Last Days in Beijing

Friday, May 28, 2010--Beijing   We took the metro around town today. The weather looked quite good. Our first stop was the Olympic grounds from 2008. Just as we arrived, however, thunder began. We had to sit under an awning for some time while the rain came down and finally stopped. Then the sun came out and we were able to see the Bird's Nest Stadium and the Water Cube. I had seen both of them from a distance when I had been here two years ago just before the Olympics. But this time, we were up close. Unfortunately, the moist and polluted skies made it difficult to get good photos. I have read that the stadium is cracking and falling apart. What we could see is that it is incredibly dirty from air pollution. The Cube is closed for remodeling. It will retain its swimming lanes, I think, but above there where the seating areas were, they are putting a shopping mall and large meeting/dining rooms.   With the sun out, we headed to our second stop--the Summer Palace. The sun had been out for some time, but thunderstorms began again, unfortunately, right after we arrived. We stayed and saw what we could. I had been to the Summer Palace two years ago, but I saw something this time that I didn't realize before. It is a recreation of Hangzhou in Beijing. Apparently the Emperor wanted his own West Lake with its island, its pagoda on a mountain in the distance, its causeway, etc. We spent 2 ½ hours there.   Our final stop was unsuccessful. We had looked up the address of the Sam's Club here in Beijing and had mapped it on Google. We went there, but there was no Sam's Club at that location or nearby. We don't know if the store has closed or if Google maps was just completely wrong.   Saturday, May 28, 2010--Beijing   This is the last day for Wes and me to be together. I take a 30-hour bus trip to Inner Mongolia starting tomorrow morning, and he flies out to Chicago tomorrow afternoon. The sun was out, so we headed to the Temple of Heaven Park. It was full of people--bands playing, people dancing, people singing, women making swirls with streamers on sticks, people playing cards, etc.   We toured the Temple of Heaven which is a symbol for Beijing. It's a beautiful round building with 3 floors built with no concrete and no nails. Then we toured other buildings on the park grounds and flower gardens. After that, we just sat and listened the nice music being played. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at Beijing North Train Station so I could see how to get there tomorrow. I also bought a train ticket I will need for next week.   To celebrate the end of our travels together, we got a Dairy Queen Blizzard this afternoon. We have been dieting, so it was nice to have a treat. Then we walked and explored the shopping street near our hotel.   Notes: The computer cursor is skipping all over the screen. I hope this posting is accurate. I will be posting from cyber cafes now for the rest of my trip, so postings may not be as regular as they have been so far.

Off to Beijing

Tuesday, May 25, 2010--Qufu to Beijing   Our bus for Beijing wasn't departing until 11:20, so we had time to get up slowly and get to the station. We walked (1 hour) to get there and still got there about 50 minutes early. However, that was exercise we needed, since we would be sitting for 7+ hours on the bus.   What a disappointment when the bus arrived. Before this, our transportation has not been bad. This bus, however, was VERY bad. We had to sit in the next-to-the-last row. The seat backs were broken so that they were permanantly reclined. Also, the broken seats, along with the bad suspension, meant that every bump we hit sent our seats and seatbacks bucking. The bottom of the overhead storage compartment (with the a/c vents and lights) across the aisle from us was taped in place. A short distance down the highway when we hit a rough spot, the same portion of the overhead unit fell into the lap of a woman in the row in front of us and sent her into a fit of yelling at the driver and trying to figure out what to do with the wiring that was hanging down in front of her face! Fortunately, we were on expressways most of the way, so the trip was not as bouncy, meaning not as uncomfortable, as it could have been. At first, we had been worried that we both might be sick from all the bucking going on. That bus cannot be long for the road. We were so happy to arrive in Beijing without it falling apart.   