Wednesday in Beijing

Well, this was our last day in Beijing. Once again, beautiful weather for a day out sightseeing. We got up early as usual, had our breakfast (my last chance at those great "camp style", slightly runny, delicious scrambled eggs). We were to meet Lina at 9AM, so after breakfast we got ourselves packed. We would learn later today that we really should have packed lighter - I think one bag for me and Linda and one for the girls would have been best (who knew?)



CHI had a great day planned for us. We headed off to the Hutong area of Beijing. There, we met up with our local guide Liam (a very cute, energetic young girl). We learned a great deal about the culture. Hutong would be equivalent in the States to an historic district. It reflects the common way of life outside of the big, westernized style city of downtown Beijing. On our way we came across the chancery for the local Catholic Bishop. Notice there is a military guard posted outside. While there is clearly a presence of Christians and Catholics...it is not discussed much. The Hutong area was fascinating. When we arrived, we hooked up with 3 rickshaw drivers. They would bike us through the narrow streets of the town. We got to see a lot of the locals in normal daily activities...like the guy getting his haircut. Good idea. Do it on the street...no messy hair to clean up later. The Hutong area surrounds a small lake. It is actually called a sea. The reason for this is that when the Mongols invaded moving south, they had never seen water before so they assumed this was a sea. It is the body of water that the emperor also used to boat to the summer palace. Because of its proximity to the palace, prior to 1919 (before the last emporer) many of the people who lived around the lake in the Hutong area were part of the government or related to the emperor. Liam showed us that by examining a doorway into one of these residences you could tell a lot about the person. The red door she is showing us has a stone out front that is a drum that sits on a rectangular pedestal. This indicates the owner was part of the military and the square pedestal shows he was part of the military ministry (sort of like working at the pentagon or being in the cabinet I presume). The pomegranate shape which has many seeds, was for good luck to have many children (get it...all the seeds). The posts at the top of the door indicated rank...he had 2 at this house. The higher the number the higher the rank. As you can see, the streets are very narrow. That's what Hutong means "narrow street". It originally came from the Mongolian term "narrow waterway."



The rickshaw ride was a blast. I could tell that when we paired up 2 by 2 for the rickshaw, my driver looked at me and was thinking "great, I got the fat guy." Of course he smiled and nodded and took our picture hoping for a good tip (and he earned it!). These guys were great, it is a very interesting way to see the town.



One of the coolest things we did is to visit Madam Zhu's house. She is a local resident who has lived in her house for 40 years. The house is about 140 years old. She and her husband are now retired and drawing a pension from the government. She has two children who have since moved away and now they rent out part of their house. It is a much older home relatively speaking (they do a lot of tearing down and rebuilding in other parts of the city). The toilet is outside (as she said, a bit of an inconvenience in the winter). Maggie and the girls were thoroughly taken in by this visit. Maggie was enthralled with all of her pets. She had turtles, fish and two minor birds. The birds were trained to say Ni Hao when you arrive ("hello"). And "bye" when they wanted you to leave. Liam said it was embarrassing when they brought one family in, they weren't there 2 minutes and the bird was saying "bye." Madam Zhu was quite gracious and was very proud to show off her house and tell us about Hutong (through Liam's interpretation of course, she spoke no English). The part that just cracked me up is when I walked through the bedroom. There was a little desk with something on it covered by a cloth. Now, here we are in this very austere, small old Chinese house. As I stood there looking at it, Liam leaned over to me and said, "that's her computer, she likes to play video games!" I thought that was hilarious.



After we left Madam Zhu's place, we headed to the local Kindergarten to see what that was like. It was somewhat comical watching all the kids out at recess and doing their exercises. It was a large complex with a separate kitchen. Each classroom, which looked much like Kindergarten rooms here in the US, held about 30 students. After yesterday's visit it was good to see kids, happy, healthy and playing. They were adorable. But it was funny, it is the same in any culture and any language. You didn't need to understand the language to understand what was going on. A smile and wave is quite universal.



By now we had left our rickshaw drivers and were on foot to see the Drum Tower. One funny thing I noticed. As my rickshaw driver road away, he had a bumper sticker on the back that said "I know Eddie Ecker." I have no idea. As you walk through the streets, all kinds of street vendors come up to you trying to sell you post cards, fake Rolex's, purses, you name it. The funniest guy was an older Chinese gentleman who was trying to sell post cards of the Hutong area. He had his English down well for "post card - 5 dollars." I gave my customary hand signal waving back and forth to signal no thank you saying at the same time "no thank you." He responded "no thank you, no thank you." These guys keep following you too...it was like talking to rain man. He kept trailing behind me saying "post card...no thank you, no thank you."



The Drum Tower is on the "axis." The axis is the main line line through Beijing. On that axis is the gate into Tianeman Square, the Forbidden City, the Drum Tower and the Bell Tower (a lot like the Mall in Washington DC). We had to head up 69 steps that seemed like they went straight up in order to get up to the Drum Tower. When you got to the top there was a huge room encircled with large drums. The way this worked is that over the years they either had a water clock or a mechanical clock that would chime in 15 minute increments. Then, they would beat the drums to let all of the town know what time it was. It was literally the public time keeping system. They did a similar thing with a set of bells (we didn't go in that tower). The bells were for the morning and the drums were for the afternoon/evening. They did a demonstration. But, we were told when they did this for real in the old days, it was much more intense with 25 people beating on these big drums. They must have been deaf...I can't imagine how loud that must have been considering the whole town could hear it.



