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.
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| 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.
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