Day 1: Beijing
So we grab a map, some dumplings from a random cart for about one dollar, and hop on a bus (which luckily was headed in the right direction) to Tiannaman Square. It's pretty big and amazing, and filled with lots of Chinese tour groups with the same bright colored hats (or, my favorite, matching jumpsuits). Across the street we discovered the Forbidden City, aka where all the emperors lived for thousands of years. This place is ridiculously huge (not surprising) and there are throngs of Chinese people everywhere. Every now and then, we were able to make it into a less-crowded alley way. We were amazed at how many building were listed as residences for concubines (Phil was pretty excited by these) until we found out there were about 10,000 concubines (at least during one emperor's reign, not sure about the rest of them), all of them with bound feet. We also got to see the emperor's throne, and his bed. (yay!) We also encountered our first scam (after being in China for less than 24hrs), where a lady told us there was an art exhibit, took us to a back room and tried to sell us 'authentic paintings by Chinese art students' for about 300 yuan (50 bucks). We politely declined and the next day saw the exact same paintings at the great wall for about 20 yuan. Next, we headed to Jinguan park, which is a giant artificial hill made from the excavations of the moat. Its also where one of the emperors hung himself after a resistance movement broke into the forbidden city. Next, we wandered into an alleyway on our way to another park and had our first authentic Chinese meal. There was trash all over the floor, it was pretty dirty, and we could see the cook cooking in the back. No menu, so we just pointed to a couple of bowls that looked appetizing, and a few minutes later we had some dumpling soup and some type of noodle bowl. The ladies sitting across from us were super nice and indicated that we should add some of the random sauces sitting on the table to our meals and also that i was using my chopsticks upside down (wow, embarassing). Total, we paid 10 yuan for the meal, less that two dollars. It was one of our best meals yet. Next, we headed over to Beihai park, which has a bunch of beautiful lakes, boats, and some more temples. We snap some pictures in a kimono for a nominal fee, and head back to the entrance of the forbidden city so we can check out this shopping street and hop on the subway back to the hostel. We walk down this shopping street, and duck into a little hutong next to it to find some food. We grabbed a couple of meat skewers and a squishy white thing with sweet green stuff inside and walk back to the subway (which was also surprisingly easy to navigate). Man, we were exhausted. We managed to stay awake long enough to arrange a ride to the great wall the next day and book our train ticket to Shangahi. Turns out, Beijing-Shanghai is a relatively popular route, so there are no more sleeper trains available. And there are no more fast trains either. So, instead of a 15 hour overnight train in a bed, we ended up with a 22 hour ride on a "hard seat". yay!
Day 2: Beijing
Great Wall day! Van left at 7am. We are accompanied by several Chinese tourists, a Canadian, a New Yorker, and an Argentinian who lives in Belgium. It was about a 1.5 ride through the country side and on lots of windy roads. When we got there, we rode a ski-lift to the top and hiked around for several hours. Both Phil and I were discussing how we always imagined the great wall as a nice and flat walkway. It is not. There are lots and lots of stairs, so needless to say, after about 4 hours of hiking (we made it through about 14 towers) we were exhausted and decided to haggle with one of the vendors for some beer. We climbed to the top of tower and enjoyed our delicious TsingTaos on top of the Great Wall (pictures of Phil are priceless). Then, on the way down, we took a stainless steel slide thing. We sat on a cart of sorts with wheels, and push a lever to go faster and pull it back to stop. It was rather enjoyable. Next, we at a rather Westernized Chinese restaurant, which was still delicious. All of our plates, bowls, cups, etc came plastic-wrapped which we thought was pretty funny. Then--back to the hostel. After an hour or two of resting, we decide we need some Peking duck, and after the suggestion of our Canadian friend, we try to find the DaDong Restaurant, which, according to him, is "right outside the Metro station". Long story short, it was not. After a 3.5 hour search, including accidentally ending up outside a soccer (we think) stadium and walking through the streets with thousands of fans (and accompanying soldiers in riot gear) we made some new friends who were also looking for the same restaurant. Our powers combined, we found the restaurant. Turns out, we had been there about an hour ago, but the giant neon fluorescent sign said "Chef Dong's Fried Sea Cucumber". Written on the window, in very small letters, we saw "DaDong". Anyway, we were exhausted, and minus the pushy waiter who insisted that we order more than one duck and several sides, we had ridiculously delicious duck with our new friends. By this time, its 10pm, and we were more than ready for bed.
