Day Seven of Tour (Beijing - Tienanmen Square, The Forbidden City, and high speed rail back to Shanghai)

After a hurried breakfast, we headed out into the heat of the warmest day to date.  Oh, it was hot, and people looked it, as we watched the world go by during or van ride to Tainan’ men Square.  We stepped out of the van into the hot sunshine to join the hordes arranging themselves for official entry to the square and The Forbidden City.  The biggest square in the world (We were told space for 1 million to gather!) lived up to its status as such.  Everything within sight seemed super-sized, thus making one feel dwarfed and potentially easily lost.  We attempted to make a back-up plan in the event of such a catastrophe, saying to Lily. “How about we meet here if we get separated.”  She was having nothing of this contingency plan, though.  She was adamant about how, no matter what, it’d be impossible for us to reconnect, no matter how obvious a meeting spot we designated.  And she was insistent upon no other option than just paying attention and keeping together…along with the other quabillion people pushing their way to get a glimpse of this and that.  Awesome.  It was bright. It was hot.  It was huge.  It was crowded.  It was foreign.  Let’s just say that this leg of our tour was not the most relaxing.

Albeit a little stressful to do so, with Lily’s admonition, “Do not get lost” offering no shade to the blazing sun, we set about to try and take it all in:  The massive government buildings and museum flanking three sides of the square and, across a busy street, the entrance to The Forbidden City.  It was definitely a square that would have taken minutes to run across.  Not like the quaint New England squares, community commons, which size-wise now look like not much more than a large median.  But the line of flag poles with flags and the huge digital billboards in the center, projecting beautiful images of China, its people, countryside and animal life, broke up the open space into more manageable areas of focus.  There was also a lovely green space (for looking, not walking in or on) with highly quaffed shrubs and plantings.  We took it all in with a wary eye towards keeping our little group of five together.  Lily had neither one of those ever-present tour guide flags, the sort of little number on a tall thin poll that the extra cautious cyclists put on the back of bikes at home, nor did she have a quickly distinguishable umbrella.  Much like her tour commentary and leadership, it was rather nondescript, which made keeping track of her in the crowed all the more challenging.  Stopping for photos and lagging behind her as she, in a much more focused fashion than ourselves, made her way across the square, we scattered this way and that for a picture or video opportunity and then reconvened a few yards on, like birds. 

 

 

As we got closer to the street that runs in front of the Forbidden City, it became more crowded; people were trying to make their way into a pedestrian tunnel that went under the street (genius) and popped up in front of the Forbidden City.  So, we shuffled along with the mass of humanity, under the street and back up into the light.  Then we had the entrance corridor of the Forbidden City to navigate – another situation of narrowing the torrent of people down to a much smaller flow.  Oh, my, goodness, it was sooooo crowded.  Just a sea of colorful umbrellas and their owners.  We were back to belly as we avoided stepping on each others’ heels. 

The Forbidden City, which is these days not so forbidden, was a feast of ornamentation and excess.  The thrown room, bedrooms, and public spaces.  Huge cauldrons along the exterior walls that in ancient times were filled with water to douse the vulnerable wooden structures.  And then that scene in the movie The Last Emperor came to mind, as we stepped into the open expanse where it was filmed.  Dramatic, indeed.  The complex is huge, and we saw only a small part of it, for sure.  Certainly by design, despite the crushing hustle and bustle, around every corner there was something beautiful to take pause and appreciate.  After the tranquility of Guilin, the quiet grandeur of the Warriors, the oppressive heat and hustle in the Forbidden City made it much harder to appreciate; nonetheless, its ornate enormity didn’t fail to impress.

 

Gorgeous ceilings!

In the garden of the Forbidden City, there was an area where rocks had been piled upon each other to construct a high mound.  And on this mound a small and lovely structure had been constructed for the specific purpose of having a raised and secluded place in the garden for the concubines to have tea.  There were ancient trees and lovely rock formations, “rock bonsai.” But above all, there were people everywhere.

