Mao, Mom & Me

Our last morning in Beijing, we woke up early and headed out on another yogurt mission. This time, our objective was these tiny jars that people seemed to be sucking down outside of the shops try had just bought them in. Any time of day, there would be a ton of empty jars lined up in window sills and make-shift shelves outside of stores.

I opted for some walnut biscuits – fragrant and fragile, according to the label. Delicious, according to my stomach.

We popped a straw in through the rubber banded paper lid of the yogurt and sucked it down. We both liked it better than the royal stuff from yesterday! My mom decided the jar would make a great souvenir (she has a couple of small jars and cups from other trips), so I put it in my day bag for her.

Our hostel was right on the outside of the Forbidden City but we hadn’t been there yet, so we headed that way. It was unbelievably crowded at 7:30 am! Within the Forbidden City, there are military barracks (although the guys marching through the crowds looked pretty young – maybe a communist version of JROTC?) with a workout area and their dress uniforms hanging out to air dry.

Then we crossed the street to the equally crowded Tienanman Square. When we were with Victor, he told us that he lived in a hu tong near there during the protests and subsequent massacre in 1989. While the students were protesting, Victor and his family would take food to share with them. He said that because the news is so heavily censored that it was only reported that soldiers died during the incident – not even a mention of the civilians deaths. I was shocked to hear this. As a westerner, I can’t even begin to comprehend this sort of public manipulation. I tried to look it up, and was even more surprised to learn that the numbers of casualties is still disputed, as the Chinese government has never released any official information and research regarding the incident is prohibited there.

Click here for a 360 view of Tienanman Square: http://360.io/cXcEgK

We thought we’d get a snacky and then have late lunch at the airport, since our flight to Bangkok was four hours long and had us landing at ten pm. We were strolling through the neighborhood around the square and got another jar o’ yogurt to split. I had also decided I needed one of those jars as a souvy, too.

We got to the airport and checked out the food before security but decided we’d feel better if we got closer to our gate. I was only running on some yogurt and fragile crackers at that point. It was much further than we thought to our gate, especially after a tram ride and some serious footing. We threw our packs in a cart for the long walk, but one of the yogurt jars I had so carefully rinsed out in the bathroom smashed all over the tile floor. Then I discovered the other one had leaked yogurt leftovers all over the inside of my bag. Yuck.

I’ll spare you any more whining, but take my advice – if you’re ever flying through the Beijing airport, eat before security. Maybe even get a massage while you’re there, or buy an entire Peking duck for the flight. But know all the cool stuff happens before security. We ended up sharing white rice and watermelon …. less than ideal. It was enough fuel to get us to the plane, and that’s about it.

After a four hour flight, we used wifi at the airport to find a hotel in Bangkok, hopped in a taxi and were at our hotel in thirty or so minutes. The receptionist didn’t speak a lick of English, and my Thai was a little rusty (or nonexistent, if you want to be specific), but we got checked in and in bed for our early train ride in the morning.

Bopping around Beijing

At seven in the morning we stumbled across some people (mainly silver sneakers) line dancing in the middle of a pedestrian mall with a stereo watching themselves in the storefront glasses. I wanted to join but no time to learn a new dance (or several – they had new moves for every song). It’s a little faster paced than the slo-mo synchronization we’ve been seeing – but it still called to me. Alas, we had many plans and had to keep moving.

We hopped on the Beijing Metro to the Summer Palace, and the ride was miserable! It was going-to-work time, but still – we were packed in there like sardines.

As we entered the park, we saw some more slow motion line dancing – what is this? And where do I sign up?

We were bopping around the largest royal park in China when we heard music and singing so we followed the sound.

We came upon a group of elderly (musical silver sneakers?) people singing around a pagoda, some with song books and some dancing their hearts out, to some live musical accompaniment. One dancing woman, singing at the top of her lungs, invited me to dance so I got down to some Chinese (folk?) music while holding this lady’s hand at ten in the morning. Livin’ life, yall!

Obviously impressed with my dancing (as was everybody around us), an elderly toothless gentleman who was dancing next to us came up and starting chatting with us for a bit – but the music was so loud we couldn’t really hear him (we were standing about ten feet from the clarinet section). We did manage to catch the part where he said mom looked too young to my mother! (truth.)

part of the long corridor - a half mile of over 8,000 paintings — part of the long corridor – a half mile of over 8,000 paintings

Need a blizzard? There’s a Dairy Queen right outside of the palace walls. Authentic, I’m sure!

