My eventful train ride ended around 6:00 in the morning on Friday of last week. I had been given instructions of how to find the foreigner's ticket desk at the Beijing train station (Beijing Zhan, for those of you familiar with the various stations). I headed straight there to get my ticket, but the lady, who didn't appear to speak any English despite the fact that it was a desk for non-Chinese people, told me that I'd have to come back on Sunday because tickets for Wednesday wouldn't be available until then.
I left the station and found my hostel about 15 minutes north (walking). I checked in, dropped off my stuff in the room of still-sleeping guys, brushed my teeth and headed for the Forbidden City.
The Forbidden City is massive and actually used to cover a bit more area, now preserved as various kinds of parks. I spent five or six hours there poking around and taking photos with an older Nikon I borrowed from a friend. Nearly everything is named the Hall/Gate of Harmonious [something or other]. Apparently after the somewhat foreign Qing dynasty violently displaced (aka: overthrew) the local Ming dynasty, the rulers wanted the people to feel that there was still a good sense of order and they weren't really changing things, so they renamed everything using the word "harmonious." Of course, all the renaming was done inside the palace where the people couldn't go. Maybe the renaming was for the sake of the nobles.
Additionally, everywhere you turn--not just in the Forbidden City but pretty much everywhere in Beijing--you'll see the hand of Qianlong, China's apparently favorite emperor and mad graffiti artist. Honestly, it seems like anything older than a tube of toothpaste claims to have been written on it "in the hand of Emperor Qianlong." There are a few other "emperor's hands" lying around, but Qianlong definitely wins the cake for most prolific enscriber.
After visiting the Forbidden City's various Halls and Gates of Harmonious [Peace, Harvests, fill-in-the-blank], I stepped over the threshold of the Gate of Economic Imperialism to the Hall of Benevolent Beverages and Caffinated Contemplation. In other words, there's a Starbucks inside the Forbidden City. That's right, a small but real-live Starbucks. I'm not a coffee lover, but the iced chai was a nice treat.
Later in the afternoon I crossed the street north of the Forbidden City to Jingshan Park, which used to be one of the imperial parks. In its center is a large hill made of the ruins of the previous palace and the dirt from the substantial moat around the Forbidden City. The hill sides are well coated in old vegetation, and it's capped with a Buddhist pagoda/shrine. Around the base are various gardens, including a large peony garden that was blooming. As I was enjoying the flowers, a lady in a fancy dress and a name tag started chatting with me. The Imperial Teahouse was right there, and she invited me to come in for a tea ceremony. I wouldn't have done it in Dalian, but the price wasn't too bad, and I thought, what the heck, I'm on vacation. I tried seven different kinds of tea, all of which were absolutely fabulous. The girl's English was excellent, and we had a really nice conversation. She explained the different water temperatures and kinds of pots necessary for making the best of each kind of tea. I had never before tasted such good tea and seriously doubt I shall ever do so again. My "flavors" included ju-pu (Chrysanthemum and the Pu plant), green tea, peach, monkey tree (a clear bitter tea made from leaves that only monkeys can get high enough to pick), lychee/rose and peony. My favorite was the lychee/rose, which tasted like it had honey in it even though we hadn't added any kind of sweetener at all.
Having tea in the park was probably the highlight of my trip.
I didn't eat or drink anything for several hours after visiting the tea house. I didn't want to cancel out the flavor memory. When I finally did have supper, I foolishly broke one of my cardinal Chinese menu rules: never order meat unless I recognize the character immediately following the animal character. I was hoping for some kind of sheep soup, and I got "some kind" all right: sheep organs. I definitely saw stomach and liver in there, and I think some of the other parts were heart and lungs. For those of you who have never had the privilege of eating sheep stomach, I can tell you that it tastes a lot like what comes out of stomachs. Upon seeing my supper, I quickly ordered some additional dishes to help me through. There's nothing like sheep-on-a-stick and shredded potatoes to fill you up when you're trying to avoid innards!
On Saturday I wandered around Tian'anmen Square in the morning. I toured the Great Hall of the People, China's version of Congress, which is a massive building. I tried to visit the Maosoleum, but it was closed (the entire time I was in town!). After wandering some of the back neighborhoods, called hutongs, for a while, I took a bus to the Summer Palace.
I have never been so crowded in my life (well, OK--maybe once in a small landrover in Africa with seventeen other people), and I've ridden quite a few crowded Chinese buses. I noticed one lady in a seat pay a lesser fare, so I knew that she would be getting off somewhere before my stop. I stood by her chair and let other people crowd around me. Eventually, there were so many people on the bus that I had full body contact with the guy in front of me from my knees to my upper chest. My arm was being pushed off the handrail. My side and a good portion of my back were being pressed upon as well. Eventually the lady got up, and I took the seat for the last 20 minutes of the hour and a half ride.
The Summer Palace was nice, but if you go, don't take the audio tour. While the tour at the Forbidden City is nicely marked, it's really difficult to tell where you are and what clip you should be listening to at the Summer Palace. I think I would have enjoyed my time there more without the tour (or the time pressure to get the machine back to the desk by 4:00).
The Summer Palace is yet another imperial park/retreat set along a large lake north of Beijing. The lake is big enough to keep things cool along its shore and to provide a decent breeze. The buildings were largely open and decorated in a traditional style. There was also a large Buddhist temple on the main hill. On the far side of the hill was Suzhou Street, a fake shopping street that the emperor built so that he and his empress and concubines could go out for a day as "normal" people. Due to traditions and imperial protocol, the emperor was rarely allowed to leave his various palaces, and the ladies almost never got out. So on their fancy riverbank-straddling Suzhou Street (based on a street in another city), they could wander and buy various things that they'd like.
Although being the supreme ruler of a powerful nation would definitely have its perks, I'm really glad that I wasn't an emperor of China. Talk about a frustrating life. Yes, when people think you're a kind of god you're treated as well-nigh all-powerful, but you're still stuck inside certain overly-confining rules and geographical limitations.
That's just about it for Friday and Saturday of last week. Once again, I need to get going, so the adventures will have to continue later.
Posted by at May 8, 2004 4:40 PM