8--Trip to Beijing

When we got to the restaurant, we found the owners playing cards. The woman
pointed at the clock and was obviously telling us that we were early. But
we sat down, and they proceeded to serve us. We ordered our food, but there
wasn't much conversation. We tried to tell them that we were going to
Beijing tomorrow.

A while later the tall guy (Dick originally named him Fred, but we have now
decided on calling the couple Mork and Mindy) came in. He was wearing a
black armband with some writing on it. He was unusually quiet and didn't
strike up a conversation with us as usual. So, after a while we asked him
what the band meant. He told us that his father died. Then we got some
more information thrown at us, and he wrote down some words. We weren't
sure what was being said, but we looked up the word "condolence" in the
dictionary as well as "mourning". He nodded his head at both, but I'm not
sure that he really understood. We found out later from Jessica that what
he had written was "August 14th he died". So we still don't understand why
he was wearing the armband now, but we did find out that Chinese people wear
white when they are in mourning.

So now we were a little confused at what we should do, so it was a good
thing we would be away for a few days. We went home and started packing for
our four day excursion, using the blue and white bags that had been provided
by the tour company. Unfortunately they were not the greatest quality, and
during the trip we lost one of the zippers, but oh well.

The following morning we were up bright and early. Well, early anyway.
Quick shower and breakfast and then over to the school gate to meet the bus.
We didn't have to walk all the way to the gate, because the bus stopped in
the middle of the intersection to let us on. Mr. Zhang and his daughter
were there at about the same time, and Mrs. Zhang followed a short while
later.

Then the bus took off to pick up the other passengers. We went to about 4
or 5 different points in town where obviously people had been told they
would be picked up. Once the bus was full we were a total of 20 people.
There was a man (we should know him, but we don't know exactly who he is)
and his little boy of about 5 or 6. A man and wife and their son who I
would put at 10 or 11. An old woman and her daughter, and two more women
and their sons, one about 8 or 9 and the other, a heavy boy, was probably
about 10. There was also a young couple who sat behind us. Then there was
the tour guide and the bus driver.

I asked Mr. Zhang what his daughter's name was, and he told me that it was
Emma and I had given it to her. That's when I recognized her. She was a
shy, quiet girl in my Grade 2, Class 1 (same as Amanda's). On the first day
of class Amanda had approached me to give this girl and English name, and
after looking at her for a while I decided to go with Emma. Now that I saw
her next to her dad, I wondered why I hadn't seen the resemblance before.
She had her dad's eyes and face shape, and it was obvious that he was very
proud of her. He doted on her the whole trip. It's obvious that parents
really cherish the time they get with their children, since, in most cases,
it is very little once the kids are in school.

Once all the passengers had been picked up we were on our way. The tour
guide began her lengthy speech and afterwards we were told by Mr. Zhang that
she had said that if anyone needed a bathroom break we should tell her we
needed to sing. Maybe that's a wordplay in Chinese, but it was cute anyway.

We took some pictures from the bus windows, but it was still pretty dark
out. We were heading north, and for the first while there wasn't much to
see. After about an hour or so there were quite a few pump jacks in the
fields. And a little while later Mr. Zhang informed us that we were now in
Hebei province and pretty close to the sea. This is when the landscape
changed dramatically. This area apparently produces a lot of salt, and we
were seeing the evaporation beds in various stages all along the road. On
occasion you could see the mountains of salt piled up, and at other times
there were boats moored along the roadside. One town had some old buildings
all on pillars. No trees, just water, water everywhere. Mr. Zhang informed
us that this area was really poor, and it was obvious from the condition of
the few houses and buildings that we did see.

This scenery seemed to go on for hours, but it was hard to take a good
picture of because of the misty morning conditions. Maybe we could get it
on the way back.

Closer to Beijing, we noticed a lot of trees along the highway. There were
tree farms and rows and rows of trees along the road. Most of them were
painted white on the bottom three feet or so. Dick seems to think this is
some sort of protection against insects. I think it's a cheap way to
provide reflectors along the road. Most of the trees appear to be weeping
willows or poplars, with a few cedars or junipers. The highway here was in
good condition and fairly wide, but there seemed to be toll gates every
couple of miles or so.

