in CHINA! (What?)

This is slightly outdated, but I had some technical difficulties uploading to various blogs. As I may have mentioned, about a month ago I spent 4 days in China. I had an absolutely smashing time. Meg is a fantastic travel buddy, we were well synched the whole time. We maintained a good balance between fun vacation time, and goal-oriented tourist time, flirted shamelessly with everything in our path, and really did the city up right.

We had a relatively easy flight, got into Beijing around 11:00 local time. Successfully negotiated the airport train, subway system, and taxi drivers, to find our hotel in plain sight of the Forbidden City. The hotel was amazing, the staff spoke great English, and we immediately set up some activities through their services desk. For the first night, we got tickets to the Beijing Acrobats, and we had time to hunt down some dinner before the show. Mandarin shredded pork and Peking duck fed us well, along with a few massive Tsingtao beers. Then off to the show! The acrobats were phenomenal, it may have been the best performance I have ever seen. From cup-balancing contortionists to slack-wire acrobatics to parasol juggling (with her feet!!) to fitting twelve girls on one bicycle, I was agape for every single act. After the show we managed to hail a cab, bought some ice cream with the help of our adorable bellhop, Ricu ("Ricu, here is some advice. If you buy a girl ice cream, you will have her heart." "Then I will buy two ice creams, and have two hearts!") and collapsed.

Friday morning we were up bright and early to see the Great Wall of China. We got a tour package that took us to the Badaling Great Wall, a Jade Factory, a Cloisonné Factory, a traditional lunch, the Ming Tombs, a Silk Factory, a teahouse, and a bonus stop for Chinese foot massage. We saw a lot of really cool things...and then were pressured to buy a lot of really cool things. The sad truth is, most of the interesting stuff was just a quickie rush-through to get us to the shopping area...kind of like a museum and gift shop in reverse proportions. I did get some cool souvenirs, but it was hard not to feel bad sometimes. The teahouse lady did a really excellent presentation of different kinds of tea, but then got really upset when no one wanted to buy any. One guy in our group felt so bad for her that he ended up buying almost $100 worth of tea just to cheer her up! Besides the tourist trap stuff, though, it was a really thorough day. We saw lots and lots of Beijing, learned some interesting stuff at the various stops, and OMG climbed the Great Wall of CHINA! I cannot describe how mind-blowing it was to see that wall climbing up through the mountains. I was floored. We climbed only partway, as the stairs were icy, but we had an amazing view of the Wall and the surrounding mountains from the guard tower. Friday night we collapsed in exhaustion and succumbed to room service, although we had wanted to go out clubbing. I think we were asleep before ten PM!

Saturday we bounced out of bed and walked over to the Forbidden City, the residence of the emperor and his court. Once again, I was blown away. The Forbidden City is unbelievably massive, and maintained perfectly to reflect the same grandeur of when it was built. Such wide open spaces, such soaring pagodas, such bright colors and ornate decoration....I can hardly put it into words. It truly held the feeling of being locked in history, of standing in an ancient space where the leader of a great dynasty lived and ruled...I have never felt so blown away by any place I've traveled. There's a huge main courtyard and then a secondary one, and then lots and lots of smaller buildings, all beautiful and interestingly named. (The Palace of Abstinence? The Temple of Medium Harmony? It's right behind the Temple of Supreme Harmony. I'm 100% serious.) In the smaller areas there were lots of "students" who tried to get us to see their "free" "art shows" (who knows, maybe they were legit, but it just sounded too scammy to trust) and eventually we left and caught a bus to the Beijing Zoo.

Riding buses in Beijing is a whole special kind of awesome, and it was a little nerve-wracking being completely unfamiliar with the city. The kindly bus attendant pointed us off at our stop, after a long ride of tumbling into other passengers and getting gawked at shamelessly. (As the only two Westerners on the bus, both blonde, cute, and giggly, I suppose I understand why.) We found our way into the zoo and rushed right for the pandas! Pandas were a little sad...some of the cages were too small and dingy, but others were pretty nice. I hope they rotate them. There were lots of other cute animals, but we were ravenous at this point (note: do NOT eat a hot dog from street food vendors in Beijing. yecchhh) so we found a little restaurant and chowed down. There was lots more to the zoo, but the big cats in small cages were depressing so we vacated, stopped to be cheered up by monkeys, and headed out. The subway on the return trip was more crowded than any public transit I have ever experienced. There really was a man to shove you into the train so the doors could close. Despite aching feet, we hopped off the subway at Wangfujing Street to check out the shopping. It was an interesting mix of modern and old-fashioned shops; there was a mall with a Nike store and Vans and Zara right next to a back alley open market selling fried scorpions and tourist trinkets. Got some more awesome souvenirs and a present for a certain friend, haggled shamelessly and successfully, and emerged triumphant. Bonus moment of win: we ducked into a department store to use the bathrooms, and on the way out, a bunch of men were lunging over their counters at us, waving their products frantically. One held an electric razor, another, an electric toothbruth. The third, a vibrator. I began cackling helplessly as we fled, and I heard him holler after us, "I love you!!!" Well, I should say so!

Our last morning dawned wet and snowy, and we were nearly deterred from our final explorations by the promise of leisurely breakfast in the hotel lobby. We did in fact succumb, but emerged victorious with borrowed umbrellas and trundled off to Tiananmen Square. Turns out it was embarrassingly close to Forbidden City and we could have seen it easily the day before, but live and learn. It was a sight to behold in the snow, especially the obligatory main gate with Mao's portrait. We kept it short and just walked around the perimeter, since we had a flight to catch, and then grabbed a rickshaw back to the hotel, for the experience. Turned out to be a near-death experience, followed by our first and only getting-ripped-off experience, but we only lost about $3. We made it safely to the airport with time to spare, had a dubious airport hamburger, and flew through the snow back to Korea!

More than any other place I've traveled yet (with the possible exception of Colombia), Beijing felt like a place that truly lived up to my expectations. It wasn't depressingly modern or smaller than its reputation...it was everything I'd hoped for and more. I know good company goes a long way towards a good travel experience...but there was more to it than that. Once again, I face the traveler's dilemma: I'd love to go back and see it again, but there are so many more places I haven't seen yet!!