Beijing Roots

The past few days I've been in Beijing, and since I was only there for such a short amount of time every day was packed and I didn't have the energy to blog at night, despite the wonderful ethernet cable in the hotel room. Since there's so much to cover I'll be more concise than usual.

We stayed in the Xidan district, a lively area in central Beijing, in a hotel generously arranged for us by Ponyo's aunt.

The train from SH to BJ was pretty excrutiating since it was a 13-hour overnight ride and we had seats, not beds, because we were late/cheap in booking tickets. So we sat, uncomfortable squished and awake for most of the night.

Saturday: Summer Palace, Badaling Great Wall, Wanfujing Night Market, Qianmen area explorations. The summer palace had a great collection of dynasty-era relics and other such Chinesey historical things making it a prime tourist ground. The Badaling portion of the Great Wall that we went to was the most famous, well-known to tourists which was good since the views were amazing and the wall was pretty well-kept (though it would have been so exciting to adventure through crumbling wall), but there were hoardes of people. Gross.

Summer palace featured this excessively long corridor, apparently the
longest in the world.Really exquisite, detailed, brightly colored
paintings on every single beam.

Empress Dowling's residence of some sort.
Chinese history is so complex :(

Old-school stone boat. Don't quite understand how it floats/moves.

Group of official somethings, smiling!

This is all carved out of one piece of jade. So cool.
I love the chain links.

One of the most ridiculously crowded lengths of Wall.

It snakes on FOREVER.

Oh hey.

Lots of wall. Determined to keep the Mongols/Huns out.

View from a guard tower. Sucks for you
if you try to sneak up on China.

The mountains and skyline are so beautiful!

 Soo. Obviously I took obscene amounts of pictures on the wall, but the best part was realizing that I had gone too far and that I didn't have enough time to go back to the cable car to ride back down to the parking lot. So I kept walking and eventually found a spot to get off the wall and trekked back up the mountain to meet up with the group. Vagrant-style adventuring is so fun!

I even passed a camel who was posing for pictures with people!

Bird's Nest and Water Cube from Beijing 2008 Olympics.

Wanfujing night market was packed, but so fun and I ate so many
little snacks for so cheap!
I think I spent around $3 USD for 5 various foods.

Starfish and scorpion kebabs. I opted for lamb instead.

Traditional gate to the night market street. Next to a giant billboard.

 Sunday: Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, central plaza including Mao's Mausoleum and a few national museums, then chilled at a bar and played dice until we were sufficiently relaxed, then ordered McDonald's at 3 am. 24 hour delivery in select Asian countries.

The skies were beautiful in Beijing. The whole city felt a lot more open and clean, but also more tightly controlled by the government, including a lot of military presence. Almost all of the lightposts had multiple cameras, and in national landmark areas there were guards standing under random umbrella shade every 20 steps or so. Intense. Also, I only recently realized how far north Beijing is. It's almost touching Mongolia. And even Shanghai is north of Taiwan. Yet another moment of geographical ignorance. No wonder it's so ridiculously hot/humid in Taiwan.

Mao's face enshrined at Tiananmen Square.

Back wall of the Forbidden City, from Tiananmen Square.

View of one hall from the one preceding. Not really sure how to do justice to
the magnificence and grand scale of this place through pictures.

Apparently the little dragons on the edges of the roofs are
indicative of the significance of the building.

A relatively teeny side courtyard. Please tell me why just a few royal
people needed so much space. It's slightly ridiculous to consider
how many civilians existed solely to serve the wishes of a
single emperor who was equally mortal.

And there was an Imperial Garden. This is technically in the
very front of the city but I apparently walked through it backwards.

A sculpture of the Peasant Rebellion in front of Mao's Mausoleum.

Unlimited government power --> individuals scrubbing the
sidewalk andsquiring solvent to peel off every piece of sticky
substance stuck to it--> really clean Beijing.

Another temple, in front of Qianmen.

Countless public signs commemorating the 90th year of
Communism in China, I think.

Qianmen entrance gate. It's really just a walkway of shops
and alleyways with food.

Steamed buns for you!

 Monday: Remembered over the weekend that my Grandma was born in Beijing, and while in Hawaii Alex mentioned that some of her sisters were still living there and if I had a chance I should go meet them. I felt really awkward about it at first since I barely knew these relatives existed, let alone how to approach them since I had never met them before. I've since decided that it would have been monumentally idiotic to not take the opportunity while I had it, and I'm soso happy to have been able to meet some of her sisters and their younger generations, parallel to me, and to hear about our family history and my grandma's childhood life in Beijing. One is 77 and one is 91 and there is one more, even older, who I was unable to meet since she lives farther away. Both were so lively and had such great energy. It was one of the most humbling, precious experiences of my life. These pictures will be for family consumption only.

Went out and walked around with my second cousin (I think) for awhile in the afternoon, and it was really interesting to see the things that a native Beijing-er showed me.

In front of the actual front gate to the Forbidden city. We went
to a fewparks just north of it which had other temples and
a stunning view of the Forbidden City.