Finally we could see the outskirts of the city. Beijing is an amazingly
large city. Everywhere you look there are the tall highrises, just like
Hong Kong. Only they appeared to be neater and there were some new ones
being constructed. Some of the older ones were of the typical Chinese
architecture, but the newer buildings had some unique designs to them.

Traffic was orderly and the roads were wide and well constructed. There
were a lot of overpasses and interchanges as well as some traffic circles.
Interesting enough, the space under an upper level road is used for parking.
Pretty smart idea, no? Also, all the signs were in Chinese and, you
guessed it, English. This is definitely an international city, and so far
we were impressed.

The first place we went to was lunch. Being that we were on a Chinese tour,
we ate like the Chinese people did. We were led to a backroom of a very
full and very noisy restaurant and told to sit at one of the two round
tables. We sat down and the dishes started appearing on the table. Food
was obviously pre-ordered and was typically Chinese. There were a lot of
spicy dishes, mostly vegetables and, of course, the steamed buns. We ate
our share and drank our tea and then it was time to go.

The first place we visited was the Temple of Heaven, or Tian Tan. This is
one of the four Imperial shrines in Beijing, being the temples of heaven,
earth, sun and moon. This park is the largest and the original purpose was
for the emperor, the Son of Heaven, to come on an annual basis, as part of
an elaborate ceremony, and pray to the heavens for good crops, atone for
sins and receive divine direction. Buildings at this park include the Gate
of Prayer for Good Harvest, the Echo Wall, the Round Altar and the Fasting
Palace as well as the East and West Annex halls. There is also a beautiful
garden which boasts a very old (1,500 year, we're told) tree called the Nine
Dragon Juniper. We didn't go into most of the buildings since the crowds of
people were too much for us most of the time, and you don't really get to go
in, just look through the doors and windows. But we were told that in one
of the buildings, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, there were 24
pillars. Twelve were red and twelve were gold leaf. These represent each
half-month period of the year and they have something to do with assisting
the farmers to know what to do next. It lost something in the translation,
so we will have to do some more research on that.

There was the Echo Wall and many other buildings, but one thing that caught
my eye while waiting for the tour guide to finish her spiel in Chinese, was
the Seventy Year Old Door. What's so special about a door that is 70 years
old, you say? Well, it's actually older than that. It was built for one of
the emperors who was aging and needed a shortcut to the outhouse or
something. But it was decreed that none of his offspring was to use it
until they were 70 years old. No short cuts for them. Kind of neat, eh?

After a look at the gardens, which are beautiful, we were headed back to the
bus. All of a sudden a sign caught my eye. COFFEE. They were making black
coffee in an espresso machine. It was 20 Yuan a cup, but well worth it we
were told by a lady who was sitting there with her daughter. They were from
Australia and teaching in another province. They were on an eight day trip,
so I said they had a better deal than we did. We bought the coffee and got
back on the bus. This time we were headed for our hotel, which didn't look
like a hotel at all. It was more like a small hostel. The bus drove
through the gate of a building complex and let us off. We went through a
gate and then through a building where the reception desk was. Out the
other side and around the next building to the side entrance. We went
through the door and were in a typical hotel hallway. We had been assigned
rooms and lo and behold, our room had a western toilet and a shower. The
room was small but comfortable. It had two twin beds with western style
mattresses, a TV and the normal stuff you would find in a hotel. Dick
wasted no time trying out the mattresses and fell asleep. I couldn't help
but take a picture of him.

We were to meet the rest of the group at 6:30 to go for supper. The
restaurant was at the other end of the park through which we had come by
bus. We walked through the park and enjoyed watching the old men playing
chess, it was typical of what we have seen on TV about Beijing. The
restaurant had two round tables ready for us. Food was brought in large
quantities. There was variety and abundance, but I found it was all a
little too spicy. Dick didn't mind it, though.

