
I was intrigued by the fact that they had the model
of the car in both the English as well as the Chinese
characters.
WHOA - artsy, I know. This was a purely-decorative structure near the office. Looks
pretty, but is completely useless when it
starts to rain.
My Chinese might be a little rusty, but I believethis says 'to the victor go the spoils, to the loser,
McDonald's.'
External shot of the office - a tiny splash ofcolor in an otherwise overwhelmingly-
gray world.
Tina explained to me that the location of the office was not exactly the most happening area in Beijing. This came not a moment too soon, as I was about to busy myself with hurling snowballs at passing cars and sliding down the smokestack of the industrial factory. We hopped in a cab and drove for about an hour or so to a slightly more exciting part of town (for those wondering, the entire cost of this cab ride was ~$15 - in Sydney, I would have had to sell a kidney...maybe both).
But first, a diversion was in order.
My dad collects the little pins they sell at the Hard Rock Cafes across the world - as such, whenever I'm in a location where they have a Hard Rock, and it hasn't been closed as a result of no one willing to pony up $80 for a sprite, I grab him one. He didn't have a Beijing Pin yet.
*sniff* Ahhh. You can smell the rock.
I popped inside and looked around. It wasquite quiet, and most of the wait staff looked
like they were 'draggin'.' *smirk*
Ah...the Beijing Hard Rock. Where all the foodtastes exactly the same, and if you complain about
it, you're never heard from again.
Back in the taxi, we continued our drive to the happening part of town.
Ras Vegas?When Tina heard I was coming to Beijing, one of the first things she said to me was 'We have to go to Hidden Tree for pizza!' Never being one to turn down food (moreover, food that she spent the next 10 minutes telling me how amazing it was), we wandered through a labyrinthine mess of streets and alleyways, across rooftops, through bushes, and once we emerged from the other side of the mines of Moria, we were standing in front of the restaurant. A toddler scampered past us into the restaurant and I stood there dumbfounded at how he possibly could have defeated the balrog. I perished the thought - I was hungry, after all.
Ok, so maybe it's just called The Tree, but
the fact that it's so damn hard to find is likely
why it's called Hidden Tree.
Some facts and thoughts about Hidden Tree. It's owned by a Belgian, and as such, I was expecting it to be divided in half and full of squabbling British and Germans. It was not, in fact - but it did have a very extensive and respectable selection of Belgian beers. They make their own pizza from scratch, which I must say, was excellent. There's also a tree growing up through the middle of the restaurant. I'm assuming that's how it got it's name.
I promptly got quite comfortable with a massive
glass of Trappist beer. Tasty.
We ended up getting a couple of pizzas. Pepperonipictured here. The other was a quattro formaggi,
my personal favorite.
Completely overstuffed beyond belief (without speaking in my usual hyperbole, I'm fairly certain I ate one and a half pizzas), we left the restaurant to wander around town a bit.
It bears mentioning that I was really starting to warm up to Beijing a bit. It was inexpensive, had a plethora of new foods to try, and was cold as hell. Tina took me to an outdoor mall / promenade type thing, where we wandered around a bit more.
At one point, a small girl came up to me and started begging for change. I shook my head, and Tina shooed her away in Chinese, but the little girl didn't leave. Instead, she stayed in step with me like a shadow. I began to walk in serpentine patterns across the sidewalk, and at one point, even resorted to small, tight circles in my attempts to lose her, but accomplishing nothing other than making myself dizzy and at risk of enjoying my dinner a second time.
Finally, she gave up, and shouted what I could only imagine were incredibly inappropriate swear words for a girl her age. Tine explained that this was quite common, and that parents would send their children out to beg, even if they weren't completely destitute. Sad.
Anyway, on to more exciting things.
Like this. Pretty sure that says 'ARRRGH!
TIGER HEAD.'
Tina also took me to a typical Beijing department store to look around. I normally don't like shopping when I travel, because my suitcase is generally too full as it is without buying a ton of extra stuff wherever I am. Still, it was interesting to look around, as it was rather different than your typical department store.
