Posted by Jess
4 April 2011
Last spring (before we moved) I was booked on a trip to Shanghai and Tokyo for work. Due to some schedule changes, that trip never happened. Then on March 14th, I was scheduled to leave for Shanghai, but the earthquake canceled that trip and we went to Hawaii instead. Because of each of these planned trips, I had an unused visa to China that is good through the end of April 2011. With time ticking down on my visa and a weekend with no responsibilities on my calendar, I decided last week to take a look at plane tickets to Shanghai or Beijing so as not to waste an opportunity that may never come around again.
For just a few miles and a hotel room, I could go to Beijing on a Friday night flight and head back to Tokyo on Monday morning. On Wednesday, I booked the flight and hotel and started looking at tours. Since this was first time to China, I wasn’t confident about doing it on my own. I certainly made the right choice, but more on that later. For record-keeping purposes and if anyone is interested, I chose to stay the Hilton Beijing, sometimes called the Hilton Beijing International. I chose it using a few different criteria. First, it’s an international chain - always good when you don’t have help to know which hotels to stay away from. Second, it wasn’t the most expensive Hilton in town, but not the cheapest either. I was a little afraid of cheaping out in China. Third, it was about 1.5 miles from City Center, so there should be other hotels and tourist attractions nearby, which meant more possibility of more English-speaking people. Fourth, it was near a bunch of embassies, like the U.S., Australia, and more – which for an unadventurous eater like me, meant if I needed it, there would be international food chains like Starbucks and McDonald’s. All four of these ended up working out just the way I hoped they would! The hotel was nice, good for business travelers, very western-style, and the staff spoke English well. Plus a Starbucks just around the corner so I wasn’t stuck buying expensive hotel breakfast and could grab a cup of coffee on my own.
So back to the tours – I looked online at a few tour companies and tried to find a tour website that looked reputable, had a good English translation (since I needed my guide to speak English!) and had good reviews. I found a couple, but landed on City-Discovery.com, which covers a whole lot of cities by working with local tour companies. I liked having the backing of someone bigger for a little added security. I booked tours for both Saturday and Sunday to hit the very highlights of Beijing. My tour guide picked me up on Saturday morning at 7:30 and told me that I was the only one on the tour that day, which meant it was just me, him and our driver. So great – I could ask whatever questions I want and not annoy anyone. Sometimes I have some really random questions to ask tour guides that no one else would ever care about so I just don’t ask. Saturday, I asked them all.
We started out in Tianenmen Square, the world’s largest square and site of the Student Revolution in 1989. I was shown the gate to the emperor’s winter palace where President Mao made a famous speech and where traffic is stopped every morning and at sunset to raise the flag. I learned that the flag for the People’s Republic of China has 5 stars for a reason – the largest in the middle symbolizes the communist party and the four stars around it represent the North, South, East and West of China supporting that party. The stars are yellow as that was the color of the emperors and that the flag is red because red is a symbol of luck, good health and prosperity in Chinese culture.
My guide told me many things about the area and then we went through the gate into the palaces and then to the Forbidden City. This is where only the emperor and his guests were allowed to go – no commoners allowed for 500 years. Then in 1924 after the last emperor, it was opened to the public and is now a World Heritage Site. I was able to walk through with my guide while he told me about the palace and how people lived there. He showed me the bedroom areas of the emperor and told me it had 20 beds and each night the emperor slept in a different one so that if someone were to attack, they would never know which bed he was sleeping in. I was shown the empresses palace and where the mistresses, soldiers and palace workers lived. It was not too busy during our time there as it was early morning and the time in the Imperial Garden was lovely on a sunny, warm morning.
After the Forbidden City, we headed to the Temple of Heaven. Taoists believe in the god of the earth, god of heaven, god of sun, god of moon, basically all items in nature have a god. It was also believed that the emperor was the son on earth of the god of heaven. Each year the emperor would have a ceremony at the Temple of Heaven to pray for good weather for growing the crops. The event was by invite only, no women allowed, animal and food sacrifices - the whole bit. The temple is quite large and is round but has no nails holding it together. It is all standing by connections of the wood joints and massive beams. It is surrounded by a 500 acre park which was very popular on a sunny Saturday morning. People out dancing, playing checkers, badminton, dominoes, and just enjoying the Spring.
