Thursday, November 17, 2005
DAY 73: China
Okay, so while we have the free internet at our hostel in Seoul, we may as well get you all up to date (so what if we've checked out already).
We had been pre-warned about possible communication issues in Beijing from Anthony and Laura, so we were equipped at the airport with directions to our hotel in Chinese. Beijing is very much a modern city, with many of the stores and restaurant chains you expect to find in the US. Our hotel was in prime location, on a pedestrian street surrounded by shops selling everything from stylish clothes to some of the most interesting food we've seen yet. (Judging by the sign on the stairs - "Night cat action need only pay for 2 hours" - other people liked our hotel as well). Our first night, we tried some of the local cuisine from the street stalls... who knows what most of it was. While we were adventurous, we did refrain from trying the starfish on a stick, scorpion on a stick, and multiple types of other skewered insects and sea creatures ("Was that really a seahorse???"). There were planty of tourists taking pictures, so I didn't feel too bad when I accidently let an "oh, gross" comment slip.
We spent our days in China seeing the sites (Tiannamen Square, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven and the Forbidden City) and happily chatting with local students. Our firt day, we met Lilly, an English/Art major who showed us her school's art exhibition, took us to a lunch of Peking duck, joined us for tea tasting and gave us some contacts for acrobatic and kung fu show tickets. We were excited to have made a friend, until day after day, we met more English/Art majors who wanted to sell us art, take us to buy Peking Duck from their favorite restaurant and sell us show tickets. From 10:00 AM to midnight, it seemed these art students were everywhere. And while we helped them practice their English, Meridith drew the line at buying only one piece of art work. I would have to say that much of our time in Beijing was spent shopping. We had two good 3-4 hour trips to the Silk Market where we picked up plenty of knock-offs and honed our bargaining skills even more.
For our last day in Beijing, we had planned for a doozie. We were going with a guide to a little-visited section of the Great Wall to do a day hike, followed by an acrobatics show. Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication in regards to pick up time (Meridith didn't read her own handwriting correctly) and the hotel conveniently told our guide that we were no longer staying there, and thus we missed the trip. Conveniently (note the sarcasm), the hotel's trip to to the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs was leaving in an hour, so we joined that to salvage the day.
To let you all know, in most Asian countries (in our experiences), when you join a tour, you inevitably make a stop at some type of store. In China, we had already been taken to pearl store (where we learned how to tell a fake pearl from a real one) and a silk "museum" (they showed us how the silk was produced from silk worm larvea, then tried to sell us $1000 bedsheets). On the Great Wall tour we were first taken to a jade store (again learning to determine a piece of jade's quality) and then taken to a traditional Chinese medicine clinic (I don't know what else to call it).
So imagine this: A man in a lab coats sits everyone down in a room and begins explaining how Eastern and Western medicine are different. "Western medicine works quickly but does not cure the ailment, while Eastern medicine works slowly but cures a person for life". We were told that Chinese doctors can determine the health of all of your organs by taking your pulse. Okay, "pretty interesting that this is what they believe" you think. Then the Chinese doctor says something about a checkup for free, but you have to pay for treatment (a little hard to understand when he has a thick Chinese accent, so you try to be more attentive to figure out the meaning of his words). All of a sudden, a door opens and in walk 6 "doctors" in white coats, asking if you want them to check your pulse. It was like something out of a prison movie. A little freaky, so we decided to just have faith that our pulse was beating, and would continue to do so without their help.
So in the afternoon, we made it to the Great Wall, stretching over 6,700 km. We hiked the touristy section for a few hours, got some decent pictures (we really did TRY to get some without a 100 people in it) and enjoyed the scenery. We scrambled back to our hotel and booked a different acrobatic show on our own. It was by far the best thing we did in Beijing. It was 90 minutes of pure exhiliration. It opened with two contortionist women balancing 6 trays of glasses while they switched from one impossible position to an even more ridiculous one. Then there were women juggling umbrellas with every limb of their body, 5 and 6 year olds who bent in amazing ways while holding up themselves and 3 other people with one arm, men jumping through raised hoops, juggling, and a finale of boys climbing and jumping between vertical poles. Needless to say, we clapped for 90 minutes straight and I spent the rest of the night reliving my own childhood gymnastics career, wishing I had been in the Cirque de'Soleil (this was very similar).
Beijing was a very pleasant city, where we both enjoyed the culture (Acrobatics were #1), the sights, and the comforts of a modern city (yes, we did eat at the Outback... and we loved it). Meridith, in keeping with the tradition set in the previous countries, began talking about moving there for a little while. A trip back to Beijing and to see more of China could be in the future...