After supper, as we were headed towards the hotel, Mr. Zhang mentioned that
he and his family were going to a department store because they needed to
buy a sweater for his daugher. The weather was cooler than it had been, and
she wasn't warm enough. So we invited ourselves along and walked for a good
twenty minutes along the (very clean) streets of Beijing. This is
definitely a city of international standards. Much different from our
little agricultural community.

We got to the department store and went upstairs on the escalator. That's
when we realized how sheltered our small town folk from Huimin really are.
Mrs. Zhang had never experienced an escalator, and was obviously scared of
the thing after getting on. So I grabbed her arm when we got to the last
couple of steps and told her to take a big step. We had to do this numerous
times until she felt more comfortable getting on and off the escalator.
This store looked like the large departments stores that we were used to at
home, but the Zhangs were shocked at the prices of the merchandise. There
were all kinds of brand names and very nice looking sweaters, but at the
cost of 300 to 400 Yuan, when at home they could buy an ordinary sweater for
about 30 or 40. We wandered through a couple more floors of the store, but
never found a bargain basement, so no sweater was bought.

Then I asked if we could look for some diskettes for the camera. We thought
we would be able to get them cheaper in Beijing than at home, so we had
brought only the few we had left. We found a photo shop who had one or two
Sony disks, but they wanted 5 Yuan for them. I could have gotten them for
that at home in Huimin, and decided that there must be a cheaper place, so
didn't buy them. Not smart! I ended up paying more for them in the end,
but that's the big city for you.

Back to the hotel room and early to bed because tomorrow we had to be up at
4:00 and on the bus at 4:30. Thankfully they didn't expect us to eat
breakfast before going to Tiananmen Square. When we arrived we could see a
sea of people. Busses as far as the eye can see were parked in one area
where of course our bus was headed. We got off the bus and gathered by the
tour guide's flag. We were told that if there was any kind of trouble we
were to head to a certain post and meet our group there. Then Mr. Zhang
and his family led us accross the street and we ran to get as far in front
as we good. Seemed like we were going to have a good view of the flag
raising.

But then all of a sudden the soldiers started coming around and yelled some
instructions to the crowd. Seems like they wanted us to sit. Well, Chinese
people learn how to do their squat from infancy, but we just can't seem to
do it. Also, the people were so close together, it didn't matter what we
did, we couldn't get comfortable. I tried sitting on top of the bag we had
brought along, but ended up with a wet behind because the tea flasks leaked
all over the bags. Finally I couldn't take it anymore - my knees and back
were definitely objecting to this abuse and I had to get out of there. I
felt bad that Mr. Zhang had to come back to the stand-up crowd with us
because he had so looked forward to seeing the raising of the flag, but he
didn't object. We went back behind a section of people who were standing,
and when the sun started coming up, the flag was being raised. He lifted
his daughter up so she could see the soldiers and they were happy. To us it
wasn't such a big deal, having seen many a flag raising ceremony. There
wasn't any music or fanfare, not even dancing girls as Dick puts it, so it
was rather mundane. But the Chinese people are very proud of their country
and enjoy this ceremony very much.

Afterwards we met the tour guide and went back accross the street. We were
led to a restaurant and were fed breakfast. Chinese breakfasts include
gruel or porridge made from a mixture of grains. Usually rice, other grains
and seeds and sometimes beans are included. These are cooked in too much
water to produce a watery, soupy mixture. It is sweetened slightly and
doesn't taste all that bad. In addition there are "tea eggs" which are hard
boiled in salted water with tea leaves. Not bad either. Then they bring
some vegetable dishes, mostly spicy beans and leafy vegies. Not bad if you
like them in the morning. There is always the steamed buns and sometimes
there is a variety of doughnut (unflavored) which they call fried bread.
It's a nutritious meal and quite filling.

After breakfast we met on the square in front of the Chinese History and
Revolution Museums and waited for the rest of the group to catch up. There
we watched three men playing frizbee. Two of them were old men in really
good shape and with excellent aim and catching skills. The other was
younger, quite heavy and definitely out of shape. His aim wasn't very good
and he almost never caught the frizbee from the old guy to his left. I took
a picture of the old guy throwing the frizbee because he had such a unique
style. He would swing it out in a circular motion and it would look like it
was going to right field, but it always ended up landing right on target.
The other old man also had a neat style. His was more like skipping stones
on the water. The frizbee would slightly touch the ground and then move
back up and also always landed on target.