The bus arrived at a station on the west side of town. Fortunately, I could figure out where it was on the map even though the station itself was not marked on it. We were near the Beijing West Train Station, so we went there to make one more effort to see if we could get a refund for the train tickets we had bought and could not use. The train still had not departed for the trip to Beijing, so we thought it might be worth the effort to try. However, they said the refund could be obtained only from the departure station. Therefore, we gave up for good and saved the tickets as souvenirs.   We are staying at the Oriental Peace Hotel in the Wangfujing area of Beijing. It's the same hotel where I stayed two years ago when I was here. From the West Train Station, it was easy to walk to the metro line and take the subway straight to here. And I remembered exactly how to get to the hotel even though it is on a small alley and has no western letters showing its name. Then we had a pleasant surprise. Although we had reserved the room through a website we have been using, the desk gave us the room at a cheaper price.   It was 21:00 by the time we were settled in the room, and we were hungry. We just went to a small place across the alley to eat. They had some cold vegetables. We picked out two kinds--one that was green and a bit rubbery and another that was either strips of melon or cucumber that had been pickled. We also got a large bowl of egg drop soup which we flavored with a vinegar-flavored soy sauce and thoroughly enjoyed.   Wednesday, May 26, 2010--Beijing   With the sun shining brightly, we decided to spend the day going to the Forbidden City. We stopped near the hotel to have a quick snack breakfast of an egg pancake wrapped around bean sprouts and seasoned with a spicy sauce.   We walked to the Forbidden City, since it is only one metro stop away. There were huge crowds. But the place is so big that it still was not bad. After the first couple of courtyards that are a gauntlet due to people trying to sell goods or services, we got our tickets and were within the area where we could enjoy the architecture and exhibits. We spent a total of 6 hours touring it. I had been there two years ago and had seen the major buildings, but I had lost all my photos because of my camera later being stolen. We took photos and followed the crowds to each major building. We also explored many side areas including the Treasury which I had missed on my previous visit. It's a fascinating place with large courtyards and massive-size buildings. The roofs are ornate with tiles, carvings, and multiple layers. And, of course, the main entrance has the famous and large portait of Mao overhead.   When we left the Forbidden City, we were exhausted, but there were two other places I wanted to explore before heading back to the room. First, was Tiananman Square which is directly across the street from the Forbidden City. It's not a square that impresses me, but it is so famous that it needs to be seen. Since the demonstrations a few years ago, it is constantly monitored by the military. We even had to go through security to enter the square. Once inside, there is not much to it. There are no trees, no benches, etc. There are just people milling around in a huge paved area and occasionally just sitting down on the pavement. There is a new addition since I was here two years ago--a long electronic screen showing films of various scenes in China.   We headed further south from the square, past the large gates at the end of it into an urban renewal project which was still underconstruction when I was here before. Previously, it was a local area with homes and neighborhood shops and restaurants. My guidebook identified it as a wonderful area for finding small, inexpensive restaurants. But the government clearned out a wide swath through the neighborhood and built a totally new shopping district in old-style architecture. They took away the streetcar that used to be there, but left the tracks through the area. The closest thing I can compare it to now is La Cantera Mall in San Antonio which is an open air mall full of the typical international shops. Fortunately, however, just behind the western side of the mall street is still a street lined with local shops and restaurants. We walked back through it and found it far more interesting to see. And there are still many nice, small restaurants in that area.   