Day 105: December 18. Homeward Bound.

What a long day! We woke up at 6:30 and scurried around finishing packing and cleaning up after ourselves, before hopping in a cab to the airport.

We checked in and enjoyed our flight immensely because there was a really cute baby sitting next to us. It didn't matter that he only spoke Mandarin and we obviously don't...he still liked playing with us!

Our layover passed quickly with all the errands that we had to do: exchange money, eat lunch, spray ourselves with perfume, and of course write a list of the wonderful things we didn't want to forget.

Then came the long plane ride. Luckily we had personal TVs to keep us company...we each watched 4 movies! Hey, we had to figure out some way to pass 15.5 hours!

We had some delays coming in, and then were taxiing after landing for a half hour, then there was a long customs line, then we had to wait quite some time for our bags to come...and then suddenly we were surrounded by our families and four months worth of questions and embraces. And somehow, without ceremony, it was all over. Karla and Alicia went their separate ways to separate states.

The End.
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Day 104: December 17th. Perfect Finish

We were on time for Mr Li today! After breakfast we were driven to Beihai Park, which, in keeping with our park experiences, was positively alive on a winter's morning. We saw some impressive music and dancing, fancy sword maneuvers, various sports, intense card games, and vigorous walkers. The park was on the big lake you could see from the top of the hill of Jingshan Park.

There were also some beautiful temples and even a cool man made cave where the emperor used to practice his kung fu. One of the courtyards leading to the temple had bedrooms and living rooms surrounding it filled with what looked like replicas of how the rooms used to appear. This style of display was different from the other bedroom displays we've been seeing where they have the room set up with what's left of the old actual furniture. You get to see the real stuff but its also nice to see what they actually could have looked like.

We had a couple more places to see while we still had the car. So we visited the Cow Street Mosque, the biggest mosque in Beijing. It said in the guidebook that the mosque had Chinese influence, and it was so Chinese looking that you could barely tell it was a mosque except for the Arabic written on the building and the graves. We made another stop just around the corner at the Fayuan Temple. Karla liked this one a lot. The complex was well laid out, not too big or busy, and was beautifully decorated inside and out. The trees must be beautiful in the summertime. Being expert temple goers, we swiftly made the rounds and where on our way to our final drop off point of the day-the Drum and Bell Towers north of the forbidden city.

When we got out of the car we managed to communicate that we would take a cab home from here (we wanted to walk around the hutong at leisure) and would be leaving the following day. With the words tomorrow, bye-bye, taxi and the hand signal of an airplane, he shook his head happily having understood, shook our hands, and pulled away.

We had lunch at a small restaurant, and thought we were ordering the dumpling soup. What came out was a fish soup with the whole tail in it! Karla, with her stuffy nose, loved it, and Alicia could only take so much of the extreme fishyness. Ironic we know.

After lunch, we visited the Drum Tower. We walked up a very large flight of stairs to get to the floor with the drums. We had just missed the demonstration and so walked around reading about the history of drums and time keeping and looking at the great views of the city while we waited. It was short but interesting to watch them beat these huge red barreled drums with great precision. Back down the stairs we went. To get up to the Bell Tower across the courtyard we had to climb yet another giant flight of stairs. Perfect. If we weren't sore from the Wall before, our legs definitely reminded us now. Upstairs was a very large bell cast as one piece. It was quite impressive.

We were still waiting to hear from Shanshan when we started to wander through the hutong. She is Chinese but studied at Alicia's sister's university. We had thought we could meet up with her to walk around but in the end we were going to meet her for a very traditional Chinese dinner. We explored the hutong quite thoroughly and we saw where they sell bicycle and motorcycle hand warmers. They are basically like giant mittens with a hole in the side that fits over the handles. They look pretty hilarious. It's such a great idea though, and all the rage here! Exploration complete, we made our way to the subway (after stopping a an ATM of course).

Dinner with Shanshan was a success. We ate hotpots, a meal that you essentially cook yourself. You pick the broth, the dipping sauce, the meat, the vegetables, and whatever traditional snack you want. She had a lot of fun explaining to us what this meal was all about. Apparently lamb was a warm meat, eaten during the winter. We got a garlic dipping sauce and a peanut buttery sauce as well. We got one spicy and one non spicy broth. We also ordered traditional chinese sweet tea and some preserved mini crab apple things they usually sell on a stick in the streets. Shanshan told us that she loves coming to Beijing because she loves to eat. We now see why- the food is very yummy! One thing we were supposed to have was Peking Duck. We know, we know, but you can't do everything! And we did have tofu Peking Duck with Lucy...