There were also a small number of kites flying on the square accross the
street. Not easy to see on the pictures, but this is a traditional activity
on Tiananmen Square, especially on the National holiday. Dick would have
liked to get in on the action.

Once our group had gathered together there was yet another talk by the guide
and we were given some time to wander around the square and take pictures.
We were to meet at the flagpole at 8:10. At some point, as we were about to
go back to the flagpole, we met up with Mr. Zhang who told us that one of
the little boys from our group was missing. We didn't know which one, and
so we tried looking into the crowds of people, but didn't see any lost
little boys. However, a few minutes later Zhang's phone rang again and they
had found the little guy. When we met up with the group, the tour guides
were hovering around the little boy and obviously giving him gentle
reminders to stay with the group. They gave him the flag to carry so that
he would feel important or something, I guess.

Then we wandered to the east end of the square and went down some stairs,
obviously a subway station or something. We wandered through the
underground corridor and back up another set of stairs. Then we were led
into the gates of the Forbidden City. This place is huge!!. During our
tour of the numerous buildings, the tourguides kept trying to put us with
groups that had English speaking tourguides, but we really didn't want to
leave our group. We kind of liked them. We didn't look inside most of the
buildings because the crowds of people were so thick and they push in true
Asian style. In addition, I had taken my dress shoes, which I hadn't worn
since leaving Canada, and obviously the wearing of sandals all summer had
spread my feet. Needless to say, my tootsies were tender. I was finding
excuses to sit down as much as possible, and we managed to go off the beaten
path once or twice and look at some things that we thought were interesting.
The tour takes you through the main buildings in the center of the city
only. There are literally dozens of other buildings that most people don't
really look at. We didn't get to go see them, but maybe sometime when we
are back in Beijing we will get a chance to take them in.
One thing that struck us on these tours is that the number of foreigners in
Beijing, especially in the tourist sites, is vast. Being the only two in
the whole county of Huimin, we were not used to seeing them and now we
understand the reaction of the local people. You really do a double take
when you see people who don't look Chinese.

The Forbidden City is full of history, and of course the guides tell quite a
bit of it at the different buildings. We realized afterwards that we should
have spent a few bucks and taken the audio guided tour, so we could have
been informed as well. We decided we would have to get books or do more
research to get the true story.

The gardens are beautiful, although a lot of the trees are propped with
metal posts and the original stonework had deteriorated and has been redone
with replicas. Some of the trees are very old and truly amazing to look at.
Even with sore feet, this was a tour worth taking.

The next venue we went to was Beihai park which sports a man made mountain.
There are pagodas on top of the hill, and the story we were told was that
one of the emperors, upon having been overthrown, had hanged himself on top
of the hill. I debated walking up the many steps on account of my sore
feet. But we were in Beijing and it would be sad to not see everything
possible. Not only that, but my feet were going to hurt whether I walked on
them or not. I thought about taking my shoes off but came to my senses.
First of all I would never get them back on again, and second, the Chinese
people spit a lot. I really didn't want to step in something with my
stocking feet.

So I braved the steps to the pagoda on the first level and when we arrived,
there were two old men playing musical instruments. One had a violin and
the other a guitar. They asked us where we were from and when we said
"Canada", they immediately set in on Red River Valley. We sang along with
them and received applause when it was done. Very heartwarming.

So now we had enough energy to go up to the next level. It really was worth
the effort. From the top you can see the entire city of Beijing, and you
also get a very good shot of the Forbidden City. We took a few pictures and
then headed back down. Inside one of the temples, there is a jade Buddha,
carved out of a single piece of white jade, so we had to take a shot of
that.

After lunch, we went back to the park. This time to look at the lake, which
has an interesting story to it. It was originally quite small and when the
Mongolians came down to this area, they called it a sea. To them it was the
largest body of water they knew, so it was a sea. The lake was later
enlarged to its present size by removing the mud. This mud was what formed
the manmade mountain we had visited before lunch.

