Beijingle Bell Rock

Thursday, September 13, 2012
Beijing, China
Hi everyone! Sorry to make these posts so long; that's what you get for our procrastination. ^_^


Friday, September 7

Our plan for today was to head out and see the amazing Summer Palace, built on a huge piece of land near a lake, in the North-West of modern Beijing… which would have been outside the city limits at the time of construction (mid-1700s) . In fact, the incredible (and adored) emperor Quianlong expanded the lake, and built up the area beyond it's original large scale.

Andrew was just coming down with a cold, but it wasn't enough to slow us down much… and Andrew wanted to give the new hostel's kitchen a go-through, so we headed downstairs to grab some breakfast, on our way out. Expensive, and mediocre. But filling! I had an omelet and toast, and Andrew had the "American Breakfast" consisting of two fried eggs, a hash brown, a sausage, a piece of "fakin'" bacon, and toast. Even after breakfast, Andrew was tempted by a sort've crunchy Chinese taco sandwich thing (a crisp pancake filled with pork, chili sauce and lettuce) just outside the subway, so he grabbed one and ate it before entering the subway (no food allowed on the subways in China).

We rode the subway way the heck out to a station called Baguo in Haidian District. Probably a 40 minute subway ride altogether . Andrew hadn't looked into the specifics of walking from the subway to the Palace, and his map was much poorer than he originally thought. With no clear directions to walk, we instead hailed a cab, and rode the 5 minutes to the Summer Palace. (For less than $2, so meh!)

The Summer Palace's grounds are huge (2.9 square kilometers...most of which is water). If you're interested in its history, here's the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_palace. The place gets pretty packed with tourists in some areas and can be a little calm-damaging...but we avoided the worst of the crowds by taking advantage of the extensive grounds. Once beyond places like South Lake Island and the temples and halls closest to the main entrance, the crowds really started to thin out.

We walked counterclockwise around the lake, making our way through various modern refurbishments of ancient buildings and constructions. We passed through the imperial residences, and worked our way up to Longevity Hill where there are several large Buddhist structures, rockeries to crawl around in, steep paths and side passages . It's probably more accurate to call it a small mountain, cause that's how if felt to climb it… and it made for really excellent exploring and amazing views once you got to the top! We took a bit of a break for lunch: previously purchased snacks and a bag of bao and some hot dogs on sticks. Andrew saw a bunch of people eating out of white plastic containers containing rice, shelf-stable meat and sauce which was suspended over a water bath that was heated with magnesium. The lid clamps on, and the water below the rice dish heats to a rolling boil, causing the rice and meat and sauce to steam and get *really* hot. O_o Bizarre...must try! It was actually okay...if a little off-putting if you thought about it too much. (Which, in general, you never want to do, if you're eating in China. ;) Haha.)

It turns out, we took a bit of a back route to the top of the hill and later climbed to a similar height but via the stairs of the Buddhist Fragrance Pavilion...what a climb! See the photos for the amazing views from the top! On our way down, we also stumbled across the Bronze Pavilion ...a whole little building made entirely of cast bronze. Wow. It was in a really peaceful courtyard. There were no signs to direct you there so there weren't many other tourists.

We continued our walk counterclockwise around the lake to Dowager Empress Cixi's marble boat. "Hmm, I have lots of money and power, but I've always felt that there's something missing in my life...and I think that thing is a boat made of solid freaking marble." 

(As an aside, you should really read up on the Dowager Empress. She's a really amazing historical figure, who ruled China through several puppet emperors, sitting on a smaller throne behind the big one, behind a yellow fabric sheet. Literally the "Power behind the throne.")

Once past the marble boat, the crowds thin even more. We headed around the north end of the lake to the "Western Causeway"… a thin strip of willow-, crabapple- and mulberry-lined walkway through the outer western edge of the lake . This made for a rather pleasant and peaceful walk. You really get a sense of the size of the property. It ended up being a very long walk and, every so often, you would come across a bridge...usually steep in order to come up high enough to let boats pass underneath.

When we finally returned to the entrance, we were very tired. (The circuit we walked was around 10km, and tons of it was uphill). We decided that we would just hail a cab (especially since, from the cab ride there, walking looked tricky due to a complicated network of on and off ramps) back to Baguo station. None of the passing cabs wanted to take us (maybe they considered it too short a distance to be worth it?) and the cabs parked outside were asking 50 yuan (it only cost 10 yuan to get there using the meter) for the trip (at which point, Shannon laughed at their gaul as we walked away). Too irritated to bother trying to barter with the cabs, we walked...and what a hellish walk it was . With a practically unusable map, a pedestrian-unfriendly route and Andrew's cold just coming to a head, we had a terrible time trying to get back. To our credit, we ended up making it back to the station with our pride intact after not having been taken advantage of by the cabbie (okay, only a difference of $6.67, but whatever). "Hooray for Andrew's innate sense of direction!" Said Andrew. ;)