In front of one of said temples. This particular park, Jingshan,
featured five increasingly big and increasingly ritzy temples,
all perfectly aligned across a mountain, the biggest of which
is aligned with the front gate of the Forbidden City.
That axis runs through Beijing and also centers the Temple of Heaven.
I look really plump since I had just finished eating when my
grandma's sister's family who fed me until I basically burst.
And then encouraged me to eat more.

View of Forbidden City and its expansiveness from a mountain.
Still can't fit the entire width in the frame.

I forgot the name of this. White _____. A Buddhist shrine with the
Buddha statue sealed inside for preservation purposes.

This panel had 9 dragons. We could only manage to get 7 in the picture.
It is huge. I look tiny.

 Luckily (again, huge appreciation for Ponyo's China connections) we were able to get a soft sleeper for the train ride back to SH. I have been slightly sick for the past few days with a runny nose and nighttime congestion that inhibits my breathing at night, so by Monday night I was pretty exhausted and passed out for 9 solid hours on the train. So good.

Today we explored the Bund, an area of SH featuring worldly architecture along the Yellow River. British, French, Russian, even Thai influence. Really cool to see, especially when it's all lit up at night and the Pearl Tower, Financial Center (bottle opener-shaped, tallest building in China), and other various tall buildings are illuminated on the opposite side of the river.

Pictures of the Bund to come in the next post.

In Shanghai until Monday, then flying to the tropical inferno/Taipei. Lots of family to visit, food to eat, and places to explore independently-- something I've never done in Taiwan. Excited for all of it, then it'll be time to go home! via Austin.

I Heart BJ

(Beijing)

Dan and I have been being super touristey in Shanghai-- visiting the Science and Technology Museum and Yuyuan Garden area last week and trying every possible boba. Last night we got on an overnight train along with Ponyo and arrived in Beijing this morning. We explored Xidan area, a fairly nice shopping area in close vicinity to Tianenmen Square, Forbidden City, Mao's Mausoleum, and other such Chinesey, touristey places.

Science and Tech Museum
It always surprises me how much random information I can recall from my childhood, especially when considering how little new material I've seemed to absorb since entering USC. Same with Chinese characters-- I'm pleasantly surprised.

Dan with his real camera. Cool building, like a mini, glass Epcot.

With the toothpaste-esque logo of the 2010 Shanghai Expo.

Their animal room was like a still from a Sahara scene.

Hyena with antelope leg.

Dan opposes gravity. The catch with going exploring with one other
person is all of the pictures of you end up on their camera, and
vice versa.

Tianzifang, adorable little hipster alleyway area.

Another adventure-- I think a spider bit me on the right hand and
for the past 2 days it's been swelling and hurting increasingly. I
think it's finally starting to calm down. Good work, liver and kidneys!

Monstrous mosquito bite on the back of my leg. Bugs here are
particularly aggressive/venomous. Bastards.

My hand swelled to Michelin-man proportions. Disgusting.
More incentive not to get fat.

Near Yuyuan Garden, an area known for traditional-style buildings,
historical remnants and lots of shopping opportunities.

So pretty!

Zigzag bridge, Lake pavilion.

They swim in circles!

Not sure why there are dog-like creatures on these rooftops. Also,
the clear blue sky is a rarity in SH. Perfect day for the garden.

It zigs and zags. Sky was clear enough to see the bottle opener and
other tower in Pudong in the background!

Dragon! Its body lines the top of the wall and it has a sphere in
its mouth. Not sure what that's representative of but I'm sure it's
interesting.

It was hot as hell and humid, so we were basically wet while we
walked around all day. Fresh kiwi juice and mung bean/condensed
milk shaved ice!!

English translations are horrid. Can't even begin to comprehend
what they're intending.

Riding a dragon turtle.

Foreign Pringles. SO COOL!

In the 10 yuan store, equivalent to about $1.5 USD. This cute little
revolver was actually a torch! Also, my thumb bends strangely.

Szechuan for dinner! This fish was cooked in chili oil. They scooped
out a whole bowl of chilis and numbing peppercorns so we could
actually see the fish.

Amazing! Sweet potato in caramelized sugar which was still melty, so
you stick it in the bowl of cold water to harden it before you eat!

After getting to BJ today Ponyo's aunt and cousin treated us to lunch-- super delicious and we were all so full. Quite a feat for me, Ponyo, and Dan to all be so full. The train ride itself was not the most pleasant. We'll likely splurge for more comfort and less creepy, dirty people on the return trip, but the hotel we're staying in is really nice and in a spectacular location.

Delicious steamed perch with garlic, chili, cilantro.

They yelled at me and chased me out for passing the yellow line
when trying to get a picture with the lion. Oops.

Guards at Tianenmen Square, illuminated at night. The bridge goes
through the square and toward the Forbidden City.
Makes it that much more appealing! We'll go sometime this weekend.

Mao-soleum.

Me and Ponyo representing SC in front of Tianenmen!

Tomorrow we're going on a tour to the Badaling section of the Great Wall and the summer palace, and then will come back to explore Xidan area in the daylight, making it to a street supposedly filled with small snacks by dusk for noms.