Next up was a silk ‘museum’ and market. While I was expecting more of a museum, it was really a sales pitch. This is how silk is made and here, please buy our comforters. I bought a decorative pillow with a Chinese design on it that I am hoping will match our bedroom décor at home and remind me of my weekend trip.
Then we headed to lunch where I ate alone, since my guide told me that he could not eat with me as a rule. I had so much food on my table we could have fed a small town so I tried a little of each and we kept going. Next to this was a pearl market, where I was asked to choose a fresh water oyster to see how many pearls it had inside. It had about 20 and I was given 2 as souvenirs. Then I was asked to buy jewelry and pearl cream that would make my skin whiter. That, my friends, would ruin my tan.
After the pearl shop, we headed out to the Summer Palace. This is a 750 acre area near the mountains where the imperial family used to stay from May-October. Two-thirds of the land is made up of lake and it was really beautiful. Here were more palaces and there was still furniture inside. It was very beautiful with magnolias and peach trees starting to bloom.
Next we headed to an afternoon tea ceremony. Tea is very important in China and in its trade history and they have many different types. This was not, however, a ceremony - it was a tea tasting. And then, shocking I know, they asked me to buy tea and teapots. Are you sensing a pattern here? While the tour company is trying to help by taking you to reputable places to buy these typical Chinese goods, if you aren’t in the market, it gets so annoying. We finished and started our way back to the hotel. I asked my guide what I should do that evening and he recommended a kung-fu or acrobatics show. He called his company and they arranged for dinner and the show for me with my guide. Sorry, Mr. Gong, you aren’t going home for a while yet!
My guide joined me for dinner and I was able to learn a lot more about his family and life at home and current Chinese culture. And the acrobatics show was great – the youngest performer was maybe 8 years old and the troupe did some amazing things. I’m not sure how you get on the National Acrobatics Troupe, but apparently you start training around age 5. I tried to picture Ella doing some of the things they were doing. Oh goodness that would be a disaster!
On Sunday morning, a different tour guide picked me up and I was on a tour with a family and another couple. We headed out towards the mountains with holiday traffic as Sunday was the start of a 3 day holiday/festival. It took us longer than usual, but we arrived at the Great Wall around 9:45. We went to the Badaling area which is one of the most popular tourist spots on the wall. We were given until 11:30 to explore and sent off on our way. It was crazy to climb this thing. The steps are straight up in some places and are all different heights. The next step might be 1.5 feet tall, or just a few inches, so it’s impossible to get into a climbing rhythm. I put on my iPod and started climbing, stopping to take pictures along the way. The direction that I climbed (at my tour guide’s suggestion) was not as crowded as the other side, but that was because it was a tougher climb! Again though the weather was beautiful and it was an experience I won’t soon forget. The wall is over 6,000km long (4,000 miles+) today but was almost 10,000km long when it was originally built. Of course the tourist areas have been renovated and the whole thing was ‘re’built in the 1500’s, but the base of the wall was built in 7th Century BC. I haven’t been on many man-made things that are 3,000 years old. The way down was just as precarious as the way up and I’m shocked that I didn’t wipe out or go rolling down the mountainside during my hike. Hooray for another day of not making a fool of myself!
We went to a jade carving factory and store (same type of deal as the day before) and then headed to lunch. This time lunch was with my tour mates and I was able to meet the American family on my tour – they had two kids with them and live in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia as International School teachers. Their children were 5 and 11 and it was fun to talk to them about expat family life and books the kids like to read. They also gave me tips on the next planned trip of where to go and what to do. And it was nice to have some kid conversation again, I’ve been missing it!
We then headed on to the Ming Tombs. This is where 13 of the 16 Ming Emperors are buried. They each have their own palace in the foothills of the mountains. Emperor #1 was buried in a different city, since that was the capital at the time. Emperor #2 disappeared during war so no tomb for him. Emperor #3 was buried here in the early 1400’s and that is the tomb we visited. There is an outer palace here and an underground palace behind it. The underground palace has never been opened so as to preserve the burial space, but from historical records it looks like the underground palace is about 2000 square meters big (almost 22,000 square feet), made of marble, houses 2 coffins (emperor and empress) and over 3,000 funeral objects. They’ve opened some of the other tombs in the area and showed some of the types of objects you would find inside. And if you’re counting – emperor #7 has no tomb either – his brother overthrew him so he was buried as a prince. Each tomb/palace is a little smaller than the one before it as the Chinese believe that you should never have more than your ancestors, so building a bigger tomb than your father would be a big no-no!