It was a relief, though, to head out of The City and on to what we hoped would be air-conditioning and food for lunch.  We exited through what felt, at least, like the back door, crossed a bridge over the moat, and took a pedestrian path along the waterway for a block or so.  It felt good to breathe.  Though not yet relieved from the heat, we were able to walk without worry of losing each other or bumping into a fellow tourist.  Looking to our right was the seeming tranquility of The Forbidden City, as one looked at the willow trees draping into the water and the wall surrounding it.  One would never know the crowds of tourists those walls were harboring.  To our left though, was the sidewalk proper and the street, and much to our stunned surprise, as we walked at a decent distance along the waterfront path, intermittently along the sidewalk sat many disabled adults. They were quiet, and so were we.  It was just really sad.  Their quiet requests for food and money were a stark contrast to the shiny tourist venue we’d just left.  Quite sobering.

We headed on to lunch, and when Lily found that the restaurant she’d planned on was limiting its parties to three due to renovations, she resorted to Plan B, which turned out to be an interesting restaurant, run by the same owner, but not nearly as lovely as the original one, with its park-view location and sunny interior.  Instead, we wound our way down some stairs and into the bowels of a building.  We passed room after dim room and came to another dim room where we ate very little and called it lunch.  No one was much pleased, but really, it was one of the only disappointing meals we’d had and not worth thinking twice about.  Now we just call it the “creepy basement lunch” with the squid and mystery meet.

Emerging onto the hot street, our next destination was a silk factory and then a Beijing train station where we were catching the fast train to Shanghai.  Our tour was wrapping up!  The silk factory was a good stop, as Nancy and Theresa hadn’t been with us when we’d gone to the lovely little one in Shanghai, but we were definitely in the know as we heard about the process once again.  We were excited about heading back to Shanghai and our familiar hotel and anticipating Part Two of our China adventure: teaching.  The train ride was also much anticipated.  We’d been in cars and vans, on a boat and a raft, on a sky lift and (one of us) toboggan, we’d dodged bikes and motorcycles, and taken a few domestic plane rides, but we’d yet to ride the train.  Our excitement was a bit dampened by the heat (again the heat!) of the train station.  Apparently, even though we had tickets with assigned seats, the order of the day was to queue up for boarding.  Lily made sure that we “got it:” that we understood we needed to head in through the gate with the crowd when the barrio opened, and then she left us (understandably) to stand there and wait and wait and stew in our own juices, sweat pooling at our feet, while the line behind us grew longer and the pressure to surge forward grew more intense.  Egads.

Finally, the barrier opened, and people did indeed press forward.  We had to scramble to stay together while trying to get on board.  We quickly learned what the big urgency was.  It wasn’t about seat assignment, given that was already a done deal, but instead was about securing a place for one’s luggage.  Well, we missed the boat on that and ended up with our bags literally underfoot for the duration of the four-hour train ride.  With our luggage crammed beneath us, we headed to Shanghai at an average speed of 300 km/hour.  What is that? Like 180 mph?  Well, pretty fast.  And China sped by outside our window.  It seemed that within minutes of leaving the station, not far out of Beijing, the air quality plummeted to disgusting toxic-looking gray.  It was weird how you just couldn’t see far out into the surreal scenery dotted intermittently with clusters of huge apartment complexes and smokestacks belching out smoke.  So far from the sunny skies of The Forbidden City.  This landscape truly did seem forbidding.  It was awful to think of living in that thick smog.  Blue sky reappeared off and on three hours into the ride, as we saw lots of agriculture – rice fields and those stretches of homogenous tree plantings:  row after row of the same tree, same size, sometimes with the bottom four feet of the trunk painted white (someone told us “for bugs,” but it still remains a bit of a mystery).  [On another note about trees, it was interesting that in Shanghai, as well as a few other cities we visited, there were often trees that were stabilized at their base or there was a lattice-work stabilization grid built around stands of bamboo.  This seemed very curious because the trees and bamboo were all mature enough to stand on their own.  We were told, though, that the supports were there to help keep the trees and bamboo standing in typhoons.  Oh!  That we understood, and are perfectly glad not be around to experience that kind of weather.]  We saw more smog, factories, rice fields, coal stacks, and high-rise apartment buildings and occasional individual farm houses before getting to the outskirts of Shanghai and then Shanghai (which goes on and on, like NYC or LA).