We hopped back on the subway – still miserable! Is it ever not rush hour in a city of twenty million? – toward the drum & bell tower to check those out.

Then we headed to find the Wenyu Cheese Shop. It is some special kind of cheese that they used to only serve the emperors family. My mom saw it on TripAdvisor, but when we asked Victor the day before, he wasn’t familiar with it. He did point out the address on the map, in some alley. Luckily, we found it with very little second-guessing my directions and retracing our footsteps. We saw some people eating something in a blue and white cup, which my mom’s “instincts” told her was what we were looking for. “Follow the blue and white cup! There are more people with blue and white cups up headed, we must be getting close!”

She was right – must have a nose for royal treats. It turns out empirical cheese tastes like a mix between cream & egg custard. Pretty good, but not exactly the kind of cheese I was picturing. The cool part was the shop was in this neat little alley with all these small boutiques and food stands. I imagine it’s comparable to an American hipster neighborhood, but with less mustaches.

We also had some pomelo-ade. It tasted like limeade but better – maybe because it was 100 degrees outside and we had been walking forever?

i drank pomelos before it was cool — yum!

Our plan for the evening was to check out the Chinese acrobatic show. Welllllll, we got lost on the subway (my fault) and were a little late to the show but we only missed one or two acts and what we did see was awesome!

less awesome? these guys were wearing faux leather faux thongs. — less awesome? these guys were wearing faux-leather faux-thongs….

One act was 9 or 10 girls all balancing on one bicycle while one girl pedaled it in circles around the stage. It was nuts! One girl twirled and juggled parasols with her feet. A bunch of young men did a hat juggling thing, which was impressive. We were sitting in the second row, so we could see their faces and how much fun they were having with each other, which made it even more fun for us. There were two guys balancing on each other, walking up and down steps on their hands. The finale was seven motorcycles zooming around in a metal sphere cage. The small child in the seat next to me and I were on the edge of our seats!

Wait, what’s for dinner?

After our great wall adventure, we decided it was high time for a traditional Chinese massage. Our driver Victor recommended a place near our hostel that was next to a Peking duck restaurant (one that was cheaper than the touristy one the guidebooks and internet recommends), which we had expressed interest in.

The owner of the massage parlor, Fora, began chatting with us and it turns out she studied at Texas Tech before finishing her degree at UTD. Small world! She was stoked to tell us about her conversion to Christianity, and that all of her employees are Christians as well. Very cool. The massages were awesome and super cheap, just what we needed after our rainy wall hike.

We went next door to the Peking duck restaurant. There were raw ducks hanging from hooks in the kitchen that we could see from the dining area. We sat down and told the waiter we were there for the duck! He brought us two plates of condiments and a steam box thingy with one pancake thing.

Then the duck showed up, complete with a chef to carve it table side. While he was quickly carving, some of which was delicately slicing off the roasted skin, a waitress came over to show us the drill.

The pancake was actually layered, and our demonstrator peeled a very thin layer off the top with chopsticks, put some meat into it, some radish, onion, garlic and goo (maybe soy sauce?), wrapped it up like a tiny burrito, and handed it to me. Then she made one for mom, who handed it over to me like the gluten-free champ that she is!

Turns out I didn’t really like the pancake, it had gone cold and gummy while the demonstration was going on. Part of the delay in eating was the carver offered me the duck’s head – several times! I asked him what to do with it, and he just kept shrugging and finally gave up and took it away with the bones. We got a pretty big kick out of that. Can anybody tell me what to do with a duck head??

The duck was good, though – and Mom very much enjoyed the skin. One of the condiments was sugar, which we were told was for dipping the skin in. In fact, you could just order duck skin with sugar a la carte from the menu.

For dessert, we walked a block to Beijing’s night market. The stalls offered up snakes, tarantulas, centipedes, starfish, testes of various sizes, silk worm cocoons, sparrows and various other things on a stick.

channeling my inner andrew zimmern — preparing to channel my inner andrew zimmern

I decided to go with the scorpions.

That’s right, I ATE TWO SCORPIONS.

I paid the guy, and he assured me I was making the deliciously right decision as he threw some oil in a pan and fried those suckers up for me. Early there had been a tour group passing around a scorpion for pictures before they returned it to the vendor, but it’s all about the authenticity for me.

