Beijing- If only the Forbidden City were still forbidden

We arrived in Beijing, China at 2pm and, getting some Yuan, caught a taxi to our hotel. Apparently the driver didn’t want us in his cab because we’d only have to pay 10 Yuan. So he gave us a mini tour around Beijing efficiently raising our fare to 26 Yuan. After all that, he drove us to a street near our hotel and told us we’d have to get out and walk the rest of the way. We walked to hotel and stowed our stuff. Then we went to look for some food, because we hadn’t eaten real food for days and my stomach sounded like a car engine starting. We wandered around Tiananmen Square for some time until, after looking at several gasoline smelling Chinese places and a MacDonald’s with only hamburgers, we found a KFC. Now you may think, “A Kentucky Fried Chicken? You’re a vegetarian!”. However, I took down a 7-Up, a huge box of fries, a chocolate sundae, and a roll.

Next we found the Chinese Classics Theater and bought tickets for the 8pm show. After the prelude was “The Drunken Princess”, in which the Emperor asks a Princess to meet him at the Flower Pavillion but then goes to another palace and the princess he was supposed to meet drinks all the wine herself and gets drunk. Unfortunately, some jerk was screaming the entire time. The next one was about a 50 year old woman who commands and army. That one was not very interesting but the next one was awesome. A king came out with interesting face paint and very intricate robes. A queen, also with elaborate robes, also comes out. They have just lost their kingdom to the wicked Qin. After several dramatic hugs and tear wiping the queen does some extremely cool tricks with a sword that splits in half. The queen commits suicide and then so does the king. The last one was about a heavenly maiden who goes at the Buddha’s behest to scatter flowers to test the faith of one of his followers. She does some tricks with her very long scarf while standing amidst the fog machines. She and her attendant nymphs threw silk flower petals all over the audience and then the show was over.

The next day we went to the Forbidden City. A billion people don’t really do it any favors. The marble steps and pathways are cracked and disintegrating. You have to push and shove to see anything. A million sweaty strangers are touching you and there is trash everywhere. Some of the paint is chipped and peeling and large sections are closed off. The Palace of Eternal Happiness is a rust hulk with rotten floors letting you see down into the disgusting water filled with trash at the bottom. Don’t you feel the happiness? Then we looked at the chips of porcelain in the museum where I found the most remarkable thing to be the imprint of where people had actually put their mouths on the glass.

Next we took the subway to find a Papa John’s. I keep getting the pizza treats because I have been really good about trying all the local foods. We didn’t find it, but we did find a place called Tous Les Jours, it was delicious. Then it was back to the subway for the trip back to our hotel. My parents found a place called “Grandma’s Kitchen”. They were really excited because things were actually marked as vegetarian or not – there have been a lot of problems with that. My dad can speak some Chinese and we all know how to ask if it is vegetarian, but even when we show people the phrase in the phrasebook actually written in Mandarin, they act like they can’t understand what it means. Meat is in everything. My mom is flipping out because she said it used to be really easy to find vegetarian stuff everywhere, but now the noodles are in animal broth and pork or chicken is in everything. Anyhow, the stuff from Grandma’s was great, but I had eaten so much at the bakery that I just had the rice.

The next day we had our Great Wall tour. We were with extremely friendly people, which was really nice. First we went to the Great Wall. We saw the Imperial cell phone towers (that is what they are now anyway). I made it 3/4ths of the way up, but it was so crowded and went so slowly that my mom was afraid we couldn’t get back in time for our bus. It was also really sad. There was trash everywhere! People were throwing water and coke bottles off the wall, food wrappers, used tissues, and various other unpleasantness were all over the hillsides. Everyone was pushing and shoving, again a million sweaty strangers all touching you.

I decided to stop at the Great Wall gift shop – it is right on the Wall! – and then head back down. I was already a “hero” for climbing even that far. I got my hero medal and we pushed and shoved our way down.

Me with all my Chinese friends

We went to the jade factory and watched them making jade sculptures. After that was the silk factory, where we watched them make silk and go to touch the different kinds. We then made our way to the Olympic park to see the Bird’s Nest and other venues. It started to rain and we hurried through that. Next was the pearl factory. Freshwater pearls can have 40 pearls in them! I got a pearl for free and then we went to the tea ceremony. The tea was very good. There was one where when it opened a flower came out of it! She also showed us the “pee-pee boy” this is a clay statue that you use to tell if the water is the right temperature. You pour hot water over it and if the temperature is right, it pees everywhere. Ugh! Sadly, that was the end of our tour.