The Sanlitun department store: 6 or 7 floors
of questionably-acquired goods of indeterminate
quality. Shop today! Please? Special price
for you!
Naturally, they had an entire silk section. I wasreminded of the episode of Top Gear where the
guys all got custom-tailored silk suits in Vietnam
for $100. Sadly, I don't think any of these
patterns really suited me.
I was scolded by the staff for taking a pictureof this shirt. It was either that, or buy it for a
dollar. I guess I just really didn't want
to carry it around.
As entertaining as a communist version of Obama was, there was primarily one thing I had wanted to see while I was in China: the Great Wall. Trite, I know, and while not actually visible from space (apparently, the only visible structure from space is the Belgian motorway system, due to the large number of lights), it still stands as one of the most amazing achievements in human engineering.
Given that I couldn't even be trusted to find my way back to the hotel from the zoo without getting hopelessly lost, I wasn't about to wander miles out of the city in a country where I could only say 'hello,' 'thank you,' and 'you're very pretty' (though, to be fair, the latter likely would have come in quite handy should I have found myself in certain situations). As a result, I settled on a group tour, one which would take me by the Sacred Way, a jade factory, somewhere for lunch, and lastly, the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall (preferred, because it was slightly further out of the way, and therefore less crowded). All in all, I believe it was around $50.
'But Carson,' you say. 'Where is your sense of adventure? Your desire to delve into the unknown?' Well, normally I would plunge headfirst into it, but this particular unknown came with a massive warning label in the form of a slew of internet posts about tourists being dropped off in the middle of nowhere, charged a fortune for taxi rides, and swindled in just about every way imaginable. It wasn't exactly the idea of swindling that dissuaded me. Nor was it the idea of getting lost in a strange land. It was more the idea of having to cut my trip short because I had tossed a small Chinese taxi driver into a ditch to steal his car and now had to leave the country because I was being pursued by law enforcement officials. However unlikely a scenario, it was not one I felt like risking.
My excursion included shuttle transportation as well, so I was up at the crack of dawn to meet the shuttle out in front of my hotel. For whatever reason, I was the first guest to be picked up (I think I was the most out of the way), and was forced to ride around in a large empty shuttle as a result, at least until we picked up the other few people on the tour. There was a pair of American women from some unidentifiable-yet-characteristically-midwestern state. There was a German couple. There were a couple of older gentlemen traveling together, and perhaps one other pair that I can't quite remember at the moment. And then there was me.
After everyone had been gathered from their respective hotels, we set off toward the Sacred Way. The Sacred Way is a pathway that leads to the Ming Dynasty tombs. Oddly enough, our tour included the Sacred Way, but not the tombs themselves. I was fine with this - I was just excited to see all of this history.
The main gateway leading to the Ming tombs.
A turtle statue. I'm not entirely certain whatthe Chinese obsession is with putting beards
and mustaches on animals.
The road was massive - the entire length ofit is over 7 miles, but the scenic portion we
were to walk was closer to 1.2 miles.
This particular portion was lined with statues ofbearded / mustached animals, each alternating
sitting and standing. A lion is pictured here.
I believe this is a mythical beast of some sortin Chinese mythology called a xiezhi. Roughly
translated, this means 'dog thing of celestial
beardedness.'
The creatures got larger and more important aswe progressed along our walk.
If there is one thing Disneyland does remarkablywell, it's immersion. China, notsomuch. That
highly inconspicuous tree trunk is actually a
speaker! Surprised?
The animal statues eventually gave way tohuman statues, such as warriors and priests.
The Longfeng (Dragon Phoenix) Gate. There isa curb-like bump across the threshold, and men
and women are supposed to each step over it
differently for historic reasons. I wonder what it
means when you trip over it with arms flailing
and collapse in a pile on the other side? Just
curious. No reason. None at all.
