China Highlights

I'm back from my China trip now, and the jetlag's starting to kick in. I'm perfectly fine right until about 2PM (coincidentally not too long after lunch) when I have the sudden urge to crash. The fatigue, combined with my contact wearing and staring at a computer all day long, turned my eyes completely bloodshot to the point of compelling me to find some eye drops. So a little after lunch, I sleepily wandered the streets of Soho looking a little stoned and frustrated that there were no drugstores anywhere nearby. The best I could do was to find some Visine at a general store down the street. Definitely not the best solution for someone who wears contacts.

But anyway, to summarize the rest of my China trip, we left Beijing after visiting the Temple of Heaven and flew out to Xian, a former Chinese capital a long time ago. The major site there were the terra cotta soldiers, an army made of terra cotta clay that an Emperor built for his future burial. The grave was ransacked and burned during a peasant uprising not too long after the Emperor died, but remained undiscovered after that until the 1970s when a farmer digging a well stumbled upon the terra cotta soldiers buried underground. Archaelogists had to reconstruct and re-assemble most of these since they were in pieces after the grave had been looted. The site was vast and pretty amazing. Dinner that night was at a local dumpling house where we sampled 18 different types of dumplings among other things. As the dumplings were mostly skin with an undetectable filling, the Boy and I weren't too impressed. We'd had better dumplings at Dim Sum GoGo in New York, dumpling houses in LA, and a dumpling house in San Jose. It was apparent that the Boy and I had been spoiled living in cities with some of the best Chinese food in America, as other tour-goers (all Chinese Americans) remarked that the dumplings were marvelous, especially since there are only two types of dumplings served in the US - shumai and hargow.

Later that night, the Boy and I ventured out in search of the nightlife. Our hotel was about a 10 minute walk right outside of the city wall. Inside the city wall, we found a bustling night market with stands selling dried fruit, packaged Chinese snacks, combs made of some type of bone material, and other souvenir-type items. Lined on either side of the street were vendors selling skewered meats, eight treasures rice pudding on a stick, mochi, and fried Chinese pancakes filled with chives and pork. As we were still full of dumplings dumpling skins, we could only sample a stick of rice pudding and take bites of a chive and pork filled pancake. What caught my eyes were the different types of Chinese people in Xian. Since this is a Muslim region of China, I saw Chinese women with headscarves and Uigher Chinese children with light brown hair and green eyes.

After wandering through most of the night market, we crossed the city wall back to our hotel and found a huge festival-like gathering lit up by red paper lanterns with locals dancing to the beat of drums or singing in groups. The Boy and I nearly got killed trying to cross the street to see this. As there are no traffic lights to control cars and pedestrians, crossing the street in Xian is a lot like playing the old computer game "Frogger" where you're now the frog.

For the rest of the time, we flew out to Hangzhou, Souzhou and Wuxi where we visited a tea plantation, bought lots of "emperor" grade dragon well tea, visited a silk factory, pearl factory and another jade factory, visited some temples and gardens and saw the beautiful West Lake.

We spent our last day in Shanghai where we toured around the Bund and shopped at the Bazaar and on Nanjing Road. The shopping was great for me out in Shanghai. I got two dresses, a coat, and two nice tops all for less than $150!

Sightseeing in Beijing Part II

The next day we had to wake up earlier and leave for our tour at 8AM to beat the Monday morning traffic. Supposedly, we were only going 20 miles away to see the Ming tombs, and it would take almost 2 hours to arrive.

We didn't find the tombs all that interesting. It was all just a bunch of cement underground and a bunch of gigantic red coffins with a Ming emperor's remains, his empress, his favorite concubine and a bunch of red chests holding jewelry and other items to take into the afterlife. Before lunch, we stopped at a cloisonne factory where we saw how enamel art was made. The Boy and I each bought a pair of chopsticks made of ox-bone and decorated with cloisonne art.

