After arriving home from my travels up-north (that one was for all you Wisconsinites out there), I had the opportunity to be a tourist in my own town. A traveling companion from Yinchuan was staying in Beijing for a couple of days and I took that opportunity to join him on some of his wanderings around the capital city.
After getting to bed pretty late on Wednesday when we got back from Haerbin, we decided that it would be nice to sleep in a bit. However, that didn’t really happen. We ended up waking up fairly early and decided to make the most of it by going everywhere in Beijing. 🙂 He had not seen the city yet so I was sort of his tour guide. Not that he couldn’t have figured it out without me but it helped to have someone who knows the city a little. We began by visiting the site of the olympics. It was really fun to hang out with someone who was so laid back about things and didn’t mind what he accomplished during the day. He didn’t have any particular ‘goals’ to meet and this made the day relaxed and enjoyable!
I had not been there during the day yet, so it was fun to see the buildings in the sunlight!
After the olympics we decided to hit the electronics market. This is one of my least favorite places in China. There are way too many people and it gets really annoying when the vendors try to pull you (literally) into their booth to buy something. The only thing we were looking for was a cord to charge his DS. He needed one that would work in China. We found him the charger and then we were off to lunch with my dear friend Fiona. Lunch was at one of my favorite restaurants near the university where I teach. The company was great, the food was wonderful! It was just really nice. I coudn’t have asked for it to be better.
After lunch, Fiona left and the two of us found ourselves on the subway to the Forbidden City. We met his friend Zhai Li there and were going to meet a few other Meiguoren so that they could do a tour of the Forbidden City. They were pretty caught up in their shopping at the pearl market, so instead of touring the Forbidden City, the three of us wandered around Tian’anmen Square, took some pictures and journeyed to meet them at the pearl market. I think I like this market more than the other markets I’ve been to. It’s basically the same thing as the silk market but with more pearls and less silk. (I know that last statement seems really obvious, but if you ever come to visit, you’ll know what I mean.) Below are some of the photos from my wanderings around Tian’anmen Square:
Things I love about this photo: 1) Blue sky! 2) No people 3) Mao's mole 4) The abundance of open space
I had been to Tian’anmen before but it was on a much drearier day. I could not have asked for a more beautiful sky that day. It was still bitterly cold out, but I’ll take the blue sky!
Sites from the Square include:
Can you tell from which direction the sun was coming? This was taken on the same day as the previous one but facing southwest. This is Chairman Mao's mausoleum. Affectionately dubbed the 'Maosoleum' by many of my friends. 🙂 Inside you can view Mao's 'body'. I haven't had the desire to go in or the patience to wait in line.
This is facing directly west toward the Great Hall of the People. To my left is the Maosoleum, to my right is Tian'anmen, and behind me is the National Museum of China. It's handy having red as my favorite color. Many, many things are red in China.
I wonder why the flags don't have the stars on them.
This is the Monument to the People's Heroes. The reason I took the picture was because the sun was causing the text on the side of it to glimmer. It was really cool in person but very hard to capture in a photograph!
After the market we went to JingShanGongYuan 竟山公元 which is a little hill (they call it a mountain) in the middle of the city. From the top of this mountain you can see almost the whole city. It was dark by the time we got to the south gate but we thought that it would be pretty cool to see the city at night. The rest of the crew was excited to see the Forbidden City from above because they didn’t get to see it during the afternoon. I was just excited to see Beijing from up high! We got to the top (after only about five minutes of climbing) and realized that there were no lights in the Forbidden City. (We should have known this but none of us thought of it.) It was really easy to ‘see’ the Forbidden City because it was a giant black square among all of the city lights. I have a few not-so-great photos from on top of JingShan 竟山 that I will show you below:
Here is a view of the Forbidden City from Jingshan gongyuan. This was at about 7:00 pm. Yes that very large black area is the Forbidden City. Just for future reference, there aren't any lights. 🙂 In the background you can see the lights of the Great Hall of the People.
This is basically the same photo but taken with a much longer shutter. This is so you can see the egg-shaped building in the right of the background of the picture. This building is the Grand National Theater. I fully intend to take in a concert or two at that building! Forbidden City = still dark. Even with a long shutter.
After we climbed back down, we took a bus to the nearest subway station and took the subway to a popular foreigner restaurant for supper. After that, three of us decided to go have some chuar 串 at a favorite restaurant of mine. The chuar and the company were both awesome!
The next day was some more shopping and time with friends. We visited a scroll shop and I designed my very own scroll. It is a gift for someone but I won’t say who. 🙂 It was nice to have visitors to the city. I’m looking forward to the next round of visitors this coming weekend!
The past few days have also been wonderful. Friday after my guest left, two of my dear Chinese friends came over for some hanging-out/playing a game time. It was really fun just to visit with them and get to know them better. They were here until 1:30! We didn’t even realize that it got that late. Must have been all of the fun we were having. 🙂
This is my friend Peter. He was explaining to me why China is called the 'Middle Kingdom'. We were also practicing some Chinese. He was teaching me the characters for the colors and how to say them.
Saturday was spent relaxing around my apartment, editing photos, and updating my blog. Much needed doing-nothing time. 🙂 That night, I met my friend Kevin for supper and then he came over for a movie. We got about halfway through the movie and he said, ‘I think you are very tired.’ He was right. Then, being the gentleman that he is, he decided to leave so that I could go to bed. The next morning I went to the Haidian Chr**tian Church with three Chinese friends. It was interesting to listen to the speaker. After lunch they all wanted to come over to play a game! We taught Zhai Li how to play Phase 10 because the other two knew how to play already. The afternoon turned into the evening. That evening, my plan was to make ‘American’ food for my friend Ross. So I asked if the the three of them wanted to stick around. I made them pancakes and scrambled eggs. Not much, but semi-easy to do. The food turned out okay and my guests were gracious and said it was ‘hao chi.’ (delicious) The rest of the evening was spent munching on oranges and playing Catch Phrase, which is hilarious with four Chinese people!!
This is the church we went to on Sunday morning. After church, the four of us had a good chat about the service.
Hope you all had a refreshing weekend! HIS blessings to you all!