When we reached the end of our portion of the tour, out shuttle was waiting for us, along with a small army of vendors, selling anything from postcards to cossacks hats to panda hats. Hurtling through a gauntlet of cheap goods and outstretched arms, I made it back safely to the confines of the shuttle, but only just. The engine sputtered to life, and we were off to our next destination: a jade factory!
China is deservedly well-known for their jade - it's produced there in massive quantities, and the designs are very often staggeringly-detailed. When we arrived, we were told that the factory also housed a small jade museum to showcase some of the amazing craftsmanship of the jade artisans. Our guide, a diminutive woman who spoke English so fast through a heavy accent that she might have well been speaking in Chinese, took us on a quick tour through a winding hall of jade statues.
Let me take a moment here to define 'quick.' She couldn't have done it faster if she had sprinted. This was the guide who did the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs. At one point, I stopped to take a quick photo and she had already disappeared around 3 corners and a long hallway. Regardless, I took my time.
A peach tree carved entirely from jade.
An example of the different colors that jade cantake (aside from just green, it can also have red,
yellow, and white hues).
If this had been carved out of fool's gold, it wouldbe called a 'pyrite' ship. Get it?! HAHA.
A suit of ornamental jade armor. This wasgenerally not worn every day, but usually the
wearer was buried in it. So, generally worn
once.
A bunch of jade grapes. This is the kindof stuff I'd use to decorate my place if I had
a ton of extra money just lying around and an
affinity for viticulture.
A factory worker hard at work doing a rough cutof some jade. Don't think I wasn't tempted to go
verify if he was real or animatronic. I've done
worse.
After roughly 14 seconds of looking at the museum, we were dropped off in the gift shop, which was approximately the size of the state of Nebraska. Here was the purgatory where we were to spend our next 45 minutes. Ah, I see the game you're playing at now, China. With nothing else to do, I spent my time feigning interest in a large black jade herd of galloping stallions. It really was a remarkable piece of art, but unless I had a reflecting pool and a large atrium to go with it, I wouldn't really relish walking around the thing in the lounge of my apartment every time I wanted to watch a movie. That being said, I could have very well used it to hang-dry my clothes.
I made 2 complete laps around the gift shop, stopping and staring pensively at several large statues, deciding which would look best in my solarium or which would best capture the somber mood of my second study. I balanced this out by fiddling with some of the smaller, more inexpensive pieces. Truth be told, I wasn't going to buy anything, and part of me felt bad for getting their hopes up. But similarly, I had been told I was going to go to a jade factory, and not a commercialized prison. I think we were even.
As a parting shot, I asked about shipping costs to Australia for the stallions, and then disappeared out the doors. It was lunchtime, anyway.
Lunch was actually surprisingly tasty. The venue was massive - completely empty when we arrived, packed with the contents of dozens of tour buses as we left. The food was standard Chinese fare: lots of noodles and veggies, some rice, mystery meat of unknown origin. They also offered us some of the local brew - a clear, 112-proof liquid that, right away, you know you shouldn't be drinking. As a side note, I had tried some the other night when I was out with Tina, and I couldn't for the life of me get the taste out of my mouth. I passed, and stuck with my Sprite.
I kid you not, this is where we had lunch. I got
some stuff to go, but sadly, they confiscated my
small Asian friend at customs on my way back.
Full to the brim, we set off for the final stop on our journey, the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. The levels of MSG in my blood bordering on blissful, I slept most of the 1-hour drive to the wall.
We weren't actually driving on the wall (but, boy
howdy would that be fun) - they had decorated
the side of the road to look like it.
The base of the wall was replete with fruit andclothes vendors. I nearly got something to eat,
but then I remembered that I prefer my
dumplings automatic.
T-shirts were being offered for a dollar. I wasn'tcertain if they were accepting American dollars,
but I could have dressed my whole tour group
for a tenner.
The fruit stands were very tempting - they haddried versions of most fruits. I was a bit concerned
that they had been sitting out for most of the day
though...