As we rolled into the train station, next to wondering if we’d ever be able to walk properly again after sitting with our legs propped up for hours on end, our other worry was food.  Tour over.  We were on our own for a meal for the first time in weeks.  Crazy!  And, it was 10:00 at night.  The ride from the station to the hotel was going to be another forty-five minutes.  We were hungry, tired, sticky and cramped.  It really was the first time we felt a little frayed - - a little desperate thinking about surviving on our stash of nuts and berries until morning.  Seems pathetic that a missed meal and finding a fresh supply of bottled water was weighing on us so, but one works up quite an appetite sweating puddles and then sitting for hours with one’s feet in the air.  We tried to think of Lily’s sage advice in terms of eating: Eat breakfast like an emperor, lunch like a commoner, and dinner like a beggar.

As we disembarked, we looked for whoever was going to be picking us up at the train station to get us to the Broadway Mansion hotel.  A young woman named Happy met us upon our arrival.  She’d never picked anyone up from the station before, and we spent a bit of time riding down and then up and then down again, escalators.  We eventually made it to the van and headed into town.  Charles and Gloria, the directors of our program, met us in the lobby, and they were a sight for tired eyes.  We couldn’t believe that we’d made it back to Shanghai and that our teaching stint would start soon!  With exhausted anticipation about the other teachers we’d be paired up with, sadness about separating from our travel companions of two weeks, Nancy and Theresa, and nervousness in wondering what our situation was going to be like in the city where we’d be teaching, we foraged in our suitcases for a snack, and went to bed.  The tour was over.  It had been spectacular.  Now, the work would begin.

Day Six of Tour, continued... (THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA!!)

The drive to the Great Wall was quite interesting.  First it was just the super congested city with lots of seemingly near misses - - Oh, how they live their lives on the edge!  Drivers so close to each other, motor bikes so close to buses and cars, and fearless pedestrians wading through the chaos.  [Side note:  the trick, as a pedestrian, it seems, besides being fearless, is to be steady.  Walk at a steady pace, because the moving vehicles are gaging their trajectories in trying to avoid hitting you by predicting your movements.  If you make any quick or unpredictable movements, though one may have the urge to dart across an intersection, it’s certain to throw someone off and get you hit.  Slow and steady stays alive.]  Gas powered motorbikes aren’t allowed in Beijing because of the smog they create, so it’s the bikes against the cars, electric bikes, trucks, and buses.  Also, we learned from Lily, there have been various attempts at curbing the traffic, like restricting cars with licenses ending with certain numbers on the streets on given days.  Turns out, the rich circumvent this by buying more than one car in order to have multiple license plates!  Anyway, nail-biting traffic with pedestrians taking their lives in their hands at every turn. 

At one point while we were stuck for a moment, waiting for a clot of cars to clear, we watched a little family drama play out:  A family was stuck in the median with a taxi that was obviously broken down, its hood up.  Three women, one holding a baby, and a young boy, all looked a bit forlorn.  Perhaps he was bored or just frustrated, but the young boy (maybe eight years old or so) whipped out his business and started peeing in the middle of the median.  He really had to go, because as he let it flow, he had time enough to slowly turn and seem to get as close as he could to peeing on the feet of the women folk in his company.  He was rewarded with a few swats on the behind for his mischievousness.  Yes, he just peed right there in the median in the middle of morning traffic.  [This was a good follow-up to the baby on the dragon boat whose mother HAD put him and his doughy dimpled bottom right there directly on the seat!] 

As with all of the cities we’ve been in so far, on the outskirts, there were lots of HUGE apartment complexes with banks and banks of GINORMOUS apartment high-rise buildings.  These complexes gave way to more lush areas dotted with lower buildings, and occasional plots of cultivated land, until we came to a vacation area near to the Wall: a beautiful area with lots of camping spots, small hotels, streams for fishing, orchards of fruit and nut trees.  Lily assured us that the only reason it was so quiet was because we were there in the middle of the week, otherwise it would have been packed with people.  Well, if I were Chinese, I’d go there to get out of the city, too.  One interesting, curious, and beautiful thing along the way were large tracts of land planted with a singular species of trees - - just willows all along a waterway, rows and rows of aspen-looking trees, others that looked like honey locusts, and then actual orchards.  It’s like the outer reaches of Beijing serves as the nursery for the entire city.  Kinda weird but totally beautiful.