I chose the stick with two smaller scorpions. We stepped aside, my mom ready to hit record, and a tourist family stopped to watch. I was a little worried about the stinger (hey, it was my first scorpion – don’t judge!) but I popped one in my mouth….and it was no big deal. Tasted like a fried crunchy thing. I offered the second one to my mom, but she politely declined. As I ate the second one, my mom expressed her shock that the worlds pickiest eater had just liked a scorpion enough to have a second helping.

see that tiny stinger? it’s there, I swear!

It was a glorious moment in my life.

The Weather and The Wall

Nothing like starting your day at seven in the morning with a hearty breakfast of pork and onion and also maybe cabbage boiled dumplings! But that’s what ya get when you point at a picture to order your meal sometimes. The next customer to come in after us was a kid and got this fried bread/donut thing, and after a few dumplings, that donut thing started to call to me – so I got one of those, too! But it was soggy and greasy. Needless to say, my stomach was very disappointed in my lack of communication skills this morning.

early morning pork noodles are no sweat for one lady’s iron stomach!

As previously arranged (and then hastily rearranged after the unfortunate incident), our driver for the day, Victor, picked us up in the rain and we began our journey to the Great Wall at Mutianyu. Exciting!

Less exciting was the rain and subsequent minor flash flooding that hindered our trip – we had to turn around a couple of times and re-route. We weren’t the only ones, tour buses and city workers were also navigating the flooding roadways. All the dogs in the street (and there were quite a few) didn’t seem too phased. It was a mess and we (separately, but then later realized both of us were feeling this way) began to get a little discouraged.

We finally started seeing a few tour buses and people as we got to the base of the pass. There were empty stalls lining the road but very few vendors braving the heavy rain. The ones who were there were making a killing off of ponchos and umbrellas, I imagine. We opted for the gondola ride opposed to the hike (can’t afford any injuries on day one of a six week trip!).

We get to the top, and it is indescribable, y’all – but I’ll try! Aside from about six or seven other people, we had the whole thing to ourselves. It was raining and there was a heavy fog, but we were walking on the tops of mountains.

Not just walking – we were casually strolling, taking pics when we wanted to. No tourists to rub up against, randoms in the background of a picture, or group guides to hover around and glean a few bits of info before moving on. Nobody but the birds, my mom and me up there.

Amazing.

At one point, the wall goes straight up – into the fog and clouds. It was equal parts awesome and eerie.

We headed then to another part of the wall, Moushiko pass, that promises less tourists on sunny days and to be deserted on a rainy day. We stopped at an unused dam that was built to connect two parts of the wall. It was basically an almost empty river bed in a very tall, narrow valley. It had finally stopped raining, and a froggy chorus and some bird songs were the only signs of life other than us. It was surreal.

We headed up the rock steps, past the linked pools and little waterfalls and over two 2x4s that served as a bridge over one of the falls when somebody started yelling. A red-arm-banded official was flagging us down, trying to yell in Chinese over the sound of the waterfalls – slightly distressing for two Americans. Luckily, Victor was with us and translated that the passage was closed because of the danger of rock slides due to the recent heavy rains. Bummer!

We headed back into Bankok and stopped for a stroll at the Olympic Stadium, Bird’s Nest. It literally looked like a bird’s nest, and sits empty most of the time. There were a lot of people just milling around the outside, though. My favorite was the building that looks like bubble wrap that was used for swimming events.

TMI ALERT: Outside of the Bird’s Nest, I got the chance to use my first Chinese public toilet. It’s just a hole in the floor, with the outline of feet next to it, directing you which way to go (he he). It was….no big deal to use. Luckily I was mentally prepared as my mom had warned me ahead of time. Who knows what might have happened if I had been surprised! And now I’ve been wondering (in a too lazy to google kind of way): who invented commodes, anyway?

Regardless, I conquered this one.

After being driven by some places that we were hoping to find our way back to later, we said goodbye to Victor. It was so nice to have such a knowledgeable and personable driver and guide. We very much appreciated and enjoyed the time we spent with him. You can find his information here.

Being up on that wall like that was a moment for me.

A hostel in a hu tong

Well, it didn’t take us long. Our tradition of “getting our bearings” (read: lost in a strange city carrying 20 lb bags) lives on!

We did get a chance to wander through a quiet neighborhood, where old men were gambling and drinking tea without their shirts on, and old ladies were slowly line dancing in the park. (I have to find out were I can do this when I get home!)

As picturesque as that was, our bags were getting heavy – just as we stumbled onto Chairman Mao.