Approaching the ticket booth, I came to find that there were 2 ways of reaching the top of the wall. The first was to take a rather serene gondola ride to the top. Pass. The second was to hoof it yourself, and save 3 dollars. I chose the road less-traveled, and very shortly after setting off , discovered why this was. But before I began my ascent...
Kind sir! I wish to accompany you on your
quest! But before we begin, we shall need
a band of adventurers.
Allow me to introduce my brothers - they willlend their skills to our journey. Be careful -
Percival is not to be trusted, but is a brave
warrior nonetheless.
Sorry, my brother Filbert always arrives late.Like to make an entrance, don't you, Filbert?
We will follow you into the very heart of Mordor,my king.
Five companions. You shall be...the Fellowshipof the Ring!
We are with you! We will charge into...oh,naptime. We'll see you when you get down.
With my traveling companions slightly less-than-ambitious, I made my lonesome journey
up the many steps toward the top of the wall.
The path leveled out at one point, allowing me tocatch my breath. The high altitude and general
steepness of the climb made things slightly difficult.
My feline companions lost (or worse), I continuedmy journey to the wall, stopping only occasionally
to admire the view, and much more frequently
to keel over and wheeze along the side of the
trail.
At long last, the wall came into view. My joy wasstifled slightly when I realized I still had a
ridiculous amount of path to walk.
The final ascent - by this point, I was the onlyperson within several hundred miles wearing
a short sleeve shirt. I resisted the temptation
to cool off with an impromptu snow angel.
At long last I had made it to the top - the wallstretched out over the horizon in either direction.
Almost immediately, I was set upon by a vendor selling Snickers and bottled water. Given that I was woefully under-prepared for my trek, I obligingly purchased one of the latter. Despite my best efforts to carry it visibly in front of me, and occasionally use it for a drum solo on portions of the wall, every single vendor I passed asked if I wanted more water. Then they got crafty. One ancient-looking gentleman was lying in wait for me around a corner, and his pounce was accompanied by the jingling of dozens of pins that adorned every free scrap of fabric he had on him. I paused, waiting for him to make the next move.
"Where from?" he queried.
"America," I replied hesitantly. You could see his eyes widen as the syllables passed across my lips.
"Ohhhhhhh! Ah-meh-ree-kahhhhh!" He moved closer. I stood my ground and nodded. He gestured toward a pin on his jacket. I looked more closely. It was a generic NFL pin. To be fair, the guy had done his research, and I commend him on his efforts to relate to a wide audience. Still, I was tempted to start listing different countries to see just how far he had taken his hobby.
"Ok, ok - so you have the All-Blind Palauan Curling League...but do you have the Spanish Association of Male Speed Knitting?"
I bade him farewell and began what turned out to be a very aggressive hike of the Mutianyu section of the wall. If you picture this particular section as a sweeping semi-circle in between two massive peaks, I had essentially ended my initial ascent at the lowest possible point of that semi-circle. I picked a direction, and started hiking.
On the far side of the wall sits the small town of
Mutianyu. This particular section of the Great Wall
was built around the middle of the 6th century.
It was freezing, I was in a short sleeve shirt, andI was still warm. Bring on the next ice age.
Every once in a while, the serpentine path ofthe wall was interrupted by a sentry tower.
As you can see here, probably as a result of theweather being a bit on the chilly side (of death),
there were not many crowds at all.
The builders made absolutely no concessionsto the wall at the expense of the land. If there
was a hill, the wall went up it. If there was a
100' vertical drop, they put in a step or 2.
Case in point: I had to commando crawl up thisslope lest I risk gravity turning me into an
amusing tumbling spectacle for bystanders.
As I was sweating in near-freezing temperatures,something suddenly clicked, and just like that,
I discovered a love for China that up until that
moment had been buried under a greasy layer
of lead-laden duck brain and sub-par electronics.
This place had a sort of magic about it.
...a magic that quickly fizzled when I encounteredthese steps, each coming up roughly to the height
of my chin. I sighed and hoisted myself up.
