How many stops are we going? - Weekend in Beijing

Since our moms were here for two weekends, we decided to spend one of them on a trip to Beijing so that they could see the Great Wall and we could explore the other more historical areas that you don't get to see in Shanghai. We left early Friday morning and once we got to Beijing we went straight to the Forbidden City, where old emperors used to live and conduct their royal business. It was a huge area and had some amazing buildings to look at, dating back hundreds and hundreds of years ago. After you walk through some more imperial looking areas, you come out into a garden which was full of incredibly old trees and rocks. I really enjoyed the whole area and by the end of it we were exhausted from flying and then walking so far, so we went back to our hotel and got dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. 

Entrance to the Forbidden City.

Guard standing and watching the Forbidden City grounds

Huge stone carving. The stone was brought to the area by wetting grass and waiting for it to freeze so they could push it along. 

Old tree getting some help to stay up.

Us under a tree with intertwining branches.

We spent Saturday on the Great Wall (see earlier blog post) and since we got back pretty late, we went straight to dinner at a roast duck restaurant. Beijing is famous for their Peking duck, which they serve crispy with steamed pancakes, bean sprouts and cucumber which you make into a mini burrito and eat. It was by far our favorite dinner that we had with our moms and they really enjoyed it too. We were all really happy that we got to fit it in to our trip and were very impressed with the restaurant and how good the duck was. 

The next day after recovering from the wall trip, we started out by going to the Temple of Heaven which is a huge park area filled with different old monuments and old Chinese people playing hackey-sack, doing tai chi and singing and dancing. It was our moms' first glimpse of weekend life for Chinese elderly people so they really enjoyed watching them go about these different activities and thought it was a great way to spend a morning. We also saw some different historical sites including a famous taoist temple and some sites used for prayer.

One thing I know none of us were expecting was just how busy the subway system in Beijing would be. As the cheapest and somewhat most convenient way to get around, we used it to get from site to site, but were soon overwhelmed by how packed each car was. You would wait for the train to pull up and literally not think that there would be room for you to get on, but low and behold, 10 more people would squeeze in with you until you didn't even need to hold on to the bars because the people around you would just hold you up.  It always left our moms asking "how many stops are we going?" so they could count down to when they could breathe again. It was so much worse than Shanghai subways and was actually humorous by the end because it was always like a clown car spilling out at each exit.  By the end of the trip, our moms were successfully body checking people to get out and pushing the people in front of them so they would get on - they had become professional Chinese travelers, we were so proud!

Crowd of singing Chinese people.

Famous temple in Temple of Heaven park. 

All of the Chinese tourists struck this pose on the center of the mound, so we did too. 

Hugging an 800 year old tree.

After the Temple of Heaven, we rushed over to Tiananmen Square to try and fit it in before we had to check out of the hotel and get back to the airport. It was insanely crowded due to the current election and conference going on inside right now, so there were huge lines to actually get in and see inside, but we saw it from a distance and it was very impressive. The area was surrounded by various government buildings and museums, and while my mom and I headed back to the hotel (I had gotten a cold and wasn't feeling well), Joe and his mom headed to the Chinese National Museum and ran around looking at the ancient relics for as long as they could before they had to leave. They said it was huge and very cool inside so I wish we had had more time to go and see it!

Tiananmen Square

Incredible painting in the museum.

Overall, our trip to Beijing was my favorite trip we've taken so far. Not only did we get to climb the great wall, but we got to see some amazing historical sites, eat a delicious meal and above all create awesome memories with our moms. They left the next day so we said goodbye to them on the subway back from the airport. We were sad to see them go as now we go back to life as normal here at Minhang campus, with roughly 7 weeks until we return home. 

We're gonna walk up that? - Great Wall of China

For our second day in Beijing, we decided to go out to the Great Wall and spend the day in that area. We found a section that you could go to via train, so we decided that that would be a better bet than trying to convince a taxi to take us all the way out there. We aimed to get to the train station for the 9am train so we got there at 830 and got in line. After 9 came and went, we figured out that we had missed the line for the earlier train and were now in line for the 11am train, so we waited in line with about 100 other Chinese people for 2 hours for the train to come. As there were no seating assignments on the train, this line was important because as soon as we were let out onto the platform, all hell broke lose as everyone ran to get a seat. Joe and I took off with our moms jogging behind us and managed to find 4 seats for us, but it was one of the craziest things we've participated in. They had just sprayed the platform with water for some reason, so all 100+ of us were sprinting on wet ground to get to the train first. Only in China. 

A picture of the line we stood in for 2 hours. Worth it to get a seat. 

As we approached the area, we rode past different sections of the Great Wall which was really cool. We didn't realize how steep some parts were, nor could we really fathom how long the wall is until we started seeing different parts of it. Once we got to the part that we wanted to go to, we bought tickets and went out in search of a pulley/roller coaster type deal that would take us up to the wall. When we didn't find it, we decided to just walk up it, much to our moms distress. None of us really anticipated how steep the ground would be or how hard it would be to walk up, but it was really cool and a lot of fun. We stopped to take a lot of pictures and observe the other tourists that were up there. We walked all the way to the cable car stop and took that down, so we went through 4 or 5 different sections of wall, each a different steepness, some with stairs and some with just flat rocks. By the end, we were all pretty tired but all agreed that it was our favorite activity so far that we've done. It was awesome to be at such a famous and incredible landmark with so much history and I'm really glad we made it there and got to experience it with our moms. Also, they wanted me to point out that they walked up the wall and succeeded in keeping up with us, something they were both skeptical of when we first got there.

First view of our section of the wall.

At the base of the wall

On top of the world.

View of what we had climbed at that point (after about 2 sections)

Resting after a long climb.

View of mountains in the area and another part of the wall.

What one lady was climbing in - ridiculous.

The busiest section of the wall right by the cable car - where's Catriona.

They didn't want to go up to the last little part, so they waited for us. 

The cable cars that got us down to the base again.

Mommy Mania

On Thursday, our moms landed in Shanghai for their 10 day visit. We were able to leave straight from class to take the 1 hour subway ride to their hotel and meet them for dinner. They were exhausted from the long flight but excited to see us and catch up after 2 and a half months without seeing us. On Friday, we took them to the fabric market to get Joe some suits made custom for him, and the rest of us ended up getting clothes too - a coat for me and Joe's mom and a dress shirt for my mom! All made in whatever fabric and style we wanted which is awesome! Then we headed over to the fake market which was an overwhelming experience for their first day in China as people just yell at you and try and get you into their store. Though overwhelming, they seemed to really enjoy it and definitely needed a rest afterwards. Later that night, we did the walk down the night market street to the Bund area where you can see the skyline lit up along the river.

The next day when the moms were more rested, we went to the Yu Gardens and the shopping area. It ended up being around 80 degrees out which was unexpected and we were all half loving the weather and half over heating! The gardens were really nice since the flowers have started blooming and we were able to take some time to sit and chat by one of the lakes. We ate some Chinese snack type foods - potstickers, spring rolls etc.- for lunch and then did some shopping in the area for souvenirs. We ended up being too hot and heading back for a rest, but it was a great day. That night, we headed to Tianzifang which is a night time shopping and eating area where we found a huge DVD store for my mom to go nuts in and some other specialty stores that our moms loved. Since it was so nice out, we got to eat outside for a change which was a good difference for the moms who came from snow in the states. 

On Sunday, we went out to one of our favorite lunch restaurants and then had to head back to campus for class on Monday. We left the moms to fend for themselves for a couple of days until we go back to get our clothes from the fabric market. This weekend, we will all head to Beijing to see the Great Wall and other historic landmarks before the moms head back on Monday!