How to see Everything in China in 3 days

Group travel, I think, may make you less aware of what you're seeing and doing and less engaged in your experiences. Even though you can see a lot of things with a group, and it's nice not to have to worry about transportation and negotiating tickets, etc. I think I go into sheep mode-- herded around here and there-- given a schedule, given a box lunch, the only thing you have to learn is what your guide tells you. There's definitely something to having to figure it all out on your own, even if that means it takes longer. Bedsides, you'll probably make up that time in not having to wait for 60 people to take a pee or get out of bed.

______________

After just a few hours in Hong Kong that I spent walking around and shopping a bit (and eating Dim Sum, though there's was no cart you ordered off a menu and an English speaking waiter had to help us, though really we probably could have figured it out ourselves) we were off to Beijing. It's about a three hour flight. We were on Dragon Air. They served us dinner, free beer and wine, and they showed Nacho Libre. It was near midnight when we arrived and were met at the airport by our guides for the trip.


Our first glimpses of China were of the massive construction, done under floodlights, around the airport. Actually, the whole city is under construction in preparation for the 2008 Olympics. We got our room keys at the airport so when we got to the hotel we were able to go right up to our rooms.

I shared a room with Kristin Koptiuch (one of the Anthropology professors and someone I hadn't spent anytime with before, so that was cool). It was very nice and modern, but the beds were probably the hardest I've ever slept on. It was about like lying on a blanket on the floor. I didn't sleep that well, because I couldn't get comfortable. Before we turned out the lights we flipped through channels. There was a very weird movie on that went to commercial soon after we started watching. There were 15 minutes of commercials-- mostly for products we have in the US-- L'Oreal, Mabelline, Johnson & Johnson, Motorola.


Breakfast was at the hotel, a combination Western and Chinese buffet. Our group aside, almost everyone in the dining room was white, other Americans and Brits mostly. I think they were all on tours with the same company we were with. I ate Chinese style breakfast, dumplings, steamed buns, soup.

First stop was Tiananmen Square, the most impressive thing is it's vastness. Enough room for 1,000,000 people. The first site there was Mao's tomb, but our tour guide didn't want us to stop. Turns out we had to march down to the other end for a group photo op in front of Mao's portrait (the first of a few times our tour guides tried to sell us something). I would have rather seen Mao. Then we had 20 minutes to walk around Tiananmen. Everywhere you turned there was someone with postcards, little red books, Mao watches, "Gucci" bags, flags, kites-- trying to hustle you. It was like being spammed in person. I think most people bought something and some of the stuff was cool, but the persistence with which they persue you is exhausting. "Mao watch, Mao Watch, Lady, you like, Lady, Gucci bag, Gucci, bag, postcard, 9 postcard." AAYYYYAAYY!!! I thought I would have a more reverential feeling, but it was too chaotic and kitschy. The other thing that is hard to overcome is the thick smog. It burns your eyes and your throat and makes it so you can barely see from one end of the square to the other. It's incredibly smoggy in Hong Kong too.




Forbidden City was next, mostly under renovation. I didn't realize how huge it would be. I thought it was a palace they called a "city." But it's a city (without quotation marks). We walked almost non-stop for two hours and still didn't see everything. It was amazing, but by the end I was so tired, hungry and parched I could barely take another step.

Tuna salad sandwiches on the way to the Great Wall.




Now, the Great Wall, that was awesome. I really don't know how to describe it. It's as amazing as you imagine. Almost everyone from the group immediately started racing along the wall to the top of a nearby crest. This was a STEEP climb. I asked someone, "Is this the Great Wall that I'm standing on?" I thought maybe the wall somehow started further up FOR REAL. They said, "Yes, Great Wall." And I thought "To hell with the death march." I wandered around the village area near where we stopped and was, for the most part, completely alone. There were amazing views of the wall, and some really peaceful, interesting temples. It was a perfect experience. The group took about an hour and a half to climb to the crest and back down, and they stopped, red faced, at the bottom and bought an "I climbed the Great Wall" T-shirt, and then time to get back on the bus. I asked the climbers what was the best part about it, and none of them really said anything about the wall itself. I'm so glad I didn't do that.

After the wall we went back to Beijing and had Peking Duck Dinner, which was very delicious. Unlimited beer, seemingly limitless duck. I spilled a full glass of sherry on myself. Half the group went to an acrobat show after dinner, I went with the other half and went back to the hotel. All of the grown-ups went to a little outside bar right by our hotel. The beers were 5 yuan, about 40 cents and were probably about 20 oz. There were locals all around playing games and talking and smoking. Very friendly to us, and interested in us. There was a lot of smiling and offering things. We left around 9:00pm and went for a walk around the block. it was mostly normal big city stuff-- barber shops and restaurants-- but then we ducked down a side road into a hutong (traditional Chinese neighborhood). This was probably the best part of the trip. It was lots of friendly neighborhood people sitting outside, playing games, playing with their kids, playing with their pets, talking, eating. The streets are very narrow and the homes are packed in together, kind of ramshackle (but then some of these are hundreds of years old.) It wasn't impoverished or grim, at all though. People were dressed well, and clean and healthy. I can't say how friendly they were to us. They stared a lot, but then were staring some ourselves. We were greeted over and over sometimes with a "Hello!" Especially from the kids. It was a great experience. These hutong villages are disappearing. They're being torn down to build high rise apartments. Kristin told me they're building a lot of gated communities on the outskirts of Beijing filled with condos and tennis courts. I saw some billboards advertising them. They look like they could be on the outskirts of Charlottesville or Denver or Biloxi or anywhere. Very generic. I'm not saying I'd live in a hutong over a condo (no plumbing for one), but it's a shame that such intimate unique places are vanishing. If you don't go to Beijing soon you'll probably miss them. The government considers the residents squatter and can boot them at will. Casualties of the Olympics.

This morning, Sally Kristin, Stephanie and I got up at 4:40am to make it back to Tiananmen Square to see them raise the flag at dawn. The guidebook said this was a must-see. There were a gazillion people there, and we got to experience the Chinese sense of personal space (this was good practice for the airport). I don't know if I was being groped or not, there were so many people squished together. This was Tiananmen Square too, not a small space. We waited for 45 minutes and more and more people kept coming and squishing in and piling up and stacking on top. There were uniformed guards trying to make people sit down and scoot over mostly with no success. Then here's what happened, at sunrise around 30 soldiers marched out, put the flag on the pole, played the recorded anthem over loudspeakers, the marched back, then everyone dispersed. It was 2 minutes tops. It was quite moving, and also a little odd. In the ruckus of the dispersal there were a lot of people taking our pictures and saying "Hello!" "Hello!"

We wanted to try for Mao, but it didn't open until 8:30 and we had to be back at the hotel at 9:45 and we didn't want to spend our last hours standing in line. We decided to look for coffee and breakfast. There was a street vendor selling roasted sweet potatoes, and Kristing stopped to get one. A little while later she realized she didn't have her camera. The strap was on her wrist, but without the camera on the other end. It was pretty evident it had been cut, probably at the sweet potato place. She was so upset. One of the selling-postcards-in-the-square ladies tried to help her, but there wasn't much she could do except shoo away the other street spammers. We were all pretty upset, so we stopped for awhile and kind of regrouped.

Then we started walking back toward the hotel and found another hutong that we strolled through and found a dumpling place. They cook them out on the street but you go inside to eat them. I didn't have any, because my stomach felt a little weird. We got a bit lost, but not bad, and when we asked for directions we were quite close.

Steph and Sally were trip leaders so they went into the hotel to get ready, but Kristin and I walked a little farther and found a market. Produce and live fish mostly. But we bought some buns from a vendor and some treats for the students and walked back to the hotel.

Once we got to the airport it was total chaos. The airport probably wasn't bigger than Dulles but for a city of 15 million people. From immigration through security was one solid mass of people vaguely in lines. It took 9- minutes to get through security, we barely made our flight. Plus it was hot and people were shoving.

It was an Air China flight with a meal, 3 drink services, and a movie. The airport SUCKED but the flight was nice. I thought at first that the person in the seat in front of me stunk, but it turned I was smelling my own feet. At immigration in Hong Kong they give you delicious mints.

Just watched the light show of the Hong Kong skyline from the from the pool deck on the ship, and after I post this I'm going to bed.