We arrived at our home subway station: Donsi (which, confusingly, is pronounced "Dong-suh"). The Wu-Mart is on the way back to our hostel and decided to stop there for an alarm clock (we had forgotten to bring our cellphone chargers and, without access to the internet in our room, couldn't use an online clock). While there, we decided to browse...and ended up buying dinner. ^_^ We just bought whatever caught our eye. We knew exactly what some things were and others...were more of a guess. Once we thought we'd collected enough of a variety, we brought it all back to our room and ate picnic-style on the bed . The food included smoked Chinese pork sausages (anybody from Eastern Europe would have LOVED them!!), some braised pork feet with soy sauce (cartaligey!), some salads (one of chinese cabbage, and one of seaweed), and some beer! A damn tasty finish to a very long day. :)


Saturday, September 8

This day ended up being a bit of a lost day for touring, but we didn't mind. There were a lot of logistical things to get done and Andrew's cold had reached its peak awfulness. Shannon got up early (with the new Keropi [Pierogi?] alarm clock) and went out to the morning market outside our hostel to fetch breakfast. The market is really awesome and reminded us a lot of some of the busyness of Shanghai. Picture early morning about 6:30 or so...a crowd of people down a long and narrow alleyway in a lovely chaos: pushing, laughing, yelling, arguing, haggling, eating, bikes, carts, wheelbarrows, animals, garbage, tables, fruit, nuts, pickles, clothing, dishes, food smells, charcoal, steam baskets, bao, dumplings, boiled eggs, cakes, breads - HEAVEN . I picked up some soy-sauce-boiled eggs, a Chinese beaver-tail-style piece of fried dough, some steamed dumplings (pork and veggie), and a pan-fried cake filled with black sesame paste (that tasted a bit like molasses).

After breakfast, we booked our train tickets to Chengde, our hostel in Chengde, our hostel stay when we returned and a Great Wall tour. This took most of the morning due to the slow and sometimes unreliable internet. Once these were booked, we decided to take a little walk and visit a store that Andrew had heard about in the Lonely Planet. It's actually a really neat idea: taking shards of antique broken pottery and using them to decorate boxes. You end up with a historically significant and unique mosaic each time. We decided to walk the whole way, since it was a nice day for walking, and the street we found ourselves was beautiful and lined with trees. We passed the North Korean Embassy (!), and eventually found ourselves in the Russian District . It was bizarre...like passing through a Russian-proof force field we were unable to see. Suddenly, at least 50% of the people we passed were white, all the signs changed from monolingual Chinese, or bilingual English/Chinese to bilingual Russian/Chinese, ads portrayed tall leggy Russian women and rugged Russian men instead of the cutesy Asian women and clean-shaved Asian men. It was really interesting and completely unexpected. We understand that the Russian presence is quite pronounced in cities further north, like Harbin for example, but we didn't know that they had their own street in Beijing.

We kept walking but, unfortunately, weren't able to find the store we were looking for. It looked like it was either no longer in business or had changed locations...there was a medium-sized office building where it should have been. Hell, damn and blast. Andrew, enormously frustrated (not helped by his congestion and constant coughing), decided that from then on, we would verify the sites listed in the Lonely Planet online . No matter! Soldiering on!

After a brief stop at Starbucks (Andrew was feeling the need for some caffeine, and we wanted to get some reasonably good coffee), we decided to call an end to our far-ranging explorations. We walked back towards our hostel and had a very late lunch in a restaurant serving Muslim food. I don't say "Muslim restaurant" because they served alcohol...a trend we've been noticing. Usually, restaurants serving Muslim food are *run* by Muslims and, thus, don't serve alcohol...and it is impolite to ask for it. Yet this is probably the second or third time we've had Muslim food since being here and have looked over at other tables enjoying a few beers. Andrew ordered a dish of stir-fried veggies, tomatoes and black fungus mushrooms on hand-pulled noodles, and also ordered some fried chicken wings ('cause he's a suck, and had a cold, and wanted chicken wings). ;) The wings were tossed (after frying) with chilies, garlic, ginger, scallions and Sichuan peppercorns . SO tasty, very spicy, and good for relieving nasal congestion. ^_^ We also shared some naang (Muslim flatbread, toasted and brushed with oil and spices), some grilled lamb skewers, some grilled garlic (delicious!), and grilled green chilies.