We walked around the park and took pictures of the many gardens and ornate
decorations. The nine dragon screen and lots of other stuff. Mr. Zhang
insisted that we had our picture taken in front of the nine dragons, but the
little pedestal that people stand on was extremely busy, and the concept of
"it's my turn" doesn't exist here. Rather than push our way in, we decided
not to bother. But he insisted, so we went to another spot, more in the
center of the carving, and had him take a shot of us. He said we may not
have all nine dragons in the shot, but we were OK with that.

It was now late afternoon and the call of nature was upon me. I don't know
how Chinese people can walk all day and not have to go to the bathroom! So
I asked where the toilets were, and we were told they only had them on the
island across the lake. The group had already decided on the ferry ride
accross the lake, so we got in line. It was 4 Yuan each way for the ride
and the tour guide collected our money. We didn't get on the first boat,
but were the first in line for the next one which arrived in about five
minutes. The ferry was decorated in the style of the old buildings with
ornate carvings and detailed paintings all over. Kind of neat. I tried to
get a shot of it after we got off the boat on the island, but I couldnt't
get the whole thing in.

Anyway, one of the guides took Dick and me on the long trek towards the
washrooms. It was a nice walk and there were rows of bonsai trees on
display. I would have liked a picture or two, but we were in a hurry.
Finally we got to the little building and did our thing, and then walked all
the way back. We did enjoy looking at all the flowers and shrubs along the
way, but we wanted to meet up with the rest of the group and look at
whatever they were doing. There is a pagoda or temple on the island where
some of Buddha's bones are buried. These were brought in to protect the
emperor from the dragon that lived in the lake. Would have been nice to
see, but when we met up with our group they were finished and were headed
back. Seems like we took a ferry ride just to go pee. Sometimes I really
wish I had a bigger bladder.

Back on the bus and now we went for supper at the Chairman Mao restaurant.
The waitresses worked hard and fast and were very loud. There was a big
man, not sure if he was a supervisor or something, who was giving them
orders or yelling at them. From time to time one of the girls would say
something back or punch him. It all seemed to be in fun, but this place was
really buzzing. The interesting part is that the rest of our group couldn't
understand the staff because they were speaking a completely different
dialect. The food was OK, but not very hot (temperature) although it made
up for it in spice.

When we got back on the bus, we all received a pin depicting the profile of
Chairman Mao. These were not available for sale, and can only be obtained
from this restaurant. The folks who own it are from Mao's hometown. The
Chinese people still worship Mao as a hero of the people. There are all
kinds of movies about him on TV.

That evening we were being given some time to shop on one of the obviously
touristy streets. Apparently you could get some good bargains there, and my
quest was for a pair of shoes. We went into a large department store on the
corner of the street in question. It was like one of our downtown malls -
huge and full of high end stores. After the escalator episode, we thought
it would be fun to show Mrs. Zhang how an elevator works. They had the
glass kind with light bulbs and all. She looked at it long and hard, and we
finally managed to get on one. But there were too many people and the thing
wouldn't move because of the weight restriction. Some people got off, but
it wasn't enough. So finally we ended up getting off. We tried to get on
another one, but the Zhang's lost interest.

So we went outside and found the famous shopping street. I spotted a store
that advertised the lowest prices on shoes, so we went in and down the
stairs. There were a lot of shoes on sale there, but there must be a clerk
for every 10 pairs of shoes. I was approached dozens of times and finally
told them to leave me alone until I had found what I wanted before they
couldn know my size. I had sore feet and was cranky, so not a good customer
to attack every five seconds. I finally tried on a few pairs of shoes and
decided on some less expensive canvas shoes that had fairly good support and
fit rather well. At least they were wider than my shoes, and my toes didn't
throb quite as much as before. I wore them right away, and we continued our
shopping. There were many souvenirs available here, and we got a few of
them. I also needed to find diskettes, as we were now dangerously low on
them. The price was now 65 for a box of 10 and I thought that was too much.
But when I got outside and talked to Dick about it, we had to go back to
get them because we were running out of time.

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