Finally...I'm here!!! I landed safely and met Kristin in the airport! We stayed at the Leo Hostel!
While in Beijing I walked around Tian'anmen Square and all over The Forbidden City, viewed Mao's corpse at Mao's Memorial Hall and Mao's Monument. Other sites included The National Museum of China, The Great Hall of the People and Qianmen Gate. The architecture is absolutely amazing...tiled roofs, intricate colorful hand painted archways and hand carved dragons (emperor) and phoenixes (empress) into slabs of stone and marble. Artifacts, such as weaponry and military clothing were on display in some of the buildings. The detail that goes into such work is unbelievable. We went to the Forbidden City on a rainy day, so it was a little less enjoyable. But we did see red clay tiled roofs, detailed paintings with bright blues, greens and golds! It was a maze of corridors, palaces, halls and gates. My favorites were the large stone carving and the nine dragon screen. After the Forbidden City we scurried off to see a Chinese variety show consisting of shadow puppets, acrobatics, a magic show, singing and comedy show (the latter two we didn't understand), but the rest was great! We watched the performances while sipping on Jasmine tea and snacking on gourd seeds. Yummy!
I also went to one of the night markets, where deep-fried anything was available...from scorpions to strawberries (although the fruit wasn't deep-fried)...deer and ostrich (not sure which was which??) My first night there, Kristin and I went to eat at a restaurant near our hostel, where one "chef" was deep-frying some meat at the entrance. We ordered, but weren't sure what we were eating. So those of you who are vegetarians or for PETA may not want to read the next line. I think we ended up having dog-meat dumplings...which I must admit were very tasty! :) Needless to say the next time we ordered I had my Mandarin to English translation book on hand!
So the funniest thing I've seen thus far are slits in infant to toddler age pants. Yes I said a slit...kinda like eating so much you split your pants or dancing and splitting your pants right up the back! Apparently in China, children of that age group don't or parents choose not to don diapers for easy business access. The child will somehow let the parent know he/she has to do some business and so mom gets into a squatting positioning, positions child between her legs and raises childs legs so aim can be achieved. Now, I bet some of you are wondering how I know this in detail...well when it happens right in the middle of the sidewalk or The Forbidden City it's kinda hard not to miss.
Okay here's the highlight of Beijing... THE GREAT WALL!!! And what a great wall it is!! We started at Jinshanling and hiked 10k to Simitai...climbing over loose stones, gravel and dirt. Scaling steep steps up and down until we were stinking of sweat!! The view from any angle was absolutely breathtaking. Unbelievable how such a structure could be created at that time and in that area!! We did get to a point where I slipped down two steps and scraped up my knee and arm...no worries, nothing broken just a little bruised! At one point I realized I was standing at 1200m and decided to write in my travel journal! That will be a memory to last forever!! At the end of the hike we crossed over a suspension bridge and ziplined to a ferry that took us to our bus!! Again the view was breathtaking and we had the perfect day for a Great Wall hike!! Sunny skies and a cool breeze! (Sigh...) :)
The last day in Beijing was a hectic one. We went jewelry shopping and ended up spending so much time that we missed our 520p train to Xi'an...oops!! I haggled another ticket and a refund for our other ticket! Everything in the end worked out fine, we made it to Xi'an and a single tear rolled down Kristin's right cheek when we saw a handwritten sign containing her name...our hostel driver was there to pick us up...just kidding no tear, but relief was surely the feeling!
So while in Beijing I learned how to say Hello (Ni hao), My name is...(Wo jiao), thank you (xiexie), water (shui) and yes (dui)...pronunciation is something I'm still working on! I learned some swear words too, but I'm not writing those down...hahaha!