Day 3: more Beijing
Other cool stuff! We started off at the Summer Palace, which is where the emperors/empresses lived during the summer (most notoriously, the evil Empress Dowager Cixi). It's huge, set on a man-made lake of sorts, and has lots of temples and buildings with ridiculous awesome names (like all the palaces do), such as the 'Temple of Timely Rain and Everlasting Moisture' or 'Hall of Dispelling Clouds'. We took a sweet boat across the lake and explored for a several hours and lost track of time. Then we raced like crazy people to make it to the Lama Temple before it closed at 4:30. We made it 5 minutes before it closed, phew! Lama temple is this gorgeous Tibetan Buddhist Temple with so many Buddahs! One of them was 3 stories tall and carved out of a single tree, earning it a Guinness World Record. Afterwards, we headed back on to the street, ate some soup for 8 yuan (right around 1 dollar) and then grabbed some freshly made pork dumplings. Unfortunately, they were a bit too freshly made (a bit pink) so we opted to stay on the safe side and toss them (which was rather difficult for me as I'm sure some of you may know). Afterwards, we tried to find an acrobatics show, but failed, and headed back to the hostel with sore feet.
Day 4: off to Shanghai
We got up bright and early because we wanted to make it to Temple of Heaven before we get on our ridiculously long train ride. So we pack up our bags and head to the train station (so we can drop off our bags and figure out where the hell we need to go to get on this train). We got some good advice from one of our roommates the night before, like to get there about 2 hours early and get your own food. We get to the train station and are looking for lockers (also, for some internet because somehow both of us forgot to write down Cindy's number and address. Also, we have no idea where we are going to arrive in Shangahi. great planning on our part hehe) Anyway, we find some lockers to store our stuff and race back to the subway so we can be at the Temple of Heaven for at least an hour or so before we have to come back to the train station. Temple of Heaven was awesome--its just this huge park in the middle of the city where lots of locals go to practice tai chi. So pretty much there's just a bunch of old Chinese people doing tai chi (with swords or with a paddle and ball or with nothing) or playing cards or strolling around. so cute. i also bought this cool little hacki-sack kind of thing, which isn't really a sack, but just a rubber thing with feathers. It reminds me of a badminton kind of. So cool. Anyway, we strolled through the park and then headed back to the train. We bought some noodles in a cup for the ride (which, btw are amazingly delicious, and come with a folding fork!) and found our station without too much trouble and sat and waited in line. Almost right after we sat down, they put up the sign for our train and everyone rushed to get in line. They opened the gates, we gave our tickets and it was a mad rush to the train (literally people were running). Luckily we were at the front of the line, so we got some overhead space for our luggage, and now we just wait an hour for the train to start moving. sigh. So, about the train. It was crazy. This is seriously the ghetto-est of ghetto trains. We were probably going like 40-50 miles per hour. ugh. and we stopped at a bunch of stops for 10-15 mins. And it was super crowded. A bunch of people standing and everyone is switching all the time. And people just throw their trash on the ground (seriously?) and every now and then a guy comes through and sweeps it up. And of course, we were the center of attention--everyone's entertainment. We had secret pictures taken of us (which were not so secret because her phone made a loud 'click' noise, then we all looked at each other and had a good laugh), they tried to teach us a bit of Mandarin and also gave us some food (some special harvest festival cakes, and yogurt, and a breadstick thing, and a huge thing of ham). We read some books (they were fascinated of course). Then some eating of noodle bowls (yum). I had to walk to the front of the cabin to get hot water. I discovered people sleeping on the really gross floor, in these side-cabin things, and lots of people standing. Also, some smoking. After noodles, sleeping (or should I say, not sleeping). At about 4am, the train took an hour stop, I don't know why, maybe so the train driver could sleep? And then we kept going...
Day 5: arriving in Shanghai
So we get to Shangahi, sweaty, gross, tired and without Cindy's contact info. So we grab a map and our packs and go in search of some internet. Luckily, the railway station is located in a relatively central area, so we were able to find a hotel with a business center, and get cindy's number and address. Our shitty map indicated that there were two stops for Cindy's street, so we choose one and decide to walk around a bit. We quickly decided that our packs were heavy and grabbed a cab to Cindy's (which was ridiculously cheap). We arrive at Cindy's office and she is super busy at work (understandably so) so she sends us out down the street where we accidentally end up at the Museum for the Second Meeting of the Communist Party of China (haha), hide from the rain under an awning at a park with a bunch of asians, and check out another sweet temple. We head back to Cindy's office, and go grab dinner at this amazing dumpling place (rated one of the top 10 restaurants in the world in 1993) and head home for a much much much needed shower, a glass of wine (or two) and some sleep.
other notes on China--there are definitely some interesting smells here. mostly bad, but near buddas it always smells good, either because of flowers or incense. Also, it is generally clean (although in some of the back alleys or hutongs not so much). We are always seeing people sweeping things up or picking up trash (seriously they are everywere). And people are very nice (for the most part) and help us when we ask for it. Also, people stare. A lot. And not the I-glance-away-when-you-catch-
Anyway, hope you all enjoyed. This took FOREVER to write, so don't expect this much detail in all of our next posts, but we'll try :-)
Pictures coming soon!
Love Steph and Phil
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