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As is obvious from the heading, I am now in China. Julie and I have left dear Okinawa behind and made for the mainland. We arrived in Beijing last Thursday night to a very warm reception from chatty Xiau Wei, Mom and Betsy's friend in the city. He and "snoopy driver" shuttled us directly to our hostel and settled us in. Once they left, we of course fell into a travel induced coma.
Friday morning we awoke with big plans for the day. We decided to do what every tourist does on their first day in the city; we hit Tiannamen Square and the Forbidden City. This is no mean task, I'm telling you. We hopped in a cab and it took us 45 minutes to get to the city center, it should have taken 30 minutes but we were at a complete standstill for the rest. Ah well, so is traffic in this city. We arrived at the square an wandered around it, checking out the impressive looking South Gate and memorial tower all the while avoiding the Chinese hawking postcards, pictures, cold water and giant kites. We made our way over toward the giant picture of Mao over the gates of the Forbidden City which is always associated with the square. The Fobidden City itself was HUGE. I mean really gigantic. AND perfectly symmetrical. The crowds, better described by Julie as hoards, were incredible as well. The two of us got ourselves out of the flow of them and onto the outskirts of the city to better enjoy the place. I suppose I must say that I enjoyed it, but it was too crowded, if it had been empty the city would have been twice as beautiful. Soon, in search of food, we left anyways.
We found ourselves an untouristed restaurant and were herded in by a young Chinese lady who knew the words for "English Menu" and not much else. She sat us down at a big round table that already had 4 other Chinese men at it and gave us the handwritten menu. The men just stared at us as we attempted to order, then questioned us as to where we were from, in halting English. We told them, then tried to ask them how to say "water" in Chinese, just for further reference. They of course did not understand, just assumed we wanted water and ordered it for us, thus sending the waitress out around the corner to the store to buy it for us. Oops. Lesson learned.
Day Two in Beijing: Mom and Sidney arrived the night before from Dalian to spend the weekend with Julie and I. They had planned a great first day with us by taking us, along with our friend from Gig Harbor, Betsy, Lauren and John, out to the Great Wall, with Xiau Wei as our guide. We skipped the popular sites of Badaling and Mutianyu, and went an extra hour out of the way to J-something and Simetai. It is a more difficult and obscure section of the wall with loads less tourist than the other sections, and ony a few of the cold water hawkers. That day was so fantastic. We hiked about 10 kilometers of the wall, and after about the first of four ours I was finally in a good stride. It is really hard to get into stride there though because the wall goes up and down so much with the hills, then the stairs are never the same height either, sometimes they are one brick high, sometimes 4 bricks high.... I also thought we would be boiling that day in the heat, but we had a nice breeze through most of the day, and every 10 minutes or so we would come to another tower and the shade it provided. Oh, and any picture I put up with the wall in it, (probably next week) will not do it justice. It's something you just have to see in person. And it's amazing to think that we were on one little part of the wall, and it stretches all the way to the deserts in the Northwest of China. Its longer than I can even imagine. Wow
At the end of our section of the wall, we had a choice: we could walk 30 extra minutes off the wall to the parking lot, or we could take a zipline over the river to the parking lot. Needless to say, the majority of us chose the zipline, how could we not? It was so much fun! And I'm very pleased to say that two of our number are normally not comfortable with heights and went anyways. Not an easy feat for jumping off a platform 300 feet above a river. Yoo hoo!
Back in the city, Mom, Sid, Jules and I went out to eat at the restuarant Xiau Wei used to work at, which speciallizes in Peking Duck. The food was so great! I was afraid I would be dissappointed with Chinese food, (don't ask me why) but man, I can't get enough of it.
Day Three:
After having hiked the wall, we 4 took it easy on Sunday. Mom and Sidney took us to the Dirt Market, a wonderful market a little ways from our hostel where you can find anything you may wish to find, from antique vases to a brass, four-faced buddha head, go figure. We meandered through there for several hours before heading to Tai Pan to get ourselves foot massages. Â
 THAT was so much fun. We drank tea in a little room set up for the four of us and chatted with each other and the 4 guys who were taking care of our feet. :) My guy, who introduced himself as Bruce Lee, had a pretty good handle on English and told me I was strong, he called me "Tiger Girl" which made my day and had me laughing so hard I think I hurt myself, muscle-wise. Julie's guy introduced himself as Tom Cruise and asked if she liked Chinese guys. Oh man, I am laughing just writing this. After the massages we oozed back to the hostel and collapsed in bed until Mom and Sid had to go back to Dalian. I was sad to see them go, but at least I'll see them next week.
Day Four:
Julie and I decided to work on our public transportation skills to get out to Fragrant Hills Park outside of the city. Three hours, two wrong buses, two right buses, one ripping off and several transportation faux pahs later we finally arrived. We took a 20 minute ski lift ride to the top of the mountain and after snacking on cherries and granola bars started down the mountain again. I had been hoping for natury dirt paths, but in typically Asian style, everything was paved and manicured. We made our way down through woods, pagodas, view points, gardens and lakes to the bottom again. It was a nice afternoon wander.
We grabbed lunch in a little restaurant near the bus station. But being that this site is visited by the Chinese than by westerners, there were neither English on the menu nor pictures to guess by.  We still managed a great meal with a combination of knowing the words for 'cold water' and 'rice,' pointing at a picture of beer that was on the wall, Julie squaked like a chicken and I just chose an item on the menu at random. We were so proud of ourselves when we ended up with rice, our drinks, sweet and sour chicken and this wonderful dish of fried chicken chunks mixed with veggies, beans and chili peppers. :) Then it was back on the buses for 2+ hours of rush hour traffic. Lovely.
Today it is raining, so we're going to take it easy this morning before Xiau Wei takes us to the Acrobatics Theatre tonight. Â
I am exhausted just writing this. Time for a break. :)Â
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