Overall, the meal was delicious. Unfortunately Karla's sense of taste wasn't all there due to another cold, but she enjoyed it if not for its process. Although putting your meat in the boiling pot and then trying to fish it out with chop sticks wasn't the fastest of processes, you still got very full even when eating slowly. We left dinner nearly three and a half hours later!!! It was fun to talk to someone who has lived in China most of their life- another reason it took so long.

After dinner Alicia put on her new biker gloves and we headed home to pack. It took us nearly an hour to get home and Karla even dozed in the subway while Alicia remained vigilant, but upon arriving at the apartment we put ourselves to work packing, listening to Christmas songs, and enjoying our celebratory Dragon Seal bottle of wine (our last night!). Packing took only twice as long for Karla as it did for Alicia (her excuse is that everything has to fit "just right" or else it won't fit at all). Regardless it was late when we finished but we spent a few minutes unwinding in front of the TV before passing out. We had to get up around 630, as our flight was at 10am. It's going to be a looooong day.
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Day 103: December 16th. All in a Day's Wall-k

This morning we were only 10 minutes late for Mr Li. This is a real improvement for us! He took us promptly to the Great Wall. It only took about an hour and a half to get there.

We took a cable car up to the entrance, and started walking. We figured that this would give us more face time on the wall. It turned out to be a lot warmer out than we had anticipated and soon were carrying most of our layers. Better safe than sorry I suppose. We soon decided that it was less crowded going the other way, not to mention that the lighting was better, so we about-faced and started walking in the opposite direction. It looked steep, but we were up for the challenge.

The Wall is certainly all it's cracked up to be, great because of the way it snakes around the hills, following the contours of the land. It stretches on as far as you can see...impressive not because of it's height but because of how long it is! Even though a lot of it is in disrepair, the crumbling bits are just as fun to try to follow along. Because the wall follows the mountain side, it's pretty darn steep in parts. It's especially impressive when it looks like its going straight up.

We had heard that this was the way the wall looked in places but you can't really believe it until you see it for yourself. It was downhill (mostly) and slippery when there weren't stairs (Karlas shoes have long since lost their tread) on the way there. Of course we made friends along the way. I think it was national photograph a white person day. At least they always asked with a giant smile on their face.

Anyway. We went as far as we could on that part of the wall (about an hour and a half of mixed walking, shuffling, picture snapping, and jogging). When we reached the end, there was a group of Chinese people applauding us and waiting for us to reach the top! We took group pictures and everyone else in the group exchanged phone numbers and emails, and we all went on our merry way. Karla couldn't stop doubling over with laughter at the peace signs they posed with when she was taking the picture. Alicia even joined in on the fun.

The hike back up sure looked extremely daunting. You have to see the pictures. Shockingly it wasn't nearly as hard as it appeared! In fact, it took us only a little over an hour to hike back up. Step by step we got there. Although our butts were a bit sore afterwards, it was an amazing walk. We really felt a sense of accomplishment, especially since our new friends took the mini train back up!

We did take the cable car back down to the parking lot (you'd be insane not to) and climbed back in the car with Mr Li, who took us back into Beijing. Although it was almost dusk and tried telling us that our desired destination was closed, he dropped us off at the Temple of Heaven Park. It was too late to go into the temple, but we walked around the park til sunset (one can pretty much guess what the temple looks like from the outside), then crossed the street to the Pearl Market to finish our Christmas shopping.

A very jolly cab driver took us home to sort out what we're doing tomorrow with Karen (our amazing and patient translator), who of course had to call Mr Li and tell him the plan. Once we had the rest of our trip planned out (yikes!), we walked to The Place shopping center across the street to grab dinner. We found a quick cheap place and had a delicious meal.

At home we watched yet another corny movie (good work hallmark), then hit the sack. Hope we're not too sore tomorrow!

PS - Please note the triple-entendre in our title. Now that's rare!
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Day 102: December 15. Busy Bees!

We ate eggs for breakfast this morning, then scurried around packing lunch so that we could have a more efficient day. Time is running short!

Mr Li picked us up from Lucy's and we drove to the Summer Palace. This was the summer residence of one of the Empresses, and was built (then burned down and built again) around this giant lake. It was a (relatively) warm day, so we walked around the periphery of the water, stopping to go over bridges and see temples, and of course to walk on the ice for a bit. It was just beautiful! There was more than one photo opportunity...

