Week 8 (Part Two) - Goin'...North

Buddhist pavilion

               After a 5-hour nap, it was time to hit the road again, this time to the north, by plane, with a different traveling companion, Luoliang. Luoliang will come to Maine later in August this year 2016, and he hadn’t visited Beijing in a vacationing capacity before, so it was going to be good in any case. In a stark contrast to the previous night’s travel, everything went very smoothly on our way to Beijing. Once in Beijing, we boarded a bus headed downtown and found confirmation with what we had been warned about: Beijing has too many cars. Taxis, cars and buses all competed for the same 4 lanes out of the airport, which took a while to accomplish, before getting stuck within further traffic. Eventually, we made it to where we aimed to go, had a quick lunch and met up with a fellow student of Luoliang’s at the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace had typical Chinese design, and Tibetan-influenced features as well, complete with many large Buddha statues. The compound was quite large and carefully laid out. The most impressive area was not the Palace itself, but the shoreline of the lake that the Palace was situated on. After walking down from the Palace, you enter a shoreline pavilion that goes on forever with Buddhist paintings through the four seasons. There is also an island, with yet another temple-like structure, that is accessible by stone bridge. The whole place was really something, as Luoliang said: “It is where the Emperor went to relax, so it must be better.” Indeed.

The Cube. I'll pretend I'm competing there.

                Tired from the long walk around ¼ of the lake, we traveled to the Olympic Village from the 2008 Summer Olympics for a quick dinner, where I had an unquenchable thirst. I was told Beijing would be cooler and that Nanping and Wu Yi would be hotter than Shanghai. I would say that all three regions were equally hot. Just that the air quality is noticeably worse in Beijing and noticeably better in the southern cities. Post-dinner, Luoliang walked through the center of the village, where the Bird’s Nest, Cube and Torch were all still lit up with gusto, signaling the advance of the coming Winter Olympics in two years. There were no events currently held, but there were massive amounts of people. We waded through them, hopped on the metro and checked into the hotel for the night.

The Great Wall is...very big!

                The next day, we got up and traveled to the fast train station, looking for tickets to the Great Wall. Luoliang’s inside information about there being no difficulty during weekdays proved to be false, unfortunately, so we set out to find the buses. Asking for directions constantly, we finally arrived at the old Ming Dynasty Mint building, from where the buses (the MANY buses) departed. It was here, that Luoliang asked a nice lady at the nearby bus stop for our final directions, and she advised avoiding the typical entrance. Instead she advised entering through the bus parking lot. We did and came upon boarding passengers. We attempted to board but were promptly denied by five attendants and told to 

find the back of the line. As we came from the buses, we saw a line that stretched beyond my vision. We began to wonder if a new plan was needed for the day. Instead, we saw an opportunity about 50 patrons back and cut the line. I make no apologies for this. We probably saved 2 hours. I told Luoliang to take his hat off, I followed suit and stuffed both in the backpack and took that responsibility from Luoliang. Anything to appear different, as we had made quite the entrance. Whether it made a difference or not I do not know, but I do know we were allowed to board during this second attempt without any trouble and found ourselves at the Great Wall two hours later, along with, again,

Forbidden City entrance at night

 the rest of China. A total of 3 hours were spent hiking on the Wall, first, the southern section of the Badaling portion of the Wall, which was much less crowded than the northern section, which we did after. Just an amazing amount of people come to visit this place, it is really difficult to guess how many. There are  buses constantly running back and forth. The hiking itself was pretty challenging, as various inclines of steps and ramps were employed. I would imagine some danger would be involved with any kind of precipitation. Especially for those who opted to select ‘high heels’ as appropriate hiking footwear. Even without hiking footwear, 3 hours in the hot sun, with already sore legs from the entire week, I was pretty spent. We returned to the hotel, attempted to recover and then met up with two more of Luoliang’s friends in the area for dinner. We had a special type of duck (not Peking Duck, it just didn’t happen this trip!), among other great food and two types of traditional Chinese liquor (“Baijiu”) to commemorate the visit. Afterwards, we took in the Beijing night scene, including a nighttime preview of the next day’s activities.

Tian'anmen, the flag and the Forbidden City

                The wake-up call to start the day was 0430am, as we headed to Tian’anmen Square for the flag-raising ceremony. Soldiers marched out of the Forbidden City to the Square and raised the flag while the anthem played. We got there early and the place was already stuffed. I am thinking the equivalent of two city blocks were closed to traffic by police and the entire area was filled with people. I guess it is like this every day, which is amazing. After taking in the crowd and the moment, we returned to the hotel and rested until noon. After checking out of the hotel, we actually made it to Tian’anmen Square and walked around for a bit. Memorials and government buildings were highly visible, 

Grandness of the Forbidden Ciy

including the building that Chairman Mao sits in (we did not go due to long line). Afterwards, we headed to the famed Forbidden City, which is now adorned by a gigantic painting of Mao. It really was expansive and just a generally huge complex. The architecture was typical ancient Chinese, particular, detailed and impressive. Luoliang told of the legend that officers, domestic and foreign, who made the walk from Tian’anmen Square to the Emperor’s company finished the walk on their knees, due to the impressive nature of the compound. I do not doubt that some officers felt this way, but I cannot imagine the added military presence and the effect that it had, either. We visited all of the buildings we were allowed, 8 out of 12 total ‘palaces’, which I would more aptly call impressive living quarters, all temples and the Imperial Garden. By the end, I was again beaten down by the heat and sun and my body was completely exhausted by the entire week. But it was all great, I would do it again, in no time. Thanks to a fast train to the airport, a no-hassle flight and a brief taxi ride, I was again in Lingang, ready for more than 5 hours rest. The recovery had begun.