After the drum tower, we headed back to the hotel. It was time to grab some snacks. Lina said we could by food on the train but it wasn't as good as what we had been eating up to this point. We didn't want to risk the Chinese fast food on the go, so Linda and I ventured out to our standby - "Carrefour -the french walmart." It was way too crowded. So we found a Citibank ATM, got some more Yuan and headed out in search of a convenience store. We found a 7-Eleven (it was actually owned and operated by Chinese people). We had no idea what the labels said or what we were buying - so we stuck with the basics. We found what looked to be Chips-Ahoy cookies, some salted cashews, Doritos, Lays potato chips and a new candy called Pocky's (pretzel sticks dipped in yogurt). We were ready to feast on the train.



Now it was time to head to Beijing's Western Station (they have four major rail stations). Western station was about an hours drive. Until you have been to China, I don't think you understand what crowds and crowded really means. Lina was fantastic. We unloaded all our bags...and this was the moment we realized we had too much stuff. We wheeled our along the sidewalk and went into the terminal. We had to put all our bags through a metal detector before entering the great hall. We went to our waiting lounge which was packed. So Lina spoke with one of the railway officials (you'll notice all official people, whether a porter on the train, ticket taker or military officer, are all dressed in very official looking uniforms, with a stern look on their face and they all have a military feel to them). Lina told us if we pay an extra 30 Yuan, we could go to a special waiting lounge and board early (done deal...30 Yuan is about $4US).



They called for our train..the T55. So off we headed to the train (which was immense...about 16 cars). Of course we found China is NOT ADA compliant and here we were with a huge set of steps down to the platform and 4 extremely heavy bags. Linda and the girls were troopers...they managed to get the bags to the steps through the crowds. I got my exercise carrying them down two at a time and running back to the top to get the next set.



Now the adventure began. We walked (and walked and walked) until we got to our rail car. We boarded and had to carry the bags up two sets of steps on the rail car! Now we had about a 2.5 foot wide aisle and a whole bunch of impatient Chinese commuters jambed up behind us. We got to the second floor and the beds were in separate births with 4 beds each. CHI had booked us all on bottom beds across 6 different births (that meant that the kids would each be in with 4 strangers....it wasn't looking good). So here we sat with all of our luggage in this narrow hall with people literally climbing over us to get past (I'm sure they were mumbling "damn foreigners!"). Lina was amazing. She started negotiating with other passengers to consolidate us into one birth with 4 beds and half of the one next to it. Now the problem was we had no place for bags!! So we tried to stack them on the beds and tell the kids they would have to curl up. The kids were great...they didn't panic, they stayed cool and all the while I kept telling my self "it's an adventure...it's an adventure." Next, the conductor lady came down the hall. The way it works is she takes your ticket and gives you a card back that has your bunk number. So hear she comes and Lina is no where to be found. She LEFT THE TRAIN to try to get us new accommodations for a soft sleeper! So (thank God for cell phones) I dialed her cell. She said if the conductor stops to give the conductor the phone and she'll explain the situation. The conductor looked at us, kinda of shook her head and kept walking (I would love to have known what she was thinking!). A few minutes later Lina showed up and had negotiatied to get us a separate birth with 6 bunks! This was a two layer car with births up and down. But right when you come in was a separate birth that was the full height of the car (the top bunk must have been a good 9 feet up). So we were thriled. We moved our stuff (again...making a spectical of ourselves). But in the end, we were sytlin'. We found a shelf up on top above the door where we hoisted all of the bags and kids were giddy to be on the top bunks. Lina had explained Chineese don't like to go up that high - so it was why this birth was likely available.



As we settled in...the smoke started. One of the things the Chineese love to do is smoke cigarrettes. Other than that, we had a blast. It was very cool to be in our own private space, with our junk food, sitting and watching the country side go by and visiting with Lina. Of course the kids started playing with the "Dotchees" (I'll tell you about them later) and their DS games. We were able to get some sleep through the night...we found why they are called "hard sleepers" - Hard to get any sleep! Sometime in the night someone covered me up. I learned in the morning that it was Lena! She had taken Becky's coat and covered me because "my shirt was up and she could see my belly." Apparently she had gotten up in the middle of the night to use the rest room, climbed down and saw my shirt pushed up. I guess I embarrased her (she was very cute about it). We arrived in Xian about 6:10AM. Now the next challenge was making a quick break out of that train with all the luggage. Lina had a plan. She made arrangements with the conductor to let us stack our stuff by the door. A few quick moves and we had the bags on the platform. Now, it turns out we had one heck of a long walk underground, up through the station and out to the street. Linda was laughing this morning saying it seemed as if they did everything possible to make it hard to carry your bags. Although they actually had ramps, they had traction bumps on them making it devishly hard to roll your bags. We got a quick snap shot of the crowd...you would not believe how packed in the walkway to the street was. People were trying to find each other, and their rides. Lina managed to find our guide who quickly said "follow me." So, we grabbed our bags and Lina grabbed hold of Ashley and we went. And we went. And we went. And we went. I thought we were going to walk downtown to the hotel. We walked forever down a city street until we reached the bus parking. Finally....our private bus and driver. We loaded up and we were off. Sherri (the local guide) pointed out the huge city wall we were driving past. She said Xian is the only city that still has a complete city wall. The city was still asleep. A few shops were opening up and the citizens of Xian were starting their day as the sky was turning from black to grey as the sun was just beginning to rise. As we drove we began to hear the sound of a peppy, carnival like tune. It became clearer and we realized it was the traditional tune of "Happy Birthday." It turns out there was a big water truck that hoses down the streets -- their version of a street sweeper. The truck was playing "Happy Birthday" over and over and over....We just looked at Lina. Sometimes you just don't ask.



We made it to our next beautiful, swanky new hotel and got checked in. We're getting cleaned up to shoot down for breakfast and head out for our first day in Xian!