Beijing-aling

Aaaand of course last weekend we went to Beijing. Two days was no where near a reasonable amount of time to see anything but I'm looking at it as more of a sample for when I actually travel there sometime. Whenever that may be. We of course hit the major landmarks, Chang Cheng (the Great Wall), Tiananmen Square (our hotel was about 2 blocks away), the Forbidden City, the Winter Palace/Beihai Park, a hutong alleyway neighborhood, a billion temples, and of course the Olympic Stadium!! Our little group, aptly named "Team Lonely Planet" thanks to Eugene's guidebook, tried to cram in everything, which of course made me feel my age even more (I am so physically unfit, it's hilarious) but well worth it.

Some words on Beijing itself: You can definitely tell it's the capitol city. There are guards in long green coats and giant furry hats pigeon stepping everywhere. There are also security checks at every subway station. There are busloads of Chinese tour groups from all over the country swarming all over every landmark. Each with matching baseball caps (usually red) and led by a flag waving guide with a clip on mic. Beijing is very clean and downright immaculate compared to Shanghai. Probably because it doesn't rain. And they cracked down during the Olympics and the People's Congress meeting last weekend. But still it was really nice to actually see blue sky and birds.

Also the Beijing dialect is so much harder to understand. Full of "r"s. I don't think my nasal passage and mouth can even produce these sounds.

Oh and now I've officially lost my squatter virginity. While I'm not by any means an expert at peeing in a porcelain hole in the ground, I am well equipped with the ability to use the preferred style public toilet over here. Especially since the ONLY places in Beijing I found w/ a Western style toilet were our hotel and maybe 2 out of 40 portapotties at the Olympic Stadium. (On a side note, the Chinese don't really seem to be into diapers much either. All the little kids are running around with split pants for easy, uh, access. We even saw a little girl taking a dump on the steps of the Forbidden City Imperial Palace. Her parents frantically cleaned it up of course, but yeah, only here can you crap on the historic home of past emperors and yet get executed for smoking pot. Shweet.)

And the landmarks? Amazing!

Great Wall: The saying goes, 不到长成非好汉, "bu dao chang cheng fei hao han" or something like, "you're not a hero until you climb the Great Wall." So now we are heroes. Giant wall, tons of steps, epic view of the mountains bordering Inner Mongolia.

Tiananmen Square: 6:30am flag ceremony every day with guards and national anthem. Flat, enormous, and full of Chinese tourists. The Tiananmen gate sits at the north side with a huge full color photo of Mao Zedong. This guy is everywhere.

Lama Temple: Tibeten Buddhist temple. Not quite the type of Buddhism my family practices but it was still a nice spiritual experience. Though the idea of paying an entrance fee (even though reduced w/ the student ID) is kind of an odd concept for visiting a place of worship in my opinion.

Hou Hai: Night life area. Basically a bunch of tiny, flashy, Chinese pop song/Reggae/?? filled bars along the side of a lake. There are guys standing outside of every venue that harass you to come into their club. And each place blasts its music w/ outdoor speakers, usually a couple of skinny Chinese 20-somethings doing karaoke on stage. We ended up at a place with dim purple lighting and soft couches. A skinny guy with gelled hair and a chick who resembled those online "cartoon dollz" that were so popular back in the day sang a bunch of pop songs. And then it switched over to recordings including some Shania Twain and pretty much Shakira's entire 2nd album.

Forbidden City: Scary and PACKED. It's just pretty remarkable trying to imagine this whole imperial community living within these walls. Everything is imposing and extravagant. I wonder what it'd be like without the hordes of tourists.

Hutong: Another type of walled living area. Similar to the lilong houses I talked about before though more closed off and possibly a bit poorer. I felt a bit strange walking through and taking pictures though, there's always that ethical dilemma. I mean I'm not sure I'd be so keen on strangers traipsing through my backyard taking pictures of me and my laundry. But who knows? The one woman we met was very friendly, though she asked us why we wanted to see "such an awful place." How do you respond to something like that?

Olympic Stadium: Holy crap. I love the olympics, I don't know why, I just always have. I think it's something about the cooperation of it all, so many people from all parts of the world convening in one spot. I'd love to be in a city when one happens, you know London 2012 or something. Not even necessarily to see the games (though I wouldn't turn that down having the chance), but to experience the madness and this sense of equality/level playing field that comes with any major international event. We also got to see the WaterCube and Bird's Nest at night all lit up. Again, enormous, imposing, made to intimidate. And the walkway was this huge flat expanse which makes you feel even tinier. Unreal.

So in all, Beijing was pretty outstanding. Part Disney, part DC and all Chinese. I'll check it again one day.