We took the (not-so) short cut around the lake because we wanted to have time to explore some of the dozens of temples and buildings near the entrance to the compound, and ended up climbing through some caves and rock formations to approach this fantastic three-tiered temple from the back side. Although the temple itself was a bit of a disappointment (they only let us in to the first tier even after we had to pay extra!), we were able to take in the view over the lake and walk down the front side through an elaborately painted tunnel of stairs. But we've come to realize that a lot of these temples look the same...

We ate our packed lunch of PBJ in the car on our way to the Old Summer Palace and walked around there for an hour and a half, looking for ruins. We found some, but we couldn't find the entrance to the 'good' ruins...at least we got to see them from the top of a hill.

Mr Li next dropped us off in a 'hutong', which is a kind of small neighborhood connected by alleys in China. We had wanted to see another temple, but it was already closed, so we wandered around the 'hutong' instead. This was the best decision we made all day! We saw courtyards to houses with the laundry all hung out (and nearly frozen), people zooming by on mopeds, a couple of small fruit and veggie (and in the back, meat!) markets and a man pressing dough into noodles, as well as a bunch of storefronts with their salespeople outside greeting their neighbors.

We purchased some delicious clementines (Graham: who says there isn't fresh fruit in China) and Karla immediately consumed one (she's craving citrus as she has a cold coming on). Delicious! The woman even let us pose with her bigger-than-we've-ever -seen grapefruits. In fact we also saw some humungous cucumbers and horseradishes. When we tried taking pictures we realized that almost every fruit or vegetable was somehow oversized and so there would be no way to tell how big the foods in fact were. It reminded us of the ridiculously oversized map that Daniel bought in Turkey. We took a picture of him with it but realized he was so tall that in the end the map didn't look so big. It was nearly five feet long afterall. Is the size of the veggies and fruits a product of genetic engineering or are they just really good at growing things? We may never know.

In front of the noodle making shop we stood mesmorized for a bit watching the father-daughter team making and selling their raw noodles. They were covered head to toe in white flour. Putting the dough through the machine at lightning speed didn't stop him from smoking a cigarette at the same time. We didn't know whether to be amazed at his skill or disgusted at the ashes falling in the dough. After having them laugh at us for a while and after another guy on the street pointed at the noodles and pantomimed eating to show us what the funny looking white stuff was for (thanks dude), we continued on our way.

We decided to be adventurous and tried a couple of cookies being sold from a small store. Karla took a large bite out of a rectangular one that looked like one cracker was vanilla, one chocolate, and a marshmellow-like filling. She immediately gagged and practically sprinted down the street to spit it out. Drastic measures, thought Alicia. Alicia asked to taste it, and Karla shook her head vehemently. Alicia asked what it tasted like, and Karla replied 'basement mold'. Alicia of course wanted to taste it herself, and took a delicate bite. Indeed, we had purchased mold cookies. Yum.

When we decided that we'd had enough of new tastes for a while, we hopped in a cab to the Pearl Market, which was much like the Silk Market. Counterfeit goods intermingled with hand-made Chinese arts. It's interesting when the vendors look at us and immediately think we want 'Gucci' bags or 'Polo' shirts. Especially cause we still look like backpackers, whether or not we're staying in a nice apartment!

We (aka Karla) lost track of time and had to take a cab home and were nearly late to meet Mr Li who was picking us up to go to the doctor. So we sprinted across the shopping mall across the street and came tearing around the corner and Mr Li just laughed (he has an amazing patience). We haven't been on time for him yet!

We met Lucy's friend Karen (she's chinese but speaks near perfect english) at the doctor's, and before going in to see him, she took us to see where all the traditional medicines are prepared. The herbs are taken out of these drawers and thrown on big sheets of paper, then wrapped up for people to take home and boil and drink. It was really cool to see and amazing to think about how many kinds of medicines everyone had to remember.

We were lead into the doctor's office, and Alicia explained her hip issue, with Karen translating when necessary. The doctor immediately found the exact spot that was aching and without Alicia saying anything, he found every other sports injury she had ever sustained on her leg. He then poked and prodded the muscle back into place, telling her it needs to be rested (ok fine. When we get home!), and that it needs to be massaged back into a non-inflamed state. He didn't look to pleased that we would be hiking the great wall the next day. She walked without pain for the rest of the night, so she'll have to find a traditionalist when she gets home!