After the Ming Tombs it was time for the tea ceremony, which of course I did the day before. We headed through Olympic Village on the way so I was able to take pictures of The Water Cube (aka Michael Phelps palace) and the Bird’s Nest that we all remember from Beijing 2008, plus saw the athlete’s village, tennis stadium and gymnastics arena. I learned that the outside of the Water Cube was made of plastic so that if a piece broke during the games, it could very easily be replaced. These arenas have now all been opened up for public use.
The tour guide put me in a taxi after this to head back to the hotel since I had already done tea. I was back at the hotel by around 5pm and relaxed for the evening with a little trip to the spa. Today I’m back to Tokyo and work this afternoon.
I loved the trip and learned so much. It was a great way to spend an otherwise lonely weekend. To close out this post, I thought I would make a list of a few personal observations/things I learned about Beijing, China.
1. Toilet paper is a luxury. And you should feel lucky if you find it in the ladies' room. And even luckier if you are able to flush it.
2. Shopping alone is not allowed. You must have a shopkeeper showing you every item in the store with much um, enthusiasm, apparently.
3. There is no such thing as a defensive driving course in China.
4. If you want to buy a car in the city, you must be chosen in a monthly lottery. If you win, you can buy a car, gee what a prize! Only one car per person.
5. Things were not as cheap as I thought they would be. Granted I was mostly in tourist traps, but still. I actually converted the currency wrong all the time because I was expecting things to be cheaper than they were.
And so many more things I learned, I could never list them all here!
Kanpai!
Jess
4 April 2011
Last spring (before we moved) I was booked on a trip to Shanghai and Tokyo for work. Due to some schedule changes, that trip never happened. Then on March 14th, I was scheduled to leave for Shanghai, but the earthquake canceled that trip and we went to Hawaii instead. Because of each of these planned trips, I had an unused visa to China that is good through the end of April 2011. With time ticking down on my visa and a weekend with no responsibilities on my calendar, I decided last week to take a look at plane tickets to Shanghai or Beijing so as not to waste an opportunity that may never come around again.
For just a few miles and a hotel room, I could go to Beijing on a Friday night flight and head back to Tokyo on Monday morning. On Wednesday, I booked the flight and hotel and started looking at tours. Since this was first time to China, I wasn’t confident about doing it on my own. I certainly made the right choice, but more on that later. For record-keeping purposes and if anyone is interested, I chose to stay the Hilton Beijing, sometimes called the Hilton Beijing International. I chose it using a few different criteria. First, it’s an international chain - always good when you don’t have help to know which hotels to stay away from. Second, it wasn’t the most expensive Hilton in town, but not the cheapest either. I was a little afraid of cheaping out in China. Third, it was about 1.5 miles from City Center, so there should be other hotels and tourist attractions nearby, which meant more possibility of more English-speaking people. Fourth, it was near a bunch of embassies, like the U.S., Australia, and more – which for an unadventurous eater like me, meant if I needed it, there would be international food chains like Starbucks and McDonald’s. All four of these ended up working out just the way I hoped they would! The hotel was nice, good for business travelers, very western-style, and the staff spoke English well. Plus a Starbucks just around the corner so I wasn’t stuck buying expensive hotel breakfast and could grab a cup of coffee on my own.
So back to the tours – I looked online at a few tour companies and tried to find a tour website that looked reputable, had a good English translation (since I needed my guide to speak English!) and had good reviews. I found a couple, but landed on City-Discovery.com, which covers a whole lot of cities by working with local tour companies. I liked having the backing of someone bigger for a little added security. I booked tours for both Saturday and Sunday to hit the very highlights of Beijing. My tour guide picked me up on Saturday morning at 7:30 and told me that I was the only one on the tour that day, which meant it was just me, him and our driver. So great – I could ask whatever questions I want and not annoy anyone. Sometimes I have some really random questions to ask tour guides that no one else would ever care about so I just don’t ask. Saturday, I asked them all.
We started out in Tianenmen Square, the world’s largest square and site of the Student Revolution in 1989. I was shown the gate to the emperor’s winter palace where President Mao made a famous speech and where traffic is stopped every morning and at sunset to raise the flag. I learned that the flag for the People’s Republic of China has 5 stars for a reason – the largest in the middle symbolizes the communist party and the four stars around it represent the North, South, East and West of China supporting that party. The stars are yellow as that was the color of the emperors and that the flag is red because red is a symbol of luck, good health and prosperity in Chinese culture.
My guide told me many things about the area and then we went through the gate into the palaces and then to the Forbidden City. This is where only the emperor and his guests were allowed to go – no commoners allowed for 500 years. Then in 1924 after the last emperor, it was opened to the public and is now a World Heritage Site. I was able to walk through with my guide while he told me about the palace and how people lived there. He showed me the bedroom areas of the emperor and told me it had 20 beds and each night the emperor slept in a different one so that if someone were to attack, they would never know which bed he was sleeping in. I was shown the empresses palace and where the mistresses, soldiers and palace workers lived. It was not too busy during our time there as it was early morning and the time in the Imperial Garden was lovely on a sunny, warm morning.
After the Forbidden City, we headed to the Temple of Heaven. Taoists believe in the god of the earth, god of heaven, god of sun, god of moon, basically all items in nature have a god. It was also believed that the emperor was the son on earth of the god of heaven. Each year the emperor would have a ceremony at the Temple of Heaven to pray for good weather for growing the crops. The event was by invite only, no women allowed, animal and food sacrifices - the whole bit. The temple is quite large and is round but has no nails holding it together. It is all standing by connections of the wood joints and massive beams. It is surrounded by a 500 acre park which was very popular on a sunny Saturday morning. People out dancing, playing checkers, badminton, dominoes, and just enjoying the Spring.
Next up was a silk ‘museum’ and market. While I was expecting more of a museum, it was really a sales pitch. This is how silk is made and here, please buy our comforters. I bought a decorative pillow with a Chinese design on it that I am hoping will match our bedroom décor at home and remind me of my weekend trip.
Then we headed to lunch where I ate alone, since my guide told me that he could not eat with me as a rule. I had so much food on my table we could have fed a small town so I tried a little of each and we kept going. Next to this was a pearl market, where I was asked to choose a fresh water oyster to see how many pearls it had inside. It had about 20 and I was given 2 as souvenirs. Then I was asked to buy jewelry and pearl cream that would make my skin whiter. That, my friends, would ruin my tan.
After the pearl shop, we headed out to the Summer Palace. This is a 750 acre area near the mountains where the imperial family used to stay from May-October. Two-thirds of the land is made up of lake and it was really beautiful. Here were more palaces and there was still furniture inside. It was very beautiful with magnolias and peach trees starting to bloom.
Next we headed to an afternoon tea ceremony. Tea is very important in China and in its trade history and they have many different types. This was not, however, a ceremony - it was a tea tasting. And then, shocking I know, they asked me to buy tea and teapots. Are you sensing a pattern here? While the tour company is trying to help by taking you to reputable places to buy these typical Chinese goods, if you aren’t in the market, it gets so annoying. We finished and started our way back to the hotel. I asked my guide what I should do that evening and he recommended a kung-fu or acrobatics show. He called his company and they arranged for dinner and the show for me with my guide. Sorry, Mr. Gong, you aren’t going home for a while yet!
My guide joined me for dinner and I was able to learn a lot more about his family and life at home and current Chinese culture. And the acrobatics show was great – the youngest performer was maybe 8 years old and the troupe did some amazing things. I’m not sure how you get on the National Acrobatics Troupe, but apparently you start training around age 5. I tried to picture Ella doing some of the things they were doing. Oh goodness that would be a disaster!
On Sunday morning, a different tour guide picked me up and I was on a tour with a family and another couple. We headed out towards the mountains with holiday traffic as Sunday was the start of a 3 day holiday/festival. It took us longer than usual, but we arrived at the Great Wall around 9:45. We went to the Badaling area which is one of the most popular tourist spots on the wall. We were given until 11:30 to explore and sent off on our way. It was crazy to climb this thing. The steps are straight up in some places and are all different heights. The next step might be 1.5 feet tall, or just a few inches, so it’s impossible to get into a climbing rhythm. I put on my iPod and started climbing, stopping to take pictures along the way. The direction that I climbed (at my tour guide’s suggestion) was not as crowded as the other side, but that was because it was a tougher climb! Again though the weather was beautiful and it was an experience I won’t soon forget. The wall is over 6,000km long (4,000 miles+) today but was almost 10,000km long when it was originally built. Of course the tourist areas have been renovated and the whole thing was ‘re’built in the 1500’s, but the base of the wall was built in 7th Century BC. I haven’t been on many man-made things that are 3,000 years old. The way down was just as precarious as the way up and I’m shocked that I didn’t wipe out or go rolling down the mountainside during my hike. Hooray for another day of not making a fool of myself!
We went to a jade carving factory and store (same type of deal as the day before) and then headed to lunch. This time lunch was with my tour mates and I was able to meet the American family on my tour – they had two kids with them and live in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia as International School teachers. Their children were 5 and 11 and it was fun to talk to them about expat family life and books the kids like to read. They also gave me tips on the next planned trip of where to go and what to do. And it was nice to have some kid conversation again, I’ve been missing it!
We then headed on to the Ming Tombs. This is where 13 of the 16 Ming Emperors are buried. They each have their own palace in the foothills of the mountains. Emperor #1 was buried in a different city, since that was the capital at the time. Emperor #2 disappeared during war so no tomb for him. Emperor #3 was buried here in the early 1400’s and that is the tomb we visited. There is an outer palace here and an underground palace behind it. The underground palace has never been opened so as to preserve the burial space, but from historical records it looks like the underground palace is about 2000 square meters big (almost 22,000 square feet), made of marble, houses 2 coffins (emperor and empress) and over 3,000 funeral objects. They’ve opened some of the other tombs in the area and showed some of the types of objects you would find inside. And if you’re counting – emperor #7 has no tomb either – his brother overthrew him so he was buried as a prince. Each tomb/palace is a little smaller than the one before it as the Chinese believe that you should never have more than your ancestors, so building a bigger tomb than your father would be a big no-no!
After the Ming Tombs it was time for the tea ceremony, which of course I did the day before. We headed through Olympic Village on the way so I was able to take pictures of The Water Cube (aka Michael Phelps palace) and the Bird’s Nest that we all remember from Beijing 2008, plus saw the athlete’s village, tennis stadium and gymnastics arena. I learned that the outside of the Water Cube was made of plastic so that if a piece broke during the games, it could very easily be replaced. These arenas have now all been opened up for public use.
The tour guide put me in a taxi after this to head back to the hotel since I had already done tea. I was back at the hotel by around 5pm and relaxed for the evening with a little trip to the spa. Today I’m back to Tokyo and work this afternoon.
I loved the trip and learned so much. It was a great way to spend an otherwise lonely weekend. To close out this post, I thought I would make a list of a few personal observations/things I learned about Beijing, China.
1. Toilet paper is a luxury. And you should feel lucky if you find it in the ladies' room. And even luckier if you are able to flush it.
2. Shopping alone is not allowed. You must have a shopkeeper showing you every item in the store with much um, enthusiasm, apparently.
3. There is no such thing as a defensive driving course in China.
4. If you want to buy a car in the city, you must be chosen in a monthly lottery. If you win, you can buy a car, gee what a prize! Only one car per person.
5. Things were not as cheap as I thought they would be. Granted I was mostly in tourist traps, but still. I actually converted the currency wrong all the time because I was expecting things to be cheaper than they were.
And so many more things I learned, I could never list them all here!
Kanpai!
Jess
8:47 AM |
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1 comments
Comments (1)
Jess, sounds like you had an amazing trip! I am so glad you were able to experience China, thanks for 'bringing me along' on the trip! Love the pictures! PS, now all I can think about is a snickers, from the song :-)