Lost in Beijing - Day 3

Date: May 1, 2007
Location: Beijing
Info: The day started bright and early. We were herded into the van and we sped off towards the centre of Beijing. Since it was May 1st, it was the beginning of the Chinese May holidays. Busy is an understatement. Crowded...not a good enough word...but you'll see...

The Temple of Heaven

The Temple of Heaven, according to Lonely Planet, 'originally functioned as a vast stage for the solemn rites performed by the Son of Heaven, who came here to pray for good harvests, seek divine clearance and atone for the sins of the people.'

It is set in a 267- hectare park with a gate at each point of the compass. People come to the park to relax, practice tai-chi, practice writing characters with a sponge brush and even ballroom dance.

Below: check out that guy's hat. It is made of paper and reminds me of one of those Halloween or Valentines day decorations that you unfold like an accordion. They were selling them at every major tourist site and yes, people were actually buying them.



The Round Altar - three white marble tiers and its geometry revolves around the imperial number of 9 (odd numbers were considered heavenly, and 9 is the largest single-digit odd number).




Above: A kind of wonky photo of me in front of the Imperial Vault of Heaven.




The Hall of Prayers for Good Harvests - Built in 1420 but burned down in 1889 (lightning). The pillars in this hall symbolize the seasons, months and days and somehow support the ceiling without nails or cement.







As we were leaving the park, we stumbled upon some people participating in a synchronized paddle ball-type activity/dance. The guy at the end accidentally dropped his ball and when the routine was finished, the leader yelled at him! Poor guy. Of course I videotaped a bit of it (this was a run-by shot) and you can watch it HERE.

These ladies reminded me of my very brief rhythmic gymnastic stint (in the basement of the Olympium). We used to fight over who got the pink ribbon (I mean, come on, who would want the nasty white ones?) but I wish we could have had these ribbons.


Tiananmen Square

It was so so so so so hot. So much concrete. I felt like bacon.

This is the world's largest public square. It was a little bit weird walking around here. It's heavily monitored by cameras and plain clothed police, who are ready to take down anyone who starts to protest/cause a ruckus.



Mao's portrait (below) - about a week after we returned to Japan, I read about a guy who threw a flaming bottle or something at the painting and set it on fire. He was supposedly hauled away really fast...


Group Photo (below) - I feel I have to point out why I look like such an idiot in this photo. I mean, you're probably wondering why I'm standing like that (leaning in & bending in)...well our tour guide was in a good mood so he offered to take the photo and kept telling us to get closer together. Well, you can see that obviously there was enough room on either side that we could have spread out a bit...



The Forbidden City


Note: to get from Tiananmen Square to the Gate of Heavenly Peace (entrance to the Forbidden City), you have to go under the street. I was walking with Shinobu and when we emerged on the other side, we found that the rest of our group was gone. And I mean gone. We stood there in the crowd, assuming that someone would notice we weren't there and come back to get us. We were wrong. They made it through the gate before anyone noticed and even then they didn't come back to get us, they just waited until we found them. Of course, when I finally saw our tour guide I waved my arms and tried to get his attention, when suddenly a guard made a move to stop me, which was terrifying since he was heavily armed. Shinobu and I felt so loved...

So overwhelming. So huge. Our tour guide was walking so fast, that it's like a blur in my mind. Here's some info -

• Why the name Forbidden City? Because it was off limits to commoners for 500 years.
• It was home to two dynasties of emperors, the Ming and Qing until 1911.
• The basic layout was established between 1406 and 1420.
• Most of the buildings seen now are post 18th century (wooden palace + lantern festivals + fireworks = not good)
• In the 20th century there were two major lootings (one by the Japanese) and thousands of crates of relics were removed and sent to Taiwan, where you can see them in Taipei (haha! I saw them last weekend!!)
• The palace is so huge that a permanent restoration team moves around the buildings. It supposedly takes 10 years to restore all of the buildings, by which time they have to begin again.
  

Here's Mateo enjoying his frozen mango smoothy thing courtesy of the Forbidden City Starbucks.




After the world's fastest tour of the Forbidden City (I had hit my museum/historical building limit for the day though, so I wasn't that disappointed) we headed to a shopping district.

below - people/tours relaxing after surviving the Beijing shopping experience. Miyuki and I went to find some souvenirs for friends and I found myself elbowing other girls over a huge pile of cheap jade bracelets. There were so many people in the store that I couldn't move, everyone was shouting and I lost Miyuki. I started to get seriously claustrophobic so after finally deciding on a bracelet (only 150yen) I waited outside. I hated shopping in Beijing. The constant harassment by shop owners and being followed by store clerks...for once I didn't want to shop!


Miyuki, Eri and Shinobu wanted to do more shopping that night so it ended up that only me and our tour family went to the kung fu show. It was the cheesiest, most bizarre thing I have ever seen. I can't even begin to describe it...hmm...let me try...

It was kind of like Kill Bill (the whole journey/being taught to fight by a monk) met Riverdance met Cirque du soleil met some kind of Las Vegas magic show...the weirdest part was that it was so touristy that it was in ENGLISH!! I sat there trying not to pee my pants from laughing. My tour brother and his parents thought it was great. The action/fight/kung fu segments were cool...but oh man...so hilarious.


According to the Deputy Irish Ambassador to China (?) 'This show is more energetic than River Dance!' (on the pamphlet)

While I was waiting for the show to start, I wandered into the souvenir shop area. The prices were a bit high, but the people who worked there weren't yelling at me or harassing me so I was willing to pay a bit more. I decided on a name stamp. I haggled a bit, just for the hell of it and then the cute guy carved it for me in about 1 minute.

After the show we headed back to the hotel. I was now friends with our tour family, had a cool souvenir name stamp and had seen the cheesiest tourist kung fu show on the planet. I was one happy lady.