Sunday, Sept. 23

Today we did the “Dirt Market” where you can buy almost anything and haggling the price is half the fun.  It was especially enjoyable to listen to our son bargain in Chinese and he made sure we got good deals.  The evening was spent having dinner at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that I am pretty sure is not a hot spot for foreigners followed by the Beijing Acrobat performance which had plenty of nationalities present.  It was very entertaining.

A few observations: everyone smokes, the children have slits in their pants (no diapers here) and if they have to go; well, they squat down and go! In Beijing, the smog is so bad that the sky is a slate grey, no clouds, no sun and constant horn blowing as the traffic is in constant gridlock- over 5 million cars in the city and they were all on the same road that we were on.

A side dish served with our Peking Duck from bottom going clockwise: Candied dates, duck liver, duck gizzards and web feet; talk about the proverbial rubber duckie!

 

Monday, Sept. 24

We hired a driver for the several hour trip to the Great Wall, however, first we got up extra early to do tai chi at Jing Shan Park overlooking the Forbidden City where many older Chinese go each morning. Needless to say, we got many stares as this is definitely not on any tourist stop.  I am sure Jeff and I were pretty entertaining as we tried our best to join in one of the many tai chi sessions.

Fan Penetrates Back; Yes, Beth and I practice Tai Chi at home

One of our outstanding views of the Great Wall

Back to the Wall- we got there extra early which was wonderful as for the first half hour, it seemed we had the place to ourselves.  Getting to the top is a scenic ride on the gondola and the Wall was everything and more of what I had seen and read in National Geographic.  We spent several hours hiking up and down many many steps and the kids took on a second part of the wall that was much more rugged. It was interesting to see (and hear) the Chinese all on their cell phones.  To get down from the Wall we all rode the luge –fantastic experience.  The day was rounded off by a visit to a cloisonne factory, lunch at a government approved restaurant and visited a hutong, a traditional Chinese neighborhood   via rickshaw and visited a traditional Chinese home. In this older section of town, the people still live in a community as the homes do not have bathrooms or kitchens- that is communal style.  

Hutong lady showing old family pictures

Family picture from 1960

Tuesday, Sept. 25   Our first rainy day and last day in Beijing

Visiting the Summer Palace was an epic event- it was as fabulous as the Great Wall with as much walking,  if not more, than the day at the Forbidden City.  The architecture was amazing and Jeff had a great time taking pictures.  It was raining so everyone there had the $3.00 umbrella special all in pastel colors; it added to the ambiance.  In the Temple of the Fragrance Buddha, the Thousand Armed Buddha was truly magnificent, especially as it was not restored.  We were assured that the “no photo” signs were merely guidelines.  It certainly must have been good to be the Empress Dowager Cixi in the late 1800’s.

Must be the beard

Nice hat

Summer Palace - Thousand Arms Buddha

Summer Palace

Summer Palace Pagoda

Future Empress of China

Moat around the Summer Palace

Interesting observations:  A group of school children on a field trip spotted Jeff and raced over to have their picture taken with him. Then one of the girls spotted Michelle, made a gift of a hat to her and the next thing we knew the entire group, including the teachers, were all over taking our pictures and having their pictures taken with us.  I think the two bearded men, grey beard and brown beard were fascinating to the mostly hairless Chinese. Everywhere we went elicited stares.  From there we went over to see Peking University were our son attended a summer semester some years ago.  We ate dinner at a small restaurant outside the campus and had a fabulous dinner of 8 different dishes for well under $30.00 while most of the staff took a nap.

Then we had a nail- biting trip to catch the overnight train to Xi’an. We made it onboard with less than 10 min. to spare after what was reported in the news as the worst traffic jam in Beijing in 2012.  It took us  45 min. just to get a cab and that was with the bellhop running out into the street to wave in a cab. The 8km ride took over 1.5 hours.  We learned that many cab drivers would refuse you service if they thought it would take them into traffic. We got lucky that night!

Bathroom on the train. Watch where you step!

On the train to Xi’an: this gave us a nice contrast to Hilton luxury- bunk bed style, small compartment for all 4 of us and mostly Chinese families traveling. It was an adventure and one that we would repeat the next night when we traveled on to Shanghai.

Wednesday, Sept 26

After our train ride, we woke up in Xi’an and spent the day visiting the Terra Cotta Warriors exhibit. Along with the Great Wall, this was the other item on my bucket list of sites in China. And it did not disappoint- words cannot describe the immensity of the exhibit: there were 3 pits, pit 1 was the largest and has the 1000’s of warriors standing in formation. The exhibit is an active archeological site and we could watch the scientists at work in the back of the pit (which was housed under an airplane hangar style building).  The other pits were less excavated due to the fact that the colors on the soldiers disappear after 3 days and so they are waiting to do more digging until they have the technology to preserve this. It is amazing to realize that this site was only discovered in 1974 by farmers drilling for water.  

The site is covered in an airplane hanger like structure for protection from the elements

Observations: The Xi’an train station was jamming with the widest variety of people (and by that I mean Chinese people) and I felt that I had gone back in time and the Huns were just over the hills. The Chinese babies are so cute and the parents are very proud and enjoy having you take their child’s picture.