An example of the sheer level of ridiculousnessinherent in some of these staircases. I may be
a big guy, but the force of gravity is going to carry
me straight to the bottom faster than anyone
else when I fall.
Our time at the wall nearly up, and sufficiently out of breath, I somehow found an untapped reserve of energy and skipped merrily over to the way down. Sure, I could have taken the gondola back down, or better yet, walked down the same steps I used to make my ascent. But no - the thoughtful Chinese government had thought of a third and infinitely more entertaining way to get down.
If you've been following this blog closely, you'll
recall that saying that I enjoy the occasional luge
would be a modest understatement. More
appropriate would be to say that a line of frail-
looking nuns would not cause me to hesitate
bowling over every single one just to be first
down the chute.
Not to get too political or nasty, but the Chinese government has a knack for sucking the fun out of things. They are the neighborhood bully who lets the air out of your bike tires. They are the tall kid who destroys you at tetherball by swinging the ball above your head where you can't reach it. They are the wimpy bespectacled kid at summer camp who is fragile but is still the reason everyone has to play flag football instead of tackle. And now I was about to hop on their luge.
I climbed into the modified plastic grocery carry basket and pushed the 'go handle' forward. The cart slowly began to lurch forward down the polished metal chute. It was go time.
Rounding the first bend, despite having the aerodynamic properties of a parachute tied to a sleeping elephant, I built up some speed. I noticed a government official at the end of the first straightaway. At first I thought he was waving at me - stupidly, I waved back. I just assumed that in China, people waved with both hands in a downward motion. As I approached him, I could hear the shrill cries of 'slow down, slow down!' My smile turning into what was visibly perceived at a sneer of disdain, I reluctantly applied some gentle braking. This seemed to appease him.
Once I was past him, I sped full steam ahead once again...only to run into another official a few more yards down the track. Passing this second one, I thundered down the hill once more. This pattern continued for the remainder of the trip, with the exception of this small break in tedium:
And that pretty much summed up Beijing for me. The potential to be great, but limited by governmental meddling. Yeah - that's right - I just made an analogy comparing the Chinese system of government to a luge ride. Even I didn't expect that.
At the base of the luge, there were two seasoned-looking men dressed in costumes from goodness knows what era in China's - or any other country's - history for that matter. Through a series of gestures and me listening intently for words that I recognized, I gathered that they were either robbing me using cardboard feudal weaponry, or wanted to take a picture. It was the latter.
I wish I could have asked more about him, if only
for the sake of my own curiosity, but there was
to be none of that.
After returning my camera to me (their first mistake), the thug and his friend cornered me for a handout. Since the dollar went pretty far here, I was not entirely opposed to giving a small donation. Reaching into my wallet, I shuffled through the colorful notes.
"One hundred," they suggested. I stopped mid-shuffle and smirked at them. The thought yeah, maybe if you still had my camera may have gone through my mind. I handed them what I thought a sufficient amount for a photo of me standing with a blinking old man from an obscure yet ancient era and was on my merry way back to the bus.
I slept most of the trip back - it had been an exhausting hike. Because it was on the way back however, I did ask the shuttle driver to drop me off by the Olympic stadium, so I could see in person the site of the Olympic games of which I probably had watched a collective 12 minutes.
The famous 'bird's nest' stadium. I'll be the first
to admit that it's an incredibly unique design, but
sadly lacking in a giant animatronic bird on top,
thus not receiving full points from the US judge.
This building (or series of buildings) was prettysweet - it was modeled to look like a dragon.
How amazing is that? Still, wouldn't want to stay
in that dangly bit...
Don't worry, the grass is creeping me out -I won't go anywhere near it.
The promenade outside of the stadium wasfilled with milling people, and mini-kite flying.
Why fly just one kite when you can fly TEN?
Scarfy McScarferson in front of the stadium.One of the few angles I could find that didn't
feature a kite.
The Water Cube - where most of the wet stufftook place, I'm assuming.
I must admit, I did feel like a bit of a bastardafter stomping all over the smiling grass.