We had been pre-warned about possible communication issues in Beijing from Anthony and Laura, so we were equipped at the airport with directions to our hotel in Chinese. Beijing is very much a modern city, with many of the stores and restaurant chains you expect to find in the US. Our hotel was in prime location, on a pedestrian street surrounded by shops selling everything from stylish clothes to some of the most interesting food we've seen yet. (Judging by the sign on the stairs - "Night cat action need only pay for 2 hours" - other people liked our hotel as well). Our first night, we tried some of the local cuisine from the street stalls... who knows what most of it was. While we were adventurous, we did refrain from trying the starfish on a stick, scorpion on a stick, and multiple types of other skewered insects and sea creatures ("Was that really a seahorse???"). There were planty of tourists taking pictures, so I didn't feel too bad when I accidently let an "oh, gross" comment slip.
We spent our days in China seeing the sites (Tiannamen Square, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven and the Forbidden City) and happily chatting with local students. Our firt day, we met Lilly, an English/Art major who showed us her school's art exhibition, took us to a lunch of Peking duck, joined us for tea tasting and gave us some contacts for acrobatic and kung fu show tickets. We were excited to have made a friend, until day after day, we met more English/Art majors who wanted to sell us art, take us to buy Peking Duck from their favorite restaurant and sell us show tickets. From 10:00 AM to midnight, it seemed these art students were everywhere. And while we helped them practice their English, Meridith drew the line at buying only one piece of art work. I would have to say that much of our time in Beijing was spent shopping. We had two good 3-4 hour trips to the Silk Market where we picked up plenty of knock-offs and honed our bargaining skills even more.
For our last day in Beijing, we had planned for a doozie. We were going with a guide to a little-visited section of the Great Wall to do a day hike, followed by an acrobatics show. Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication in regards to pick up time (Meridith didn't read her own handwriting correctly) and the hotel conveniently told our guide that we were no longer staying there, and thus we missed the trip. Conveniently (note the sarcasm), the hotel's trip to to the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs was leaving in an hour, so we joined that to salvage the day.
To let you all know, in most Asian countries (in our experiences), when you join a tour, you inevitably make a stop at some type of store. In China, we had already been taken to pearl store (where we learned how to tell a fake pearl from a real one) and a silk "museum" (they showed us how the silk was produced from silk worm larvea, then tried to sell us $1000 bedsheets). On the Great Wall tour we were first taken to a jade store (again learning to determine a piece of jade's quality) and then taken to a traditional Chinese medicine clinic (I don't know what else to call it).
So imagine this: A man in a lab coats sits everyone down in a room and begins explaining how Eastern and Western medicine are different. "Western medicine works quickly but does not cure the ailment, while Eastern medicine works slowly but cures a person for life". We were told that Chinese doctors can determine the health of all of your organs by taking your pulse. Okay, "pretty interesting that this is what they believe" you think. Then the Chinese doctor says something about a checkup for free, but you have to pay for treatment (a little hard to understand when he has a thick Chinese accent, so you try to be more attentive to figure out the meaning of his words). All of a sudden, a door opens and in walk 6 "doctors" in white coats, asking if you want them to check your pulse. It was like something out of a prison movie. A little freaky, so we decided to just have faith that our pulse was beating, and would continue to do so without their help.
So in the afternoon, we made it to the Great Wall, stretching over 6,700 km. We hiked the touristy section for a few hours, got some decent pictures (we really did TRY to get some without a 100 people in it) and enjoyed the scenery. We scrambled back to our hotel and booked a different acrobatic show on our own. It was by far the best thing we did in Beijing. It was 90 minutes of pure exhiliration. It opened with two contortionist women balancing 6 trays of glasses while they switched from one impossible position to an even more ridiculous one. Then there were women juggling umbrellas with every limb of their body, 5 and 6 year olds who bent in amazing ways while holding up themselves and 3 other people with one arm, men jumping through raised hoops, juggling, and a finale of boys climbing and jumping between vertical poles. Needless to say, we clapped for 90 minutes straight and I spent the rest of the night reliving my own childhood gymnastics career, wishing I had been in the Cirque de'Soleil (this was very similar).
Beijing was a very pleasant city, where we both enjoyed the culture (Acrobatics were #1), the sights, and the comforts of a modern city (yes, we did eat at the Outback... and we loved it). Meridith, in keeping with the tradition set in the previous countries, began talking about moving there for a little while. A trip back to Beijing and to see more of China could be in the future...
# posted by Mer and Les @ 6:03 PM 
