In four days, Christine and I explored the Forbidden City, The Summer Palace, The Great Wall, Ming Tombs, Houhai's hutongs, and various neighborhoods of Bejing in between.
FORBIDDEN CITY
Being the consummate travelers that we are, it was fairly easy for Christine and I to decide to meet up while I was in Beijing. After all, she's based a mere 3-hour flight away in Hong Kong for the next year. She had a couple days off coming to her, so we made a long weekend of it, and toured like mad.
Saturday morning we woke up to Max's homemade chocolate chip pancakes. (These he makes from scratch, yet Suerie and Max insist on making mashed potatoes from boxed flakes. Good grief.)
By late morning, we tumbled into a cab headed for the Forbidden City. (Incidentally, cabs here are so cheap, and the subway system so sparse, that cabs make a lot of sense). Apparently, you can recognize parts of the city from movies. I don't think I've seen any of these movies, so I was merely impressed by it's 720,000+ square meters of grandiose palace grounds.
The entrance gates to the Forbidden City were unmistakable, complete with throngs of tourists (many of them from other provinces of China). Wide as the main thoroughfare was, the crowd did not dissipate until we forked off into the side palaces. I'd hate to think anyone would ever go to the Forbidden City and spend all their time in a thicket of tourists.
We rented headsets that sprang into action depending on where you were in the palace to relay history and anecdote alike. Among other things, we learned that the number of animal statues at the ends of rooftops corresponds to a building's relative importance. The most you can have is 11, but the one buidling in the city with that many animals was undergoing renovation. We walked by the house where royalty were tutored by Oxford professors, through parks with petrified wood on display, and temples galore. We visited the eastern most palace where the maidservant who had sired an heir was banished, peeked in concubine living quarters, and stared at portraits of relatively homely empress dowagers. We walked by canals and weeping willows, sat with playful lions, and tried not to fall down wells.
After several hours of walking around the Forbidden City, we exited to Tienanmen Square and the famously large portrait of Mao. We didn't linger, but instead walked a bit over to Wangfujing Dajie, a large street full of market-priced (no bargaining) shops and restaurants, where we had a rather unexciting but extremely welcome lunch.
Dinner was on a rooftop at Xiao Wang's Home Restaurant in Ritan Park with Suerie, Max, and 10 or so other MSF people. Several languages were spoken, but most people kept to English (there is a large ex-pat community in Beijing). Everything was resplendent, overflowing, and delicious. There were several dishes, several libations. Of course, we tried the Beijing Duck (aka Peking Duck), and it all came out to about 95 rmb a person (~$12). One down side was that Christine and I also proved quite delicious -- to the mosquitoes. True to form, my bites swelled and flamed into geographical land masses.
SUMMER PALACE
On Sunday, we hit the Summer Palace. Lonely Planet recommended taking a 50-minute canal cruise from the northeast side of the Beijing Zoo/Exhibition Center to get there. We arrived to a lonely dock with a few junk boats, a few speed boats. Thought I'm now unsure why, we agreed to board a speedboat. It wasn't what we expected, but we thought it might have been because there were only two of us. Woah, was it a roller coaster. After the initial terror subsided, ever so slightly, it was actually fun to be bouncing fore, port, and starboard whilst the scummy water frothed all around us.
Before we knew it, though, the speed boat was slowing down. We loosened our iron grips, and were dropped off at larger, more serene looking transporters. There were two boats at this second dock. We boarded one, only to be told to go to the other, only to be told to wait away from the boats, only to be told to return to the original boat we had boarded, on which, of course, our original prime seats had been taken. No matter, we were now on a leisure ride to the Summer Palace.
Or so we thought. Our second boat pulled over to the side of the canal, almost as if onto a highway shoulder, and told a select few of us to get off. Strange. and Confusing. The confusing aspect was compounded by Christine's minimal and my non-existent Mandarin (though I can now say thank you, good bye, hello, and how much is that). Anyway, we got off and walked along the canal until a real path showed up. The path led into a verdant park full of canals, willows, and men playing at majong. After a few rounds on the same paths, we realized that we were not anywhere near the Summer Palace, but we did get some picturesque shots.
We found our way (god knows how) to another dock. A third dock, a third boat -- this one took us to the Summer Palace. Hooray!
The Summer Palace is not totally unlike the Forbidden City; much of the architecture is very similar. However, it is more playful, as a summer palace should be: remarkably greener, situated atop hills, and surrounded by water. Walking up one of the hills we found ourselves at the Buddhist Fragrance Pavilion. An older gentleman was absorbed with his diabolo, middle-aged ballroom dancers were doing their thing to Russian-esque music sung by Chinese nationals. Embarrassing but true: we geeked out and danced a little here.
After wandering the grounds, we took a cab to the nearby Beijing Language and Culture University to check out a restaurant we'd read about. We ran into a Chinese girl who happened to be studying English. What luck. She led us right to the lunch spot, which we would not have found without some trouble if we'd been left to ourselves.
Later, we had a relaxing dinner in, and chose sleep over a late-night World Cup gathering. Besides, we had to get up early for our Great Wall excursion.
GREAT WALL
Christine met Phil at the Hong Kong airport. They were both on flights to Beijing that were running late (must be a theme, mine was late, too). The fruit of their conversation was our ride to the Great Wall. Much to her credit, Christine manages to meet nice, relatively harmless people. She has a knack for not setting impromptu travel plans with psycho-pervert-killers. She's good that way.
So on Monday morning, we met Phil (Scottish) and his friend Ming (Beijinger) at the Hyatt before taking the hotel car (Phil hired it for the day) the three hours to the Badaling section of the Great Wall. It shouldn't have taken so long, but at least we were all well-acquainted by the time we got to our destination. I might even venture to say that world travelers make better conversationalists and fast friends.
Badaling, The Great Wall. It was raining. I was thankful it wasn't hot, but actually, it was a little cold. We all bought two-quai ponchos and headed into the mist. As at the Forbidden City, as at the Summer Palace, we initially had to wade through crowds that grew thicker before they grew thinner.
Though on a restored section of the wall, the steps were often uneven, varying dizzying heights, and consistently uphill. It was then I understood the stories of tourists falling to their deaths each year on less traveled stretches of the wall.
We continued on in this way for awhile. Walking, talking, taking a breather, admiring the interminable grey sea of mist around us. The trip back down the mountainside was slower, and I spent most of it gripping a hand rail.
On the way back to Beijing we stopped at the Ming Tombs for a farmer's lunch and a quick tour of the tombs. Almost needless to say, the food was fantastic. As the Beijing native, Ming played host and graciously paid for our meal. It's quite common in Chinese culture to pay for others, and it's supposed to all work out in the end. The downside is the culture of emotional (and, I suppose, real) indebtedness to others.
Dinner was at Suerie's favorite vegan restaurant: Pure Lotus. Vibrantly colored silks lined the walls, oversized lotus stalks lounged in clear vases, and every dish was presented with whimsical elegance. The mock meat was surprisingly realistic, and I can say with confidence that it is the best vegan food I've ever had. I doubt anything in New York could even come close.
HOUHAI
Tuesday was Christine's last day in Beijing. We decided to play it local and explore the hutongs of Houhai. The hutongs are alleyways leading to living quarters. In this slash-and-burn city, the hutongs offer a rare glimpse into old Beijing. The Houhai area is also great for knick-knack shopping, restaurants, and bars along the nearby lake.
Tuesday evening was blissfully uneventful. Christine made it back to Hong Kong safely, Suerie made a Vietnamese crab soup (which Max kept jokingly calling 'crap soup'), we watched a few episodes of West Wing, and retired with Campari and orange cocktails.