Lunch was another opportunity to sit down at a table already set with food that we didn’t have to choose, in a lovely little roadside restaurant en route to the Wall.  Unanimously, we agreed this to be our best meal to date.  Our favorite dish? Kung pao chicken with plum sauce and cardamom.  We all thought we’d had kung pao chicken at home, but this version was on another plane.  Lily told us everything in our lunch was probably picked from gardens just that morning, and whether this was entirely true or not, it certainly tasted super fresh.

We wrapped up lunch and started making our way closer and closer to the section of the wall we were going to visit, catching glimpses of it here and there along the mountains in the distance…SOOOOOOO EXCITING!!  There are seven different sections of the Great Wall in Beijing.  Many people come to Beijing to see the wall because, since Beijing was so long the capital city, the wall was best maintained in this area.  The section of the wall that we visited and climbed is called the Mutianyu section.  It was amazingly scenic just driving up to it, and we became more and more excited as we approached. 

Our excitement was not unfounded.  We got out of the van in the parking lot and headed up a walkway lined with vendors, predictably, and into an official entrance.  (Having stopped to look at a little plastic Buddha in a stall, and having so excited the proprietor with my interest, I assured him that I would stop back by on my way out.  I so hoped that I hadn’t made a promise I couldn’t keep.)  

 

We were at the base of the mountain, and the wall is at the top.  Thankfully we didn’t have to climb to the top of the mountain to get to the wall.  Instead, there is a chair lift, like at a ski resort, which, at least at this section of the wall, takes you to the top of the mountain.  So, there we were, scooped up and feet dangling down over the valley, taking in the ultimate in a picturesque view, as we made our way, high in the sky, slowly to the top of the mountain.  We could look down and see the toboggan slide below us as we ascended.  That would be for later.  For now, it was all about the wall.  

We gathered, the five of us, with Lily as we got off the lift, and hammered out a game plan.  She pointed the way to accessing the wall - - down a path that was strewn with apricots fallen from a tree.  She told us that this was a good place for us to climb, and that we could go up and come back, and to be back at 4:30, so that we could ride the toboggan down the side of the mountain.  Then, we were left to our own devices and set off.  We made our way over the apricots and down the cobbled little access path, and then, at long last, we were standing on The Great Wall of China!!!!!  What!!??  Yes, we were totally excited!  And yes, it was totally amazing!  We were all beside ourselves, as none of us had ever imagined that we would some day stand on the Great Wall of China.  It was just something to look at in books and marvel at on the History Channel.  But there we were, with no authorship, narration, or dramatic background music, walking along the Wall.  We knew that it was big and wide (and to our understanding, we were not at one of the wider sections, but we were definitely struck by its steepness.  Given its rise and fall, there were as many, if not more, steps than flat walkway.  There were a lot of steps, which were of an irregular height at times, and very steep; one needed to lean in order to maintain balance.  We may have been giddy, but this was no place to frolic.  After we got over the steep steps, there was the realization that the Great Wall looked just like it had in the pictures we’d seen; big, impressive and imposing, and quite, well, “defensive.” And oh my, the views were dramatic at every stride and turn.  At every stopping point (as there was a fair amount of huffing and puffing involved) we oohed and ahhhed and marveled at the size, the scope, the labor, the history, the view, and again, the reality of us being there.

Yep, that's a canon aimed at approaching Mongols.

We made our way up and around a bend or two, past a couple of hardy vendors with water and a few wares to sell, and an occasional tourist or two.  Overall, our little stretch of wall was uninhabited, which was magical.  “Uninhabited” and “China” are not two words we combine very often these days.  But we could look out over that vast expanse of countryside and up and down the wall and imagine and feel like we were looking into the past. 

Pictures were taken and phone calls were made home (no matter that it was two in the morning in the U.S.) because how many chances does one get to say, “I’m talking to you while standing on the Great Wall of China?”  

DeAnn on the phone with her husband, Mike.

And then finally, we made our way to the “top” of that section of the wall, were there was a large fortification platform and room.  And it was here, at what seemed to be our Great Wall destination, which we fell to weeping in disbelief at our fortune of being able to see this day, the day we walked on the Great Wall of China.  As we three stood there, aghast, Nancy, a fourth teacher in our party, made her way through the arched doorway, and she was shedding tears, too.  We just had to crack up at this!  We were all such emotional messes; it was great!  We checked out the impressive view, looking back over the parts of the wall we could see that we’d traversed, and then out over the deep valley below.  It was spectacular, and we were snapping pictures galore and then just spending some time taking it all in.

This looks onto an overgrown section that is not open to tourists.

Soon after this, a group of college-aged young men began to enter the fortification room (for lack of a better description or knowledge of what the different parts of a fortification wall are called).  We had seen them along the way, as they had been running up the steps, and then stopping to laugh and talk (and catch their breath) and then run again.  They had made it up, victorious, and like us, were much excited and satisfied.  Unlike us, though, after catching their breath and gaining their bearings, they broke into song.  Oh.  My.  Gosh.  The rest of us in the fortification room fell into stunned and joyful silence, as it truly was a once-in-a-lifetime moment.  They had such great voices; it was obvious that they were a choir.  And as we tourists, from the US and Europe, all stood around together and listened to these young men experience their own memory of singing together on the Great Wall, we reveled in our gift of being able to bear witness, as well as share it.  We could not have planned a more moving experience in our visit to the Great Wall, even if we’d tried.

As we headed back down the Wall, we passed a photo-shoot of a lovely woman in a dramatic red dress, as well as another model in a traditional white wedding dress.  No telling what one will find on the Wall.  The walk back down was easier in some ways (as going down often is) but trickier, in that falling up is less potentially damaging than falling down.  

We finally arrived, not all together, but all safely, at the designated meeting spot in order to take the toboggan down the mountain.  DeAnn had the “thrilling” experience of riding down the mountain with the workers who maintain the slide both in front and in back of her, with the one behind her bumping her occasionally (like in bumper cars), nudging her to go faster.  Lisa and Linda ended up riding the sky lift down, rather than taking the toboggan, because the workers at the slide decided that there weren’t enough people going down to bother with keeping it open, so, on a whim, they decided to close early and shut us out, along with an irate Taiwanese family.  This unfortunate situation did not conclude without incident, as we’d been very much anticipating the novelty of tobogganing down the mountain.  The Taiwanese family’s dad and an unnamed American among us pitched a fit (maybe even had a most regretful tantrum).  It could have become an international incident…truly, with the Taiwanese dad shouting and the American teacher tantruming, but the toboggan workers were not budging, and we all had to get over it and ride the lift down…disgusted but trying to recover perspective, as the ride was just as lovely as it had been going up.

Quote of the day, or maybe of our stay so far in China, talking to our tour guide, Lily, after relaying to her the “toboggan incident” and how the workers wouldn’t abide by their posted closing time, and how they even seemed to be cavalier about the inconsistency: “If you wait for Chinese to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ you’ll be offended a lot.”  And this is a pushy place; a place where people freely cut in line, squeeze past breathing room into elevators, and speak in perceived raised and sharp voices more than might be expected.  Such incongruities to the religion of politeness, graciousness and saving face.  Such an amazing place…

An unexpected treat (given that Lily was not much on communication) after our visit to the Wall was going to a cloisonné factory.  We had heard of cloisonné, but did not know of the tedium involved in its production.  We got to see how a piece of work is created, first by attaching copper wire to the base (whether it’s a vase, bracelet or picture) and then how the wire outlines of whatever the design is, are filled in with enamel dust, then fired.  When fired, the glaze flattens out, leaving the wire edges still raised.  The spaces between the wires must be filled in again, then fired, and then refilled, up to eight times!  Um, tedious!  Super time consuming.  Once the areas between the wires have been almost completely filled in and the enamel is close to level with the wire, pieces are polished and buffed to perfection…ta-da!  It was all quite impressive and lovely.  And…of course there was a showroom for purchasing wares.  Best of all in the showroom, was the prominently displayed picture of Mao over the cashier’s counter.  His presence continues to be quite pervasive.

 

 

The cloisonné factory, hands down our favorite factory tour to date, was followed by a Peeking (Beijing) duck dinner – giant beers, a questionable beef appetizer, etc…  Then we were shown how to dip delicious tender duck with delectable crispy skin into a yummy duck sauce and then wrap the delight into a little buckwheat crepe-tortia-ish wrapper with maybe leeks or chives.  Yumm-eeeee.  Wow, what a way to end another amazing day in China.