Beautiful Beijing

For the Communist May 1st Holiday, we went to Beijing for a three day weekend. Everything came together so well for our trip. For this once (or twice) in a lifetime trip, we were more than willing to trade in our resident status for the role of tourist. Mark's company was instrumental in making it easy for us as foreigners. The Beijing office of Itochu arranged the train tickets and hotel, helped us schedule our itinerary, and let us use a company car and driver for our stay. These perks alone saved us so much in time and headaches. Our driver ate meals with us and helped out when we needed to negotiate, but wasn't interested in sightseeing. We boarded the train in Dalian at 9:30 p.m. on Thursday night and woke up in Beijing at 8:30 a.m. on Friday. The kids would like to write more specifics about their favorite sites in their own entries; if their descriptions are lacking, I’ll be sure to fill in the blanks. We checked into our hotel and went straight to the Olympic area which has been turned into Beijing’s newest tourist trap. We definitely reaped the rewards of the Beijing Olympics as everything was still so clean and beautiful; you could tell the city had been newly polished. There were beautiful gardens along scenic waterways throughout the city. After a lunch of Taiwanese noodles, we made the pilgrimage to the Great Wall. Even though we had ticket issues that forced us to go back and forth to the ticket office three times through stalls and stalls of pushy vendors, and ended up paying too much ($1 US extra per ticket for the VCD version, plus I was supposed to get the children’s rate as a student), we had a wonderful experience. As we drove to The Wall, it was raining lightly. When we stepped out of the van, the skies cleared and it was actually hot! We rode the cable car to the “top”, and walked back down, taking in the beautiful scenery and history. Our driver recommended going to the less famous of the two Great Wall sites close to Beijing, to avoid the large crowds. As soon as we got back to the parking lot, it began to rain hard with thunder and lightning off in the distance. As we drove home, the rain lightened, and we saw a rainbow over the freshly planted fields. We ended the day with Mark’s Beijing coworkers, eating one of the city’s most famous dishes, Peking (Beijing) Duck. It is served in a crepe with cucumber, spring onion and a soy paste, but no part of the duck is wasted. We also had platters of spicy duck feet, duck liver, and another mysterious organ that I tried not to think too much about. On Saturday, we started the day with a traditional Chinese breakfast at the hotel, and went to the Summer Palace. Because it was a Saturday AND a holiday, it was crowded even for Chinese standards. Addison proved to be the most enthusiastic of all the kids, and after two hours of wandering the grounds, she and Mark were still interested in climbing to have a look at another temple or living quarters, aka more of the same. The rest of the kids and I found a quiet spot of shade and played cards while we waited. On the way to the Beijing National Zoo, we stopped by Beijing University, which is the equivalent of Harvard in China. I think Mark was planting little tiny seeds of interest for educational opportunities to come. The kids had their first experience drinking coconut milk straight from the nut outside the gate, so I’m sure it will be a memorable experience. If you can imagine, the zoo was even more crowded than the Summer Palace. There were a few interesting animals that the kids hadn’t seen before, but the main attraction was the Giant Pandas. We all grabbed hands and waded through the sea of people into the panda house. Everyone was pushing to get a closer look, afraid to miss the moment, and it felt a little chaotic. As it turned out, there was plenty of space for outdoor viewing. Dinner was unremarkable, but we were too exhausted to care. The next morning, Mark tried to check out of the hotel, but was told that our $200 US dollar deposit couldn’t be refunded back onto our international credit card. Had he known, he would have gladly paid cash for the deposit, since they wouldn’t let him use his Chinese debit card. We left with only a vague promise that the whole transaction would disappear from our account within two months. We spent the morning walking around Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden city. Just before lunch, we went to Wangfujin Pedestrian Street that is famous for shopping. I thought it would be bargain basement old China shopping, but was disappointed to learn that it was more like 5th Ave. We did find a quiet side road that had twenty shops all selling the same trinkets and a few vendors selling scorpions (still wiggling their legs) and sea horses on a stick. On Sunday afternoon, the temperature reached over 95 ˚F. Mark still wanted to see the Temple of Heaven, another lavish historic spot that Emperors didn’t share with common people, so we slathered on the sunscreen and braved the heat. We were marveling at the reasonable ticket prices, only to realize that once you got in the gates, you had to pay more fees to get into the individual temples. Again, Addison and Mark wandered off to explore the “trap”, and the rest of the kids and I retreated to the cool shade. For the train ride home, Addison and I separated from the group, taking a train two hours earlier than the others. She wanted to get back in time to catch the bus to school the next morning. Don’t get me wrong, her first choice would have been to skip school all together, but if she HAD to go, she didn’t want to deal with the shame of being late. Our train arrived in Dalian at 5:30 a.m. Monday morning, with just enough time for her to shower and clean out her school bag! The younger kids were about an hour late to school, but at their level, it doesn’t seem to matter. At least two of their classes were in the middle of an English lesson anyway, so I probably could have kept them home longer. Mark also had to go to work on Monday, but I am enjoying a ten day break from my classes. I think it is experiences like this that are making this transition easier and more memorable for the kids. We are truly humbled that we can give our kids these opportunities.