With one day remaining in Beijing before moving on, I tried to cram in a few more cultural sites before my afternoon flight, including Tienanmen Square and the Temple of Heaven. I had one of my teammates kindly write down the Chinese characters for the two locations, added them to my ever-growing assortment of Chinese flash cards, and set off. First stop - Tienanmen Square...
...which was closed for some sort of event. At least I could still look at it from a distance. They had the entires square / surrounded area blocked off for some sort of event. And given the size of it, this meant they had to mobilize roughly 4 small country towns just to have enough people to stand guard around it.
At the first of many gates to the Forbidden
City. I would call it less 'forbidden' and more
'can't be bothered to walk through three
dozen gates and as many courtyards just to
get there.'
It was not the most pleasant day (well, for mostpeople - I was positively thrilled at the idea of
tromping around in the snow).
One of God-knows-how-many massive courtyardsleading to the main gate of the Forbidden City. I
managed to walk roughly 20 minutes to the final gate
before I lost all desire to wait in line to go in.
Tienanmen Square, looking toward Mao's tomb.Notice the systematically-placed guards every few
dozen feet. This continued on for around 700 miles
in either direction, give or take.
Having sufficiently sated my desire to see a massive, blocked-off square, I hopped in a taxi, shuffled through my stack of flashcards, received a (in fairness) perplexed look from the driver when I inadvertently asked him where the restroom was, before moving on to the Temple of Heaven, my final stop prior to heading to the airport. In hindsight, it was an excellent end to the trip.
The Temple of Heaven is actually part of a larger park containing several other identical temples, and a smattering of trees. Like everything else in Beijing, it covered the amount of surface area akin to a small nation.
The Temple of Heaven. Despite appearances to
the contrary, there were actually quite a few
other people who had braved the cold and snow
to make it out here.
One of many sprawling bridges connecting variousparts of the park. Two days and several missed
flights later, I finally made it to the other side.
The 'Nine Dragon Juniper,' named as such becauseit resembles a tangles mess of dragons (nine, I
suppose) flying toward the sky. I'm not going to
ask for rationale on the Chinese fixation with
Dragons - it's better than any other national
animal I've seen. When I start my own
country, I'm picking the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Another series of temples dedicated to goodharvest or high-alcohol-content booze or the like.
This was called the Echo Wall. Apparently (becausethis didn't work for me), if you stand at one end
and have someone whisper at the other, you can
hear them. All I heard was lots of other people
talking, specifically the group of people standing
right around me.
The three-tier monument - they have the burlaprunner along the right side of the stairs for a reason,
one which I only discovered after a dazzling display
of acrobatics that eventually found me clambering
gingerly on hands and knees up the remaining
steps.
People would take turns standing in the middleof the structure and shouting something at the
rest of the people. I wasn't able to gather
precisely what they were doing, but assuming
it was some variation of 'King of the Mountain,'
I promptly tackled this girl, and raised my hands
victoriously atop the stone circle. Not speaking
Chinese myself, I can only reckon that the shouts
coming from the surrounding audience were ones
of admiration.
I managed to descend the icy steps safely - afellow behind me was not so lucky, but on the bright
side, his descent was faster.
The long road back to the main gate.
Winter gave way to spring as I walked.Bearded and having not showered for days,
I emerged from the park.
Hailing a cab to take me back to the hotel, I met someone who reaffirmed my faith in humanity. Despite the fact that he didn't know exactly where my hotel was, let alone the area where it was located (giving you a good idea just how big Beijing really is), he took the time to call two of his friends to try and track down the location, all while letting me sit in the taxi without the meter running. Nice guy.
Of course, there must be balance in everything - the guy who drove me to the airport shortly after charged me twice for the taxi trip from my hotel. I wasn't about to argue.
2 comments:
Congratulations on surviving China ;) I can't believe you luged down the great wall. Amaze.
Can't wait to read about the rest of your trip. Keep 'em coming.
Post a Comment