Beijing Day 1, 7/8/09

Got in last night late actually, but this is full day 1. Man, I love vacation. Yesterday on the planes I tried to stay awake as much as possible to make myself tired enough for the late arrival. Beijing (and xi’an, shanghai, and Taiwan) are 12 hrs ahead of Atlanta time, so its something of an adjustment.

Woke up this morning at 6:30am and couldn’t go back to sleep. So I did a little workout. (abs, pushups, back, more details elsewhere).

Wu a yi got up sometime in the middle of my workout and tv time. She made homemade dou jiang (soybean milk) and heated up yio tiao (pastries) in the oven for us. Mmm. I feel like I’m going to get all the pinyin for things wrong on this trip, but I’m going to choose not to worry too much about it and edit later if necessary.

Left for Great Wall (chang cheng) at Badaling around 9 (me, Jen, Jon). Wu A Yi’s driver took us in her car. Took about an hour to get there and get our tickets (45 kuai = about 7 bucks) and start the climb. At this site, there’s two directions you can go from the main entrance. We went left first b/c seemed like fewer people and seemed shorter. It’s spectacular here, even though it was pretty hazy at the beginning. The sky got more clear as the day continued. The climbing was pretty tough in spots – lots of steep areas - but no super extended uphills/stairs. It was def today’s workout #2 tho. Took lots of pics. Some things of note: Did I mention there were a TON of visitors to this place? I mean, it makes sense but seriously a lot of peeps. The wall isn’t all that tall, but it’s pretty wide, and sometimes you could see it stretching for miles and miles. It was an atypically cool and overcast day. If the sun had been out we would’ve roasted, but instead, it was probably 80-85 and there was a breeze especially through some of the dips in the battlements. Incredible views of it from certain watchtowers. Pics show more than I can tell, so check them out. Some representative images here, but the full set I will load on picasa. It's weird I haven't taken any pics of food yet.

Some sections are closed off to tourists (probably for the best for preserving them). Over the loudspeakers positioned along the climb, a chinese lady was in our ear about the rules for the wall. Don’t draw or carve on the walls, don’t run around and cause trouble, no lighters or smoking, protect the country, safe travels.

We basically walked all that you could walk at this site (well w/ the exception of one small very steep uphill portion at the very end just beyond the turnoff for the 10th watchtower entry/exit where the bears are. That’s another interesting point… black bears – a bunch of them – kept in areas where they’re main purpose is for “entertainment” … If you want to feed the bears (pieces of carrot mostly, and other veggies cut up), you can buy a bowl of veggies for 3 kuai (under 50 cents) to throw at them. They stand and climb and wave their paws around to get the carrots, and they eat so many carrots that their poop is bright orange and fibery.

We got picked up about 1:30 and headed to the 13 Tombs (ming shisan ling) on our way back. In the car we had lunch (subway that wu a yi got for us, packed away safely in the cooler in the trunk). The Ming dynasty’s 13 emperors are all buried at this big site, but only one tomb has been excavated. There’s a couple big gates, an underground tomb (where most of the stuff inside are replicates b/c I think the originals were destroyed either in excavation or at other traumatic points in history), some display rooms and a necropolis where some of the artifacts found w/in the tomb are shown. Overall, not a ton to see for the 65 kuai ticket price. But if you like artifacts, they were kinda cool. It’s one of those places that you’re supposed to go, esp if you go to Badaling, so we went.

Jen called her mom as we were heading out of there, wondering if we could go get foot massages at the clubhouse when we got back. She’d already made us appointments for 4:30. I took a hard core nap on the ride back (about an hour). Jet lag started to kick in. I was doing so well up until that car ride, too.

It was cool out when we walked over to the clubhouse (they have a pool, hot tub, mahjong room, driving range, workout room, etc etc) for our massages. They bring in a tub of hot water w/ some kind of herbs or something (like a tea bag) floating around. It’s very hot. You soak. They rub your shoulders neck and back for a few minutes. Then they do one foot (and leg up to the knee) at a time. It’s not really what I’d call gentle, but still relaxing. I fell asleep a little. It was an hour of awesomeness for 50 kuai. Thank you, wu uncle’s account.

After that, we basically had 20 mins to get ready to go to dinner at Grace A Yi and Gordon shu shu’s place. Wu a yi was already there helping get ready. We were to meet a driver downstairs and remember to bring wu a yi’s carrot cake and brownies. There, we met the group of Taiwanese a yis that Wu a yi knows here. They’re pretty funny. We had make your own unfried chinese egg rolls, fried chicken, and roasted chicken. They spent part of the dinner talking about opening a fried chicken shop for tourists… Then fish cake, bamboo, meat ball in clear broth. And dessert – cranberry pineapple cake, some other Taiwanese nut and nougat candy thing, carroty cake, watermelon. Yum.

Back to the apartment. Watched MI:3 basically for the shanghai scene to see if jon and jen saw all the stuff they showed in it. They highly recommended that I go to the Venice-like part (about an hour away from downtown).

Some other notes: I’m getting spoiled here already. Vacation is awesome. My internal clock is super fucked up b/c sometimes I’m really sleepy and other times when I feel like I should be sleepy I feel pretty awake. I’m ready for day 2.

Oh, another thing… china blocks a lot of blog sites so… not sure how secure what I did was to get here, but I went for it. Hopefully nothing bad happens.