Being so tired, we stopped at a supermarket on the way back to the hotel and bought some food to bring to the room. Then we stayed inside the rest of the night.   Thursday, May 27, 2010--Beijing   Knowing that the crowds can be almost impossible on the weekends, we decided to go visit the Great Wall of China today. We followed the easy route which is the one I had followed two years ago. We took the metro to a local bus stop and caught the 919 bus to the Badaling viewing site.   The weather was cloudy and as we left the hotel, there was an occasional feel of a sprinkle. We bought a very garlicy pastry at the metro entrance. Travel went well with every connection working fine. When we got to Badaling, we could still feel an occasional sprinkle, but there was no rain.   We took the route to the left when we climbed the wall. Most tourists go to the right, and that area is just too crowded. To the left is much less crowded because it is much more steep! For us, however, it was just good exercise. We climbed and climbed, stopping to catch our breath and to take photos. Even this route was more crowded that it was when I was here before. I had thought maybe the cloudy day with the threat of rain would keep the number of visitors down, but that didn't seem to be the case. As we hiked, we even passed an official delegation from India who were been escorted by soldiers, since this is the part of the wall where government leaders are traditionally taken. Wes and I joked that Hilliary and Timothy (Geithner?) were probably at the same spot earlier this week when they were here for negotiations.   We hiked as far as we were allowed to go. Then we turned around and returned. We passed a German man who was playing polkas on his accordion. It was so nice. We guessed that he may have a goal of trying to take his accordion and play it at many significant places in the world--the top of the Empire State Building, at the Grand Canyon, at the Christ statue in Rio de Janeiro, etc. Whatever his reasoning, it was a pleasure for all of us who were listening. On the way back down the wall, the rain began as a light drizzle. We walked a way on the other part of the wall, but the rain and the crowds made us decide it wasn't worth the effort. Instead, we toured the Wall Museum which had some interesting exhibits about its construction, the state of various parts after all these years, photos of famous visitors, etc.   There was a crowd waiting for the bus in the light rain when we got to the bus stop. When the bus came, there was no queue at all. It was all-for-oneself as people pushed and shoved. Wes got on ahead of me and got a seat. I had to start the trip standing. Then something happened to me for the first time in my life, I think. There were two young Indonesian men on the bus who had been on our bus going up there. One of them got out of his seat and insisted that I take it. I presume he did this because of thinking that I am elderly and should be given a seat. Of course, I probably went up the Wall as fast or faster than anyone else with no problems. But he insisted, so I took the seat. Fortunately, some people left the bus after about 15 minutes and he got a seat again.   Only one of the two Indonesians could speak English, but he and I visited for quite a while on the way back to town on the bus. He has been to Houston, because he used to work for a multi-national company dealing with biomass which has major offices in Houston. Now he and his friend both work for an Indonesian company that mines gold. I teased him about not wearing any gold jewelry and asked why the company didn't give gold rings as bonuses! He asked me about Turkey, because it is a place he wants to visit on a future vacation.   The outing took all day. Since it was still drizzling and already 16:30 when we got back to our neighborhood, we decided to explore the next-door Oriental Plaza Mall. We checked out the food courts to see what we might want to eat there, then we walked up and down the mall seeing what shops were inside. The only one we entered was the Sony shop. They had a 3-D TV set up, so we took a seat, put on the glasses, and watched a beautiful film of the sea with colorful fish. Soon, some Middle Easterners gathered behind us, and I figured they were likely to be possible buyers. Therefore, we left so they could check out the TV for themselves.   We are staying inside today. Wes is reading the guidebooks to see what he wants to do for the next two days which are his last ones here before returning home to Corpus Christi.

