Beijing

Friday, November 26, 2004
Beijing, China
A great trip that got off to a bad start. My parents were watching my cats for the first day or two of the trip, after which they headed back to California and handed off the duties to a cat sitter. While waiting for my connection at LAX, I get a call: Lily had goopy eyes and a runny nose, so my Mom had taken her to the emergency vet in Tucson. Ugh. She got back before my flight left, so I did manage to learn that Lily was back home with some antibiotics that she had to take for the next week. So the cat sitter was going to have to administer medication to my notoriously skittish cat for a week, while I worried and fretted from half a world away.

Fortunately, Lily got better, although when I got home I found several stains from the pink liquid meds all over my walls, indicating that she didn't take her meds without a struggle. Poor baby!

Anyway, my flight to China left at night and got in at like eight in the morning--sort of an extended redeye. After getting a few hours to freshen up and have breakfast at the hotel, we had the morning to ourselves to wander around and see the surrounding area.

One thing I had forgotten until reviewing the photos was how incredibly cold Beijing was at this time of year. Everyone in my photos is bundled up in warm clothes, gloves, and a hat. The cold weather and high winds seemed to cut down on the tourists and pollution though, which was nice.

For the next five days or so we saw all the major tourist sites in and around Beijing. Most of these were "optional extras" from the tour group, which meant more $$. I tried to do as many of the sights as I could myself, going with the group only for activities out of the city, like the Great Wall, or otherwise tough to access on my own.

The Great Wall is of course one of the most famous tourist sites in China, if not the world. What surprised me was the large number of Chinese tourists. The Wall is of course heavily tourist-ed in the area nearest Beijing, but it's still a great site.

In Beijing itself, I went to the Imperial Museum (formerly the Forbidden City) . Formerly home to the imperial court during the Qing and Ming dynasty, it survived the Communist takeover, but has been relegated to a tourist attraction. The courtyards are large and peaceful, filled with gorgeous architecture and statutes like this pagoda here. Jingshan Park overlooks the Forbidden City, and offers a spectacular view of it and the surrounding city.

I also hit up the Summer Palace on my own, although getting there was a bit of an adventure. Despite picking up my cab at the hotel, where the concierge specifically told the cabbie where I wanted to go and even gave him a card with the destination circles, the cabbie had to ask me three times where I was going, and then still got lost! Fortunately he gave me a lower fare than the meter showed, but the trip was still nervous going. The Summer Palace is really beautiful.

Later than day, I walked around both Tiananmen Square, (where a Chinese tourist asked me to take a picture of him next to the sign counting down to the 2008 Olympics--neat!), and the Temple of Heaven , which is surrounded by so much open space and greenery it's tough to believe that you're still in the middle of Beijing.

Other activities I did with the group, including a trip to the Yonghehong lamasery, another surprising survivor, given the Communist hostility to religion and the situation in Tibet; the giant panda habitat, where I purchased some very cute panda mug souvenirs; and a Chinese Opera, prefaced by a meal of Peking Duck. Finally, one full day was spent in Xian, home to the famous Terra Cotta Warriors. Read about that next...

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