Bejing. Escape from Boulder seems much more of an adventure than Beijing has proven thus far (thank goodness). My thoughts remain with members of my community who are battling Mother Nature gone amok – or at least having a time of making big water without thought to moderation. Oh well, at least it’ll be another 100 years before such nonsense happens again.
Back to our story: uneventful flights and met at the airport (the walk from the gate to baggage makes DIA seems like a real podunk airport) by our guide Daisy. Let me tell you, Daisy likes to talk! I could hardly keep my head up on the 45 minute drive to the hotel. I unpacked and checked the hood out, but went to the restaurant in the lower level for dinner: lotus root and pork belly. Pretty good gravy, but didn’t knock me out. Will have to wait for that one! It was all I could do to last until 9 pm before conking out, then up every hour from midnight on. The joys of globe-trotting!
Up to check out the news on Boulder. Then down the the breakfast buffet: 3 heavily-laden areas of “western” breakfast, and over in the corner, one for Chinese breakfast. Well, you know in which direction I went! Soup with fresh green, unidentifiable mushrooms and hand-made wontons, topped with seaweed, fresh chopped spring onions and little dried shrimp. Mmmm good, although made me sweat first thing. I did learn that coffee does NOT mix well with Asian breakfast, so will be saying goodbye to that until I return.
After breakfast, packed up my jazz and headed out. Started out wearing my face mask, complete with ventilator, and it soon became pretty apparent that I was the only person interested in protecting my lungs. The total haze from the day before had given way to sunny, blue skies, and clear, warm air. My first stop was an ATM that held my card for an abnormally long amount of time during which I was regretting stopping at anything other than a “real” bank. Finally, my card was spit out and I breathed a big sigh of relief. Tried it at a second, and again no dice. I marched back up to my room and used Skype to call HSBC. They assured me it wasn’t the card, so I headed back out again, and this time I’d stowed the face mask, and up the street to the Bank of China (does it get any more real?) and their ATM. Sure enough, the yuan came pouring out! After getting teller service to swap for smaller bills, I was on my way to the subway.
Ooh! I look to the right and there’s an ornately carved archway and down the alley are lots of red lanterns hanging and people busy setting up. I head down to investigate and find myself on “snack” street. All manner of foods and creatures are threaded onto skewers and grilled on demand. You can see there are scorpions still wiggling (movie to be posted when I return), starfish, octopi, meat and fruits:
Be sure to check out those little lizard dudes on the right. A view of the whole scene:
At last seemed to have covered all varieties of snacks and headed back down the boulevard to the subway. Yes, the queen of the subway is able to maneuver in any city anywhere on the globe, due to superior directional skills and the ability to tell the difference from one end of a colored line from the other! Off I set on Red Line #1 and after a few stops, transferred to the teal line (really just #4) out to the northwest edge of the city. Whole voyage took about 50 minutes and lots of opportunities to people watch. One of the first things I noticed is….no tattoos! I saw mostly young people and that’s the biggest difference I noticed from a group of youth that size in the US. And the same dearth of piercings.
Arrived at the penultimate station and walked out of the station in around the corner into the Summer Palace. So hot and really crowded with Chinese families – like going to the zoo on the weekend – and not too many tourists. As soon as I’m through the entrance, I notice a crowd gathered around some musicians who were giving a little concert in the park:
After a while, I wandered away and headed onto Suzhou street – a cobblestone walkway that went around a body of water, lined with artisanal storefronts. Of course now they’re doing more hocking that workmanship, and I walked my lap without too many stops. I can imagine how lovely it was back in the day, though. Walking up steep steps from that are, I began the ascent to the palace, which is surrounded by numerous little shaded areas; most chipped out of rock so that I could walk into a room/passageway that was comparatively cool because of the thickness of the rock walls and their ability to block the heat.
The palace was up on a hill, so after the steep climb up and walk around, I descended on the other side until I reached a wide promenade that went along the shore. The lake was dotted with a myriad of foot-powered paddle boats as well as motorized passenger boats. All along the shore as well were covered rest areas, filled with families taking a rest stop for a snack or having a full-fledged picnic lunch.
Although I wasn’t relishing it, I hiked back up the hill and over to the other side, so as to get myself back to where I started. I planned to visit some of the “extra” rooms and Temples, but realized immediately that my ticket had fallen out of my pocket. Oh well, not really too dismayed, so wandered back through the courtyards and crowds through the front gate and back onto the subway. But first, everyone lines up in (not) very neat rows for each car:
Ironically enough, it was only in the subway that the air was really moving and cool, so it was a very pleasant ride. Since it was the weekend, and not rush hour, I wasn’t able to experience the “pushers”, who help pack each car to its absolute capacity. Just a pleasant crowdedness.
When I returned to my part of town, I wandered back up the main drag that had been blocked off for pedestrians only. People were out in force, shopping, snacking and waiting in a long line at a well-known teahouse for soft-serve green tea ice cream. Well, of course I had to do the same. Hungry for lunch, and that seemed perfect given the heat. I walked away with my dark green concoction, which surprised on the first bite (soft and cold but not sweet by a long shot) and soon enjoyed the texture and temperature quite a bit. Dumped the cone itself, and then headed over to the department store, whose sixth floor had been recommended for a quick bit to eat.
I thought Americans had cornered the market on shopping as a pasttime, but evidently i was quite mistaken. The floors of the indoor mall (just one of several large such structures in my neighborhood) was hopping, and I walked around the 6th floor to select an appealing candidate. Most of the offerings were sit-down-and-order restaurants, so I walked up to one called “fresh and good” and tried to figure out what I wanted. no pictures, and the english hardly explained what exactly I was ordering. Ordered something with sweet potatoes, barley and boba tapioca beads, but I hadn’t actually realized it came in a gelatinous broth:
Like the good sport I am, I ate most of the “stuff” out of it, and left behind most of the broth. As you can see from this photo:
Many were stacked high with more appetizing ingredients. Next time I’ll watch a bit longer to see what others get before ordering!
Back to the hotel for a shower and change, and then Daisy called to say she and Lance were pulling up. I greeted them, and we got him settled before heading down to meet the group for a walk over to our early dinner (not before I trotted to the next block and back to pick up an attachment for uploading photos from the big-ass Apple store! forgot mine). We walked only two blocks away and had a small private room and giant glass lazy susan. Daisy ordered for us, while we listened to her and Sherry (who put the trip together) talk about our itinerary and other guides and how wonderful everything is going to be. I already know I do not like going on a guided group and am strategizing with Lance about how we might make it work (he who left to go to the bathroom for a while, but later told me he didn’t have to go! just wanted to get out of there for a bit). I had signed up for the tour (selected as one of the best for seeing China) because originally I was traveling alone and nervous about navigating China on my own. I now know that I will not be nervous about traveling anywhere, and will hire only day guides to help out in spots where there’s a real language barrier.
After dinner, we dropped our stuff in the room and headed out to check the nightlife out. Particularly interesting were the cooking carts lined up on the next street, for night dining. They had skewers of octopus, starfish, liver pieces, some kind of square tofu mixture, sautees, dumplings, shu mai, more greens, fried dough balls, etc etc. Tried to take some pictures, but they weren’t having any of that. We walked down to the edge of the forbidden city (and not far from Tianemen Square), and saw locals fishing in the water that surrounded the walls. Back to the room for a good night’s sleep. Clock still a bit askew, so it’s early to bed and too early to rise!