While Alicia had a huge needle sticking into her backside (acupuncture), Karla had the doctor see about her cold (he said it could be cured even though the cold is uncurable-but it can't hurt to try). He massaged her sinuses and chased her evil spirits away, and Karla felt a little better (her headache went away). In the end it was worth it. It's amazing how physical this kind of medicine is.

We shared a cab home with Karen, thanking her for staying with us, then walked across the street to The Place to get food for dinner. We had a weird meal of eggs and bread (Karla) and eggs and Singaporan meat (Alicia) while watching another weird but captivating movie on the Hallmark Channel. Unfortunately this one wasn't Christmas themed...
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Day 101: December 14. Action Packed

The bakery run was more efficient this morning as we knew where we were going! And it was a little warmer today which helped.

We ate at Lucy's, enjoying the warmth of the baked goods, tea and hospitality before saying goodbye to Lucy, who flew back to the States for Christmas this afternoon, and thanking her profusely for her generosity.

We walked to a neighborhood park, called Ritan Park, and walked around. We saw the whole city there! People were practicing Tai Chi, playing hackey-sack, exercising on these little metal machines, stretching, playing cards, singing, playing the flute, playing badmitton...and that was just the adults! We had a great time just walking around and people-watching. Although we did play hackey-sack for a little while with one of the groups of adults. The park itself was beautiful too...there were pagodas and frozen ponds, hills and rock formations, evergreens and stark trees all around. We were struck by how alive it was, even in the dead of winter!

Although it would have taken a very long time indeed to tire of watching Beijing go by at Ritan Park, we had to get a move on to keep to our busy little schedule. So we walked to the Dongyue Temple. This was a smallish complex, but it was jam-packed with things to see. The draw of this particular temple is that it has dozens of halls with statues of deities and demons who deal with certain situations, according to Taoist Buddhists. For example, there was the Hall of River Gods and Goddesses, Hall of Mountain Gods, Hall of Eternal Damnation, Hall of Controlling Demons, Hall of Justice, Hall of Adultery etc etc. It was really interesting!

We rushed home to make tuna sandwiches for lunch, then moved out again to go to the Olympic complex. We saw the Bird's Nest and the Bubble, as well as some other stadiums that neither of us recognized. Alicia bombarded Karla with questions about which building was which, but we ended up not knowing much about the complex. Oh well. It was cool to see anyway!

Next we were driven to the Lama Temple, which is a huge series of Tibetan Buddhist temples. We saw many large statues of the Buddha, and a couple of interesting exhibitions on Buddhist relics.

Feeling lucky, we next headed to the Weekend Market again. Tis the season. And we can't come home and just go to the mall after being around the world...let's just say we made some good deals!

We got dropped off at home and said goodnight to our driver, Mr. Li. Then we did a quick turnaround and walked toward a theater to try to get tickets to an Acrobatic show. Success! We had a little more than an hour before show time so we had a quick dinner at a sushi restaurant (which was delectable!-thank goodness because it was the only restaurant around) then headed back to the theater.

The 'Flying Acrobatics Show' was awesome. It had a little something for everyone. The hour was packed with dance numbers (very corny), mind-blowing acrobatic tricks and body contortions ((but seriously. How do they BEND like that? (and usually while balancing on something moving)), and our favorite, the poses. After every athletic or acrobatic feat, the performers would strike a pose. It was hilarious, probably mainly because, despite our choice to get the cheapest seats, we were literally front and center (VIP) and close enough to see the makeup and the goofy expressions caked on their faces. Fantastic.

After the show, we took a cab home. We weren't quite tired yet, so we enjoyed some ginger tea and an awful Christmas movie, courtesy of the Hallmark Channel (hey it's China...we'll take what we can get!) Right before bed we saw Michael Phelps on Leno...we saw where he won all 8 of those medals today! Good timing us!
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Day 100: December 13. We're already on Day 100?!?!?

The trouble with staying close by a bakery is that there's no choice but to get there early to take advantage of the fresh baked goods. Lucy went yesterday morning but now we have taken over this responsibility (gladly!). They have the best chocolate croissants covered in almond goodness. A perfect breakfast treat. We can even make eggs to go with it. With steaming hot tea, a delicious breakfast and the news on, we were starting the day off great.

Lucy had her day off from work today and so we hopped in the car and she showed us the weekend market. At this point we've seen almost everything, but it was still very unique. There was a block or two of small shops and stalls beