Retired Nomads: March 23, 2013 Beijing, China

We had a nice breakfast at the hotel. They had some “American style” food as well as local Chinese food. Our tour guide Christine met us with the same driver as last night. (never did know his name though he was quite personable. Today was a fully packed day.

We started at Tiananmen Square. It was a cold and windy day and most of us should have dressed even warmer than we did, but today wasn’t supposed to be as cold as the next day. The square is amazing! As with most things, pictures just can’t do the sheer size of the square justice with the huge picture of Chairman Mao towering over the square. The soldiers came marching in and at one point I was walking side by side with them. What a feeling!

We all of course had all the obligatory photo ops and we all got group photos as well. We really did have 2 wonderful couples to share this tour with and we were quite pleased it worked out so well. Bonnie and I had a bathroom experience that I doubt either of us will ever forget. The ladies room was packed and there was no line or lines, but it was true herd mentality. It was solid with people and they all just pushed, shoved, elbowed and even kicked (Bonnie got bruises to show for it) trying to get to a stall. Bonnie turned to look at me at one point and I wish I had had the camera ready to capture the look on her face. Finally, one of us said let’s get out of here, and that wasn’t easy to do either. Turning around and trying to get out was a challenge as well. That was quite a bonding moment for us. As I was being shoved into Bonnie and I said “honest, I’m not pushing”. We joked about it all day.

Then we went in the underground tunnel that took us to the Forbidden City. Awesome and Amazing aren’t enough to describe this place. It’s a huge collection of temples and imperial buildings. Classical Chinese architecture and an overwhelming depth of cultural wealth are on display in the Forbidden City. It was originally built as a dwelling for the Ming and Qing Dynasties and covers an area of 250 acres. Here, the emperors and (later) China’s religious élite dwelt in seclusion, the lives of all therein ordered by a complex set of rules and taboos. It seemed we went through gate after gate after gate leading to these huge courtyards before entering the main one.

view from our hotel room

this kit was under our night stand

OK, that's a bit of a stretch, but it IS snow....

Greg, Annette, Julie Jeff, Bonnie & Dennis

part of a large tour group

We left here and were in traffic heading to our lunch destination. Our guide and driver quickly realized that we would be really behind if we stayed in that traffic. She got on her cell phone and worked out an alternate place for lunch. We were headed to the Hutongs and she wanted to know if we would enjoy a visit to a family’s home for lunch. We agreed that was a superb idea and we went straight to the Hutongs where we met with a guide just for the Hutongs. The area is the “true China” where people still live in the traditional style with narrow alleyways and old single story houses. This was my favorite part of the day. We boarded our rickshaws for a wonderful tour of the area. We stopped at a family’s house for our lunch. (which they must do often) and all kinds of wonderful foods were brought out and tea, beer or soft drinks were brought out. The food was quite good and the home interesting. They had crickets in cages as pets and birds in cages on their patio. The room was small with 1 round table that seated the 6 of us and the guide and driver ate at a small square table.

I needed to use a restroom and the guide walked me down the block to a public one. Inside were about 6 open stalls with squat toilets (no doors on the stalls) there were 2 women at the end of the row of stalls each facing with their heads out chatting with each other. They were that way when I went in and still that way after I left. Guess it was some serious business keeping them in there that long. Ha ha.

Our guide in the Hutongs

our guide in the Hutongs

squat toilet

our rickshaw awaits

going to lunch

the cook

pet cricket in cage in their house

birds in cage

After the Hutong tour we needed to decide if we wanted to climb the Bell or Drum tower or if we wanted to skip that and see the Temple of Heaven today instead of tomorrow leaving more time for the Great Wall. We opted to skip the climb up the tower and see the Temple today. The 15th century Temple of Heaven, was completed during the reign of the Jongle Emperor. Every winter solstice, Ming and Qing dynasty emperors visited the Temple to invoke the aid of heaven in ensuring good harvests. We were surprised to learn that it is larger than the Forbidden City. It covers an area of 273 hectares. Temple of Heaven was enrolled as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1998.

Here we had another decision to make to spend more time here or just do a highlights tour and take in a tea tasting ceremony at a local tea house. We opted for the tea tasting. They had different types of tea than the last one we visited.

Then we rushed to make the evening show. We had been told that all of us didn’t have to see the same show as there was a choice of Acrobats, Kungfu Show or Peking Opera show. We have seen tons of the Acrobat shows and were leaning towards the Opera since it is the most representative of Chinese culture. (not a traditional opera like you are probably thinking). However our guide really was pushing the Acrobat show and there probably wasn’t time to shuttle the 3 couples to 3 different shows as it seemed that each of us had a different choice. So, we ended up at the Acrobat show which was good, but I was still disappointed not to see the Peking Opera Show. Besides acrobats they had these guys on motorcycles that ride into a big ball and drive around. It starts with 1 and then 1 at a time another came out and another until there were 8 motorcycles in there at once.

After the show we drove to the Peking Duck Dinner at Quanjude. We watched them carve the duck into many thin slices. For those who have eatean Mushu Pork (sp?) it is served like that. You have these thin pancakes that you put some duck in and then add veggies and the sweet yummy sauce. It was some of the best duck I have ever had. Besides the duck, they had many other dishes to try. Another duck dish that was quite tasty and pork, chicken and veggies and rice. It was a lot of food and we enjoyed it all.

After our long day it was time to go back to the hotel. However, it was our only chance to see the famous night market, so we dropped our day bags and we and Jeff and Julie walked to the night market. We were having a blast looking at and taking pictures of the interesting food in the stalls. There were scorpions, large spiders, snake, starfish, squid and much much more on a stick. We opted to try the fried banana balls which were very good and we tried some steamed pork buns with sesame seeds. Again very good. After eating all that food at Quanjude, here we were eating street food. It was freezing cold and we hurried back to the hotel and attempted to get a few hours of sleep before our tour the next day.