Leaving the Rain

Sunday, May 23, 2010--Nanjing to Qufu   It was still raining in Nanjing as we left for the bus station. Fortunately, we are traveling northward 7 hours today to an area where there should be sunshine.   It was a long bus trip, but we were in the front 2 seats giving us a good view of the route. We followed it on my map and could tell how we were progressing toward our destination of Qufu, the home of Confucius.   The bus dropped us off at the highway exit rather than bringing us into town. Others had also been life off at similar locations. According to the signs, it was 5 km (3 miles) into town. Since we had been sitting all day and the weather was good, we decided to walk. Of course, that caused lots of attention from people we passed on the way.   The Queli Hotel where we are staying is inside the old walled city of Qufu. The hotel is built in the old style. It is a 4-star hotel and is quite different from the style (low rise versas high rise) of the hotels where we have been staying and looks a lot like an old temple. One nice thing: the carpeting is clean! And the air conditioner seems to work better than the ones in other hotels where we have stayed.   The walled city of Qufu is a bit of a dissapointment to me. I hoped it would be filled with quaint buildings and would have limited traffic inside it. Unfortunately, neither is the case. The stores inside the walls look quite modern. And there is the same traffic inside the walls that there is everywhere else--traffic with no respect for pedestrians.   We wandered the streets for a while after dark, but we were tired and went to the room. Tomorrow will be our day of exploration.   Monday, May 24, 2010--Qufu   Last night, we realized we had a travel problem. Earlier, we had already decided that we needed to go straight to Beijing from here because the schedules would not give us time to see what we wanted to see at the stop we had planned. We canceled a hotel reservation two days ago. But last night, we realized we had made a mistake in buying a ticket to get us from here to Beijing.   Names in China are very similar. And it is very important to be able to try to show the names of towns in Chinese characters when planning travel. Unfortunately, the nearby town for the local train station is named Nanzhou and is not a large town meaning that it is not well known. Our guidebook did not have it spelled in Chinese characters for us to show when we bought our tickets to get from here to Beijing. While checking our tickets last night, we realized that we did not have tickets from Nanzhou to Beijing but from Nangzhou. They sound very similar. Unfortunately, Nangzhou is 7 hours south of here, whereas Berlin is 7 hours north of here. It is too much effort to go back there and use the tickets, so we spent this morning working on new plans.   Unfortunately, no one here in Qufu speaks much English. Most can only use a few phrases that match their jobs. No one in the hotel could understand our problem. We headed to the tourist office hoping for someone who spoke more English. One lady did, but it wasn't signifigantly more. I was only able to get her to understand that we wanted to know if we could get our money back for the wrong tickets by first showing her the exchange of 2 fives for 1 ten in the local currency and then trying to show an exchange of the tickets for money. She called the local station, and they told her we would have to go back to Nangzhou (the beginning station for the ticket) to get a refund. That's when we realized we just needed to accept the tickets as a loss.   From there, we went to the bus station to check on schedules to Beijing from here. We had decided to go by bus because the only train from here to Berlin leaves at 7:00 a.m. making it a horrible day of getting up extra early to get ready, check out of the hotel, and travel the 15-20 km (9-12 miles) to get to the train station in plenty of time before departure. Unfortunately, the bus station was not where it had been when my guidebook was written. It had moved to the edge of town, so we had to walk 4-5 km (2.5-3 miles) to get there. However, we were able to get tickets for a bus that wouldn't leave until 11:30 tomorrow morning.   After that, it was necessary to consider that our Beijing hotel reservation does not start until the 26th, yet our travel plans will now get us there on the 25th. I tried to go online to write the website to add another night. Unfortunately, there was no Internet connection, so we had to report the problem to the hotel front desk and hope that writing them later in the day would still work.   Our main reason for coming to Qufu was that it is the home of Confucius with a temple, an area of housing for his relatives, and a cemetery where he and his relatives are buried. With our travel planning out of the way, we went out to tour these sights.   The temple is large with different partitions which are passed via gates as one progresses through it. It includes many special tributes to Confucius by various former Chinese rulers. The Confucius Mansions is a huge compound where the descendents of Confusius lived and welcomed guests including emporers and kings. We could see into the houses to see how they were furnished. The cemetery is in a large wooded area and is the largest family cemetery in the world. We walked around it seeing some of the more elaborate tombs. Those often had statues of cats, rams, and horses in front of them. Finally, at the end of the cemetery tour we saw the tomb of Conufcius himself.   We were very tired after all the walking of the day. Probably we have walked more than on any other day of our travels so far.   I finished reading Shanghai Girls by Lisa Lee today. I was grreatly disappointed with the book. The first half was wonderful. But the second half rushed and had implausible aspects to it. I gave it 3 stars out of 4, an average of what I gave the first half (4 stars) and the second half (only 2 stars).

