Temperature outside: 76 (night right now) and "clear" (though not blue sky). Amazingly, it didn't feel like a sauna today. YAY!
Words I know in Chinese: 10 I think... still working on some. I know numbers up to three (yi, er, san). Why? Because that’s what you say when you take a picture, hehehe.
Food I’m craving most: Spaghetti with vinaigrette, a whole chicken breast and a HUGE helping of cheese! Actually, I’d take just the cheese right now – they don’t eat it here.
What I was watching when I started this post: Disney’s Little Mermaid in Chinese. It’s even more amusing than when I saw it in French, and Ariel’s name is pronounced Ahrl-eel. Now it’s March of the Penguins …
The sights. The sounds. The size. Everything Beijing does is impressive and on a scale seldom seen in the Western world. And for the past four days or so, we’ve experienced a bunch of them. For the weekend, we went on tours set up by BOCOG. It was a chance for them to show off, for us to see things before they get crowded with tourists (like the weren’t already) and for us to get our sightseeing out of the way and get down to business today. First on the agenda was the Water Treatment Plant. As we all said, WOOHOO! Hehehe. But it actually did have a reason, since China’s clean water supply is becoming scarce and plants like this are needed more and more. Apparently while there is super strict regulation coming into the plant, whether it be water or people, once the water leaves it isn’t regulated. So, while it might be clean leaving the plant, we still can’t drink it from the faucet. That didn’t help much… :)
<-- Doesn't Ted look happy to be standing over thousands of gallons of waste water!?
With only a small grating between. Not fun! -->
Following that we were shipped an hour outside the city to a “village” set up by the city for people whose land was bought in 2002 (kind of like an eminent domain type of thing, but they give you a new home and furnishings). They were nice, but it was weird – don’t know how to explain the feeling. There was even a temple (called the 500 year old temple because the previous one was that old), senior citizens home with a 102 year old woman, and several entertainment courtyards. We tried our hands at calligraphy, which mine was one of the best in the groups (I’m not bias), and tai chi. It’s really hard when you have no clue what to do next, but it was sooo much fun.
I must say, if our luck for the rest of the trip is as good as it was on Saturday, I’ll be happy. We had our second blue-sky day of the whole trip the same day as the Great Wall trip. There was one small glitch though… we arrived mid-morning and were told that they are limiting access because a VIP was there. Turns out the President of Mexico (whom none of us could remember his name – some journalists we are). They closed half of the Wall for him! And weren’t letting anyone else on the other portion since it was already packed. So, we wait in the sun. And wait. About 20 minutes later, they take the road block and we can go to the front gaits, but they’re still not letting anyone in (and actually we were closed off from the other side too, we were stuck).
Twenty more minutes go by in the stockade and we were almost fed up. We had other stuff scheduled and were running out of time. But, officials finally opened a small portal and the stampede inside was treacherous, but survivable. Especially for Tigers! MIZ -
There is a good reason why the Great Wall is listed among the New Seven Wonders of the World. Land rises up in every direction and then this man-made snake barrier stretchs and winds with it. There’s no way to see it all (partly because some of it is rubble, or the government hasn’t opened it). It’s just that big. As our fearless professor put it so nicely: The experience is similar to standing on the beach at sunrise or sunset and feeling the waves stretch into the distance and knowing you’ll never be able to fully grasp the magnitude. And knowing that they did this all with very basic tools is even more. The pyramids are similar in a way, but they aren’t on mountain cliffs.
To get the full effect, one must climb. Not a stroll up, but a 50-degree incline separated every 200 or 300 meters by platforms and a few stairs. Gripping tennis shoes are a minimum. Breathing is labored whether the sky is blue or smoggy. Water, though heated from the sun above, is most welcome. And the experience. Oh, the experience. Though mocked by the “I climbed the Great Wall” t-shirts, it is certainly a bragging point if you can get to the top. I settled for halfway up our section, since the royal visit cut our trip to only an hour of freedom (1/2 hr up, 1/2 hour back). And while my panoramas don’t quite show the intensity, hopefully you can get the sensation. For more, visit my photobucket or ask me for them (I have much larger versions and a lot of them).
Nothing else we did quite compares to the Wall, but a Ming Tomb (note: not the terracotta warrior tomb), Summer and Winter Palace are all worthy of a visit if ever in the area. Again, nothing in China is ever done small. The Summer Palace, a “gift for the emperor’s mother,” is over 200 hectares – about 1 square mile. Just for a palace, gardens, and a lake (and a Budha Temple, I believe). The following pictures are assorted from the rest of our tours, and more can be seen in my photobucket (link on the left).