We continued walking along the North/South subway line near our hostel to do some window-shopping...not with the intention of actually buying anything, but just for fun. Eventually, we went back to the hostel to chill out for awhile, and it wasn't until almost 8:30 that we really got hungry. Shannon was busy with blog-post-writing, so Andrew decided to go to Wu-mart for self-catered dinner again. Andrew picked up some of that same Chinese cabbage salad (which was delicious!), as well as some pickled cucumber salad (spiral-cut!), and some long bean salad as well. For proteins, he snagged some deep-fried tofu, some sliced beef shin, another of those smoked sausages, and a whole chicken (!). Head and feet intact, it was boiled with soy sauce, and then cryovacked . A tasty little bird. ^_^


Sunday, September 9

Today we were able to make a bit more of a go of it! We popped downstairs to double check the confirmation email for our Great Wall tour, but the internet was down! Damn! No contact with the outside world for us. >_
We were so stuffed from dinner the night previous, we only munched on a few snacks we had laying around before heading out to the weekly antiques market. This thing is HUGE! It happens every Saturday and Sunday and attracts about 50,000 visitors every weekend. Yikes! That was definitely a saving grace in that it was impossible to miss. Just about everyone getting off at our subway stop was going there so you just had to follow the crowd. Though the hardcore go there at about 5am, we took it easy and got there around 10am or so. It was an amazing collection of damn near everything. Chinese antiques, Americana, old gramaphones and typewriters, "jade" jewelry, animal skins/furs, brass, silver, gold, trinkets, Communist memorabilia, signs, posters, artwork, photographs, clothing, calligraphy, ink brushes, pottery ...on and on. We just...wandered. There was so much to see, there was no way we could have looked at everything. (Although the large outdoor section with carved stone items was interesting… everything from small garden ornament-sized sculptures, to HUGE stone screens (3 or 4m high, and twice that long). Massive Buddha sculptures standing 20 feet high. We envisioned a little Chinese granny strolling over, buying a 12,000lb lion sculpture and carting it away on her scooter. Lol. Andrew didn't feel comfortable taking many pictures, as the vendors don't like having their wares photographed.

After a while, we decided it was time to get lunch nearby. It was a bit early for lunch, but we figured, whatever eating places were nearby, they would be swarmed with people closer to lunch time. And we were right. :) The nearest restaurant we could find was actually attached to the outer wall of the market, accessible from either inside or outside. The menu was (unhelpfully) full of mistranslated English ("Explodes the Flavours Sauce Duck"), but (helpfully) was also full of pictures . We ordered some fried eggplant with beans, in a starchy soy-based sauce (tasty, but a bit starchy). Also, a dish of fried cabbage, with minced pork, chilies, and glass noodles, served on a sizzle-platter atop a crispy omelet. (Best dish of lunch, for sure.) Also, we got a dish described on the menu as "Cowboy Pork Nuggets with Pepper"… o_O Fried pork cubes were served with large-diced straw mushrooms and whole garlic, with a black pepper sauce. Tasty!

We headed out again to do some shopping for the Great Wall. The tour we booked involved a long hike up to a section of ruined and unrepaired wall, a hike along the top of said wall, which eventually connects to a rebuilt section for the last half of the tour. Shannon had running shoes, but with minimal tread and no pants suitable for hiking (when we left for the trip, we had absolutely no set plans). Lonely Planet to the rescue! (?) It recommended an outdoor store with several others immediately beside, in a sort of Camp Gear District . Off we went, using the Lonely Planet as a guide.

Aaaaannnd…. we had a hard time finding the place. DAMN YOU, LONELY PLANET!! The taxi driver, even with the address in Chinese, was not able to find it. We ended up bailing out of the cab (paying him for his time, of course) and trying to make our own way. Andrew knew the store should be in the area, and figured that a hotel front-desk person might be able to help! Success! She said (in broken English) that the store was very close, and said "Turn left, then turn left again. You will see it."  Skeptical, we followed her directions, and we found it! Whoo! It was pretty clear why the driver couldn't find it. It was down a weird little side street, next to and a little underneath an overpass. The great thing about the outdoor store that we were looking for was that a bunch of other outdoor stores had sprung up around it. EVEN better than that, one of the other outdoor stores specialized in cheap versions of what the expensive Western-centric stores were selling . Shannon was able to buy a serviceable pair of hiking shoes/boots and, at the cheaper store, a hat and pair of pants.

We returned to the subway on foot and, to save time, had dinner on Ghost Street again. Apparently, locals don't really go, but it's a safe bet for picture menus and not having to walk far to your next choice in eating establishment. We were so beat by this point...lots of crowds today and the third day in a row where we became almost hopelessly lost...it gets a bit wearying, lol. A Sichuan restaurant, as far as we could tell, it was pretty busy, and we had to wait for about 10 minutes before being sat. The menu was IMMENSE, and with the server helpfully waiting by our table for the whole 10 minutes it took to peruse the menu, made for a stressful ordering experience. There is *no* way to get across that we'd like the server to come back in 5 minutes or so… so we soldiered on, hoping they'd get the hint. No such luck. We quickly ordered a salad of seaweed and threadlike orange mushrooms (tasty!), as well as a plate of diced Chinese broccoli with dried shrimps (tasted a bit like fish food smells o_O)… We also got a plate of fried hairtail (a thin, belt-like fish with big chompers on the front). The fish is skinned, then deep fried, and served with a sweet sauce that tasted reminiscent of breakfast pancake syrup. o_O The fish was tasty, but very bony.   Ah well. Can't win 'em all.

We went back to the hostel, to discover that the internet was still down, and went to bed hoping that everything would go ok tomorrow.

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