Post #19 - October 30, 2012 - Beijing, China

Can't upload pictures. Will do so as soon as possible. 

Jeff here. What an interesting day. Today I think we are further refining what it means to us to travel. I'll start from the beginning. We had a pretty lazy morning, having stayed up pretty late finishing our blog last night and getting settled into our hostel. We wandered down into our hostel's courtyard around 11:30 am to set out for the day. A very helpful worker here, who I think is the owner of the hostel, recommended that we eat lunch at a nearby restaurant that serves hotpot, which sounded amazing. So we headed there for lunch.

It was about a five minute walk and only once did a security guard run up to us to indicate to us that we were walking where we shouldn't be! Pretty good start. The restaurant was beautiful and the staff surprisingly welcoming. The people are much different here than in Japan. People seem more laid back. The women also seem to have a higher social standing in China than in Japan. They are much more confidant and direct. Weird, but a nice surprise. We had to wait about 15 minutes for our meal, and a couple of others also waiting tried to strike up conversations with us. Let's just say those conversations ended after about one word. We sadly know nothing in Mandarin, and it must be one of the most complicated languages in the entire world. The word "ma" has four different meanings. What distinguishes one meaning from the next is the tone: it can be constant, go down, go up, or go down then up. It's insane. This makes saying even simple words like 'hello' and 'thank you' a monumental task. Hopefully within the next 30 days or so we get the hang of the basics.

Once we were led to our table, we were shown a menu and had no idea what to order. Patty showed the waitress the phrase "what do you recommend" from our Lonely Planet book, and she suggested a bunch of things. It was weird because all the pictures in the menu were of raw foods, like meats and vegetables. So we ordered and then they brought us essentially a bowl of water with a flame underneath. Then they started bringing us the raw meats and vegetables that we had ordered. We sat there staying confusedly at our meal until our waitress actually started grabbing the meat and putting it into the boiling water. We had a good laugh at this because over the course of the meal, our waitress was basically feeding us and teaching us how to cook our various dishes. In the end, it was an interesting meal, but not one that I think either Patty or I will seek out again. Here's a pic:

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I thought for sure I'd be sick after eating this, but it's about 12 hours later and I'm still standing. After lunch we hopped on a bus (1 Yuan each, or about 16 cents!) and headed to Tiananmen Square, which is apparently the largest public square in the world. It really is gigantic. There is a massive pillar in the middle, but I'm unsure what it means. Here's a pic:

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Before heading to the more northerly part of the square we spotted a massive structure to the south of the square. These structures were the gates to the Forbidden City:

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After looking around here, we headed to the northern part of Tiananmen Square. There was a quite stunning floral arrangement, as well as two massive TV screens playing government propaganda. Here are some more pics:

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From here we headed into the Forbidden City, but not before I got a picture with Mao:

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We took a million pictures of the Forbidden City, but overall I wasn't very impressed. Taken as a whole, the complex is absolutely amazing. It's massive. The scale is beyond anything I've ever seen. But the architecture is pretty similar throughout, making it a really long, boring walk. It pains me to say it, but after seeing the same design of a beautiful building three, four, five times in a row, it becomes tedious. It was also cold. This may have had something to do it. We followed a tour group for a bit, listening in on some of the details of the complex, but that too wasn't very interesting. We walked rather quickly through the remaining half rather quickly. Here are some of the more interesting shots we took while there:

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We were meeting one of my former colleagues for dinner that night, so once we were out of the Forbidden City, we headed back to our hostel. Luckily, it was within walking distance. We took a little bit of time to plan out the next stop on our trip and then my friend, Dale, arrived. We had a really great night. Dale took us to a restaurant he had been to before. I think the bill for the three of us ended up being about 50 Yuan, or about $8. It wasn't incredible, but it was definitely edible. And you can't go wrong for that price! We then wandered over to a really beautiful part of Beijing that had restaurants and pubs surrounding three quite large lakes. It was quite a stunning area that we'll need to go back to to take a proper picture. Here is one pic:

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We mostly talked about traveling. Dale has been everywhere and done almost everything. We learned a lot from him and will adjust our itinerary in China as a result. We will now be adding south-western China to the list, a place near Yangshuo called Xingping, I believe. We're actually going to meet with him again (this time to buy HIM dinner) on Thursday to pick his brain a little bit more.

One thing we realized when talking with Dale was that seeing the main tourist sites is not really what we signed up for. While nice, they just don't have the authenticity that we are looking for. We both think that Dale will really be able to help us to choose some better destinations in terms of finding what we're looking for. We'll of course update our itinerary when we can.

Tomorrow we're off bright and early to the Great Wall!! Our bus leaves around 6:30 am so I should get to bed. Hope everyone is well. Take care!!