Return of the Rain

Friday, May 21, 2010--Nanjing   We were slow getting up.  The hotel doesn't include breakfast, and the room is quiet and comfortable.  Wes' only complaint is about the hardness of the beds.  All our hotels have had hard beds.   The sun was out, so we dressed in shorts and headed for the Musuem of the Nanjing Massacre.  It's on the edge of town where a gate used to exist--a gate where bones of persons who were killed in the massacre were found.  The museum is a huge complex that tells the story in detail about the loss of 300,000 lives and the rape of 20,000 women when the Japanese invaded in 1937.  We spent over two hours seeing the exhibits and reading about the atrocities and the later conviction of the leaders.    When we came out of the museum, it was raining.  We hadn't expected it at all and didn't even have our umbrellas with us.  We sat in a protected area for 30 minutes or so, but the rain just got harder.  Eventually, we decided to walk the two blocks to a major street that would have a bus stop.  We were completely soaked by the time we got there.  But a nice lady helped us find the best bus to get us near our hotel from there.   Because of the bad weather, we just stayed the rest of the day in the room and watched TV.  We have a movie channel that shows American films in English along with a Chinese channel that has news in English.  We watched both of those.   Saturday, May 22, 2010--Nanjing   We had hoped the rain would be gone today so we could go to the park to see some of the historical sights here and visit the botanical gardens.  Unfortunately, it was still raining and was cold.  When I was in China in May before, it was hot.  But this year we have had mostly cool days.    We left the room to go to some of the nearby malls to spend some time looking around and being among people.  About two hours later, we returned to the room.  The rain continued.  We watched more films on TV.    By late afternoon, it was dry outside.  We walked to Nanjing Normal University and explored the neighborhoods around it.  We got back to the hotel just as it began to sprinkle again.    We leave to go further north tomorrow, so we will probably escape the rain again.  We will be going to an old walled city called Qufu.

Escaping the Rain

Tuesday, May 18, 2010--Tunxi to Nanjing   It rained all night with thunder being added in the morning.  It was definitely a good idea to plan to head northward rather than go southward and try to climb Huangshan.   We needed to be at the train station early, so I went downstairs to check out while Wes did final things in the hotel room.  They called upstairs to have the maid check the room to see that we had not taken anything.  The maid walked in on Wes sitting on the toilet!  She returned to the hall and waited for him to exit the room.   We took a taxi to the train station since it was raining and our time was short.  I knew that taxis are reasonable here in China; I had taken them a couple of times on previous trips.  It cost only a little more than a dollar to pay for the taxi for a trip that had taken us 70 minutes to walk when we went to buy our tickets.   The train trip took 7 hours.  People around us were curious about us and eventually became friendly with us.  Some spoke a little English.  Almost everyone in China is a fan of the NBA and wants to talk about basketball.  When I tell them I am from San Antonio they usually know immediately that it is the home of the Spurs.  One of the young men who talked to us at first was very excited and could name all the teams in Texas.  His favorite is the Houston Rockets because of Yao Ming playing for them.   One young man eventually moved to our seat and talked to us for the rest of the trip.  He spoke English well.  His mother is a doctor and his father is a teacher, so they greatly emphasized getting a good education.  He is a marketing manager for a Chinese firm that sells only inside China, and he travels for weeks at a time.  He was making a stop tonight in his hometown to have a short dinner with friends, then he was departing for a 36-hour train trip to western China.  But he was happy with his work and expressed plans to establish his own business someday.    When we decided to come to Nanjing two days earlier than planned, we also decided to get a hotel in a different part of town for those days than the one where we already held a reservation.  The hotel we chose was northward and not too far from the train station.  We had no problem finding it.  It is more basic (only 3 stars) than most of the places where we have stayed.  The main difference is that the room is a bit smaller.  It will be fine for 2 nights.   After settling into the room, we went out looking for a restaurant and settled on a place in the neighborhood.  