We finally just called the hostel but the receptionist wasn’t confident enough in her English to give me solid directions, so she told me to hand the phone to a Chinese person – I tried to give it to this matronly lady, but she had me give it to her small son. He spoke some English, but wasn’t familiar with giving directions but after much conferring, he, his mom and the receptionist got us on the right path.

We walked and walked. People we asked just said keep going! – so we did. We were getting a little weary when we popped in another hostel, where the reception was nice enough to give us directions (which were: turn down the next nameless narrow alley and follow that until you see the sign – lucky we stopped to ask her instead of waiting even one more block!).

Our hostel is in kind of the yuppy part of a hu tong, but there are more traditionally built homes around us.

A hu tong is a neighborhood where the houses are all connected and very close, the walkways are barely wide enough for one person to pass, and the neighbors share a community bathroom. Very, um, cozy?

Our beds are VERY hard, but my mom assures me that’s just how the Chinese roll. The wifi access is limited – I couldn’t get on wordpress or facebook the entire time we were in Beijing, and we had to enter our passport numbers to use the Internet.

logistics

What’s it like in Beijing, you ask? Well, we wouldn’t know. Yet!

There was a lot of confusion and a little sass, but ultimately it boils down to this: United Airlines screwed up, and we couldn’t get on our 1:30 am flight to Beijing.

We arrived in LAX around ten pm, made our way to the international terminal, and all heck broke less. There were warnings of deportation if something was screwed up, adding a little pressure, but we figured that the airlines would simply fix it. After all, it was their fault. At one am, after some long phone calls – a couple of which involved one agent across the airport on my mom’s phone, talking with another agent on my cell – we realized that it was a no-go.

We found a hotel near the airport with vacancies and finally got checked in around 2:30 am, and my mom was back up at seven to spend another few hours being passed up the chain at United. At one point, she overheard the supervisor’s supervisor’s supervisor (probably) say on the phone, “we really dropped the ball on this one.” (I stayed with the luggage….ok, I slept in a little – but the luggage was there, too!)

Overall, it worked out – we are just delayed twelve hours. At one point, however, they had canceled all of our subsequent flights (our return home!). For this overnight delay, United offered us one $10 meal voucher each. That’s all. One agent on the phone told us to save our receipts and deal with United’s customer care later. In fact, you aren’t supposed to submit anything until after the flights are all over. Submission is exclusively online, by the way. Customers have to type up everything neatly after the fact, instead of being able to call a representative to fix problems as they are being encountered. You can draw your own conclusions about what it’s like to hear that at two am.

Everything already scheduled in Beijing was easily moved around, so it actually wasn’t that big of a deal. Just twelve hours out of a forty-five day trip, and a disappointing experience that will deter at least two frequent travelers from using United in the future.

update: we made it!

Packing. Like A Boss.

I have been giggling to myself all week. Some of the giggles are of an incredulous nature – I just can’t believe how lucky I am sometimes! Sure, I have no job and my shiny new college degree doesn’t seem to have the magic wand-type power I imagined. But its all good because my mom and I are leaving soon for six weeks in Southeast Asia: a three day layover in Beijing, then on to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. I have surpassed excitement level: Jessie Spano (without getting … so scared).

Actually the rest of my giggles also fall into the incredulous category, now that I think about it. Y’all will not believe how little we are taking for six weeks in five countries! I hardly believe it myself. It’s seriously making me laugh every time I look at my pack.

It’s not like I’m usually a high-maintenance packer – I’m taking the good ol Osprey pack I’ve been toting around the world for the last few years – but this time all that’s in it are my shoes (and a pair of my moms), two large Ziploc of my clothes and my tube cube o’ toiletries.

We’ve never been a family of bag-checkers – strictly carry on for us – but my mom has always been a great rolling bag advocate. (I’m not going to lie – I often envy those wheels about 3/4 through a trip!) We are both taking so little that she has downsized to the backpack my dad uses for weekend trips – could your mom handle that? …that’s what I thought. :)

(Ahem, I am carrying a pair of her shoes)

Crazy, right? Crazy awesome.

It feels awesome to not be weighed down by stuff. Do many other people pack this light, and am I getting excited about nothing? I didn’t even bring a raincoat – and it’s monsoon season!

If you need it, you can always buy it.

I’m not worried at all about our lack of luggage. I am relieved to avoid the overstuffed backpack/overhead bin struggle (even though I am undefeated). But mostly, in the immortal words of The Pointer Sisters (& Jessie Spano), I’m so excited!

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