Beijing
12/20, Day 1: Arrived at airport at 4:15 am. Didn’t sleep that night because of weird hours. Plane rides uneventful. Watched several movies and read. Arrived in Beijing safely and our buses were waiting and drove to hotel around 10 pm. It was foggy and there was snow but we could still see some of the city. When we flew in it had a reddish glow with the fog and haze and it was quite dark. Felt very Chinese.
Communist sculptures at Tiananmen Square
12/22, Day 2: First thing was Tiananmen Square. It was quite intense- first getting used to the group tour thing. GP tried to buy some stamps and the woman selling them ran off after giving them to him without him paying. She was running from cops (who were everywhere) but eventually came back to ask for money. Tour guide said not to take pictures of people with yellow flags- they were falun gong protestors. He said the police would take film out of our cameras. We didn’t see any though. A group of Chinese people gestured to N with a camera. I figured out that they wanted a picture with him so I took a couple for them. There was a weird important history feeling especially about the massacre in 1989. No memorial or anything to the massacre. Just communist statues with groups of working class people looking heroic. There was snow- big record number of snow days for Beijing. I guess they don’t get it much. Apparently there had been an order in the morning for people to get out and sweep the sidewalks so I saw hundreds if not thousands of people sweeping snow with homemade straw brooms. The concept of being ordered to do something like that struck me.
Tienanmen Square and Forbidden City
Then went to Forbidden City- which was huge. Forbidden city was only for the Emperor and his family and servants. Men in the family got kicked out when they turned 16 so it was all women. Colors and everything were very significant to the Chinese. Yellow=emperor, black=water- so roofs were all painted for meaning. Library got black so it wouldn’t burn. The people were (and still are I believe) very superstitious about such things. Only emperor was allowed to use the number 10 or multiples of. Others had to use less. On many corners of the roofs throughout China there were a line of dragons. Only the emperors buildings had 10 dragons. All others had some number less depending on importance. The best part of the City was the park at the end that had ponderosas and other western US pines and lots of rocks. Limestone seems to be a popular garden ornament in China.
Summer Palace in snow and marble boat
Then Summer Palace- an Emperor had ordered a lake and hill made for he and the Empress (not sure which emperor). There were lots of peddlers who would chase you with their goods even if you said no or ignored them. I bought a Mao waving watch. They were asking 300+ Yuan (8 Yuan per dollar) but I got them down to 35. However, when they were getting my change they had me hold another one so I had two in my hand and somehow the one I gave back was the working one and the one I kept was broken. I guess that’s what I get for 35 Yuan. It was icy and B slipped and hurt her wrist but she’s ok now. The lake was frozen over so people were skating on it. Was a beautiful view of the palace or a large pagoda on the hill with snow on it and foggy. A long corridor like a veranda was built (longest in world) that the Emperor also ordered. I guess he wanted the longest one and he got it. That night we saw the Peking Opera but everyone was very tired and many people fell asleep. I managed to stay awake. The opera was pretty interesting but not really my style- a girl in one of the acts was very cute with her high squeaky voice in a little girl way.
On To Ming Tomb and the Great Wall