They had photos of dishes on the wall, so we studied it.  Wes picked out a dish that looked like slices of beef with peppers in a sauce.  I picked out one that looked like mushrooms in a similar sauce with peppers.  When the dishes arrived, they looked like the photos, but they were not what we expected.  The "beef" dish probably was beef, but it was beef liver slices.  The "mushrooms" proved not be be vegetables at all but to be pieces of pigtail in a sauce.  We ate up anyway, but we were a bit disappointed.  Wes was ready to return to having instant noodles in the room after that.   Wednesday, May 19, 2010--Nanjing   For the first time since arriving in China we had no breakfast this morning.  Breakfasts are fairly common with rooms in most places, but Nanjing is a city in which none of the hotels at our reservations site were offering breakfasts with their rates.  That's fine, however, for there are many places to grab small, quick bites from street vendors.  We eventually stopped at one and had two steamed buns each--one flavored with green onions and the other one filled with chopped vegetables and tofu.   We walked for 6 hours exploring the area.  We wandered through Xuanwu Park which is between our hotel and the train station.  We found a compound which apparently houses officials of the Communist Party.  We explored a market near there with nice fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, etc.  We found a street lined for blocks with computer stores and went inside one and visited with a salesman who was interested to know what Wes had paid for his Acer netbook in the U.S. (the equivalent of 2100 yuan versus the 2500 yuan price in the store).  We located the hotel where we will go tomorrow when we check out of the present one.  We rested in a beautiful pocket park and watched people.  Etc.   Unfortunately, the computer won't work in the hotel where we are.  I diagnosed the problem:  the wall outlet where the broadband cable connects was defective.  The cable would not go far enough into it to click into place and make the connection.  I reported it to the front desk, but when we returned in the afternoon, it was the same except that a different cable was there that also would not click into the outlet.   In the evening, we went back out to the bus station we had seen north of where we were staying.  We bought tickets for the trip to our next destination for May 23 when we will depart here.    Thursday, May 20, 2010--Nanjing   While we were getting ready this morning to depart from our hotel, a repairman came to the room to fix the computer connection.  Just as I had diagnosed, he needed to change the wall outlet.  He had it repaired and working as we wheeled our bags out of the room to checkout.   Our new hotel is straight downt he street from the old one.  We could have taken the metro, but we worried about it being awkward with our luggage.  Instead we just walked it.  The Zhongshan is a much nicer place than where we were staying before.  It has 4 stars.  But it still suffers from a problem that seems to be rather common in Chinese hotels--dirty carpeting.  I don't know if they vacuum or not, but they definitely never shampoo the carpeting in hotels in this country.    Today was hot.  We went exploring to the southern part of the city.  We saw the Presidential Palace, the Fuxi Temple (Confucian), the new modern Nanjing Library, and the Zhonghua Gate.  Nothing was very spectacular.  I had always heard that Nanjing is a nice city.  And it is a pretty city with beautifully manicured and tree-lined boulevards.  But the sights seem to be limited so far.   Because of the heat, we stopped both at Carrefours and at Wal-mart while we were out walking to buy cold diet colas to refresh us.  For lunch, we stopped at a street vendor to have a snack that we have learned to like.  It consists of a thin, crispy pancake (like an Indian dosa has) that is spread with a beaten egg and two sauces (including a spicy one), topped with sesame seeds and chopped onion and green vegetables, and wrapped with thin pieces of crispy pork skin placed inside.  It is delicious and an easy snack to eat out of the hands while walking.   While out, Wes commented about his nose getting a workout on this trip.  Like most of Asia, China has bad smells in the air often--either from the unusual flavorings of its foods, from the products used at the construction sites which are everywhere, or from the fact that the sewage system is not top-of-the-line.  I've learned just to accept these bad odors, but I do sometimes lose my appetite because of them.    My biggest problem here in Nanjing has been the particles in the air.  I keep getting them in my eyes.  They can really irritate and can be very difficult to get out of the eye.