The highlight of the day was climbing the Great Wall which was pretty amazing. We hiked through the less traveled South side for a little while and then turned back to see why the North side was so crowded with tourists. We liked the South side better because the views were unobstructed with a gazillion people in your way, and it was more peaceful. The North side may have been a bit of an easier climb, but there were just too many people. All along the Great Wall were local vendors selling t-shirts, marble carvings, hats and other souvenir items. I saw a cute red shirt with little pandas sprawled along the Great Wall and pointed it out to the Boy. With his wonderful bargaining power (he speaks Chinese), he was able to get us 2 t-shirts (he got a Mao shirt) for only 30 rmb (a little more than $2 each!). Later, at the base of the Wall, I saw a woman trying to sell her t-shirts to a man for 85 rmb each!

Out last stop before dinner was at a jade factory where we learned of the different types of jade and how to tell real jade from fake by the sound it make when "clinked". I thought the funniest thing was seeing huge jade pieces carved into the shape of napa cabbages. Supposedly, this was supposed to bring good luck, but I don't think I could bring myself to display a decorative jade vegetable on my mantle.

Since this would be our last night in Beijing, the Boy and I wanted to try and scout out a nightlife scene. We asked the tour guides for suggestions, and once again, they told us that there was nothing to see. No one went out at night in Beijing, so just wait for Shanghai where we would find what we were looking for. I was feeling pretty miserable by now with my cold, so I was fine staying in. But as we drove back to our hotel, the Boy and I noticed a tiny street nearby that looked like a night market, and with that we decided to go out and see how the real locals lived.

We walked down the street of our hotel and made an immediate left. A couple of nights before, the tourguide told us that if we really had to walk around, make a right out of the hotel and get a piece of cake at Starbucks. To the right of the hotel, there was nothing except a bunch of closed restaurants as we had seen before. But the left was a completely different story. There were very very few tourists here. It was all local people eating street food and skewered meats along a dimly lit corridor full of run down looking restaurants. Some vendors were out selling fruit or clothes. Because the Boy and I have Asian faces, we passed through under the radar, but somewhere along the way, a couple of tall, blonde German boys strolled through, turning heads and receiving stares from everyone.

At the end of the corridor, we made a right where there were a bunch of shops and people walking about. The shops weren't all shady-you'd see a very nice bakery, restaurant or clothing store in between massage parlors with scantily clad girls offering "happy endings" with their services.

The Boy and I walked around this area for about an hour checking out the scene before heading back to the hotel to rest up for the next day.

Sightseeing in Beijing Part I

Yesterday was the first sightseeing day in Beijing, and by then my cold was full blown. When I left New York last Friday, I'd woken up with a sore throat and was hoping it was allergy related, but no. I'd caught a cold right before leaving for vacation. How miserable!

Anyway, the Boy woke up early at around 4AM because of jetlag, while I slept in till 7AM. With nothing to do, he wandered out onto the street to check out the early morning scene. It was really weird - before 6AM there were illegal makeshift markets set up with vendors selling used merchandise such as old shoes and clothes. As one fellow tour member stated, it looked like a bunch of poor Chinese people having a huge garage sale outside. By the time I got out to board the bus at 9AM, the entire scene had disappeared. According to the tour guide, it is illegal for these people to set up their markets, but they did it to cater to the poor construction workers nearby who sometimes need something but can't afford much.

The Boy and I met downstairs for breakfast at around 7:30AM. We were excited to have what we thought should have been an authentic Chinese breakfast, as previous tour-goers had told us. But we were shocked to see bacon, eggs, an omlet station, and salad bar. The Chinese food that we did see was Americanized with a veggie chow mein, fried rice, sauteed veggies, and steamed buns filled with either vegetables or a sweet mung bean paste which, to my amusement, was mislabeled as "red bean pasta." The only really authentic Chinese food was the congee.

After breakfast, we met in the lobby at 9AM to begin our first day of sightseeing. The first stop was Tiananmen Square where we walked around and took pictures. The place was full of tourists, both international and domestic. It was interesting to see the different Chinese faces. When I'd been to Hong Kong before, everyone looked very similar. The boys were lanky and mostly fair-skinned. The girls were generally thin, had skin the color and smoothness of milk and looked a bit more refined. Although the girls in China are generally thin and fine-boned (In America, I'm thin. In China, I'm a meaty girl), their skin tone varies from the smooth, milk-white skin that is so typical of all girls in Hong Kong to the weather beaten tan of peasants. Actually, a lot of people were tan and looked like they worked out in the sun. Another interesting thing to note is that people were relatively tall, especially the boys in the PLA (People's Liberation Army). There must be a height requirement to join the army in China because there wasn't one boy I saw where I went any higher than their shoulder. Northern Chinese people are taller, though. In Beijing, I'm still short as in America.

The next stop after Tiananmen Square was the Forbidden City which was huge with 9,999 1/2 rooms. The most interesting part of the Forbidden City was seeing the concubine's wing where the Empress Dowager (Cixi) lived, especially since I read Anchee Min's book, Empress Orchid, a little while ago. I saw her courtyard and peeked through the glass to see her living chambers. I was surprised to see how small her bed was. It was only the size of a twin bed.

The rest of the day was spent touring the summer palace a little while away and then seeing an acrobatics show before dinner, which I found very entertaining. They did some pretty amazing tricks, but I think everyone was tired because no one was clapping. One girl stood in split pose on one toe balanced on a guy's shoulder. Another guy was able to catch porcelain bowls on his head which he flipped in the air while standing on a board which was balanced on a cylinder rolling on a board balanced on the head of another boy who stood on another board balanced on a rolling cylinder while holding two girls on each arm. And everyone was too asleep to clap!

At the end of the day, the Boy and I ordered two masseuses to our room and had an hour and a half long massage for only 20 USD each!

China Day 2

It's midnight in China now, and I'm blogging in my hotel room. Blogger's all in Chinese again, and this time it's not because of the language setting on my computer. Anyway, I'm on vacation in China for 10 days on a tour that the Boy and I signed up for.

We left New York 2 hours later than we were supposed to at around 6:30PM on Friday and got into Beijing a little before 8PM on Saturday. With all the time it took to get our luggage, find everyone on the tour and drop everyone off to their hotels, it was 10PM by the time we were settled in. How annoying! We've done nothing yet, and already two days of our tour have passed (one day on the plane, and this day counts as day 2).

We're staying at the Days Inn in Beijing. When the coach bus pulled up to the hotel, I was a bit disappointed, thinking that a Day's Inn is supposed to be a 5 star hotel in China? Then I got into the lobby and was pleasantly surprised. It's nothing like a Days Inn in the States. The lobby was grand, Vegas-style with a couple of restaurants, gift shops, gym and pool. The restaurant showcased a tropical fish tank and a seal displayed nearby with a pool for it to swim in. Ok, well the seal was kinda sad. It looked so lonely with its scared eyes that the Boy and I pitied it.

Our room was nice and fully stocked with all the amenities. We even got slippers and bathrobes to lounge around in. We freshened ourselves up with showers and then decided to walk around the area even though everyone told us that there was really nothing around, and that Beijing doesn't have much of a nightlife. The tour guide told us that 11PM is considered really late to be walking around (yikes!) and that Chinese people like to stay at home. He wasn't kidding. Nothing was open except other hotels. There were some people out walking around, too. But other than that, it was pretty dead. We ended up buying some lychees and other strange new fruit from a stand and going back to the hotel. The fruit was more expensive than what we imagined fruit in China to cost (we spent about USD 10), but it was delicious! The lychees were extremely plump, juicy and sweet. The other strange fruit tasted like a cross between a raspberry and a strawberry. Mmmmm!

Alright, got to try to sleep now. Tomorrow's supposed to be a full day with a lot of sightseeing.

Brooklyn Botanical Gardens

A couple of weekends ago, the Boy and I went to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens to see the cherry blossoms out at their full peak. In order to beat the crowds, we got up early and headed out after having a quick bite to eat. After about 45 minutes on the subway, we were there and got in free with the early bird special (supposedly, admission is free if you come in before noon, and we love free stuff). Of course the garden was very well groomed. I don't think I've ever seen cherry blossoms, so they were nice, but what really impressed me was their tulip garden. I think tulips are my new favorite flower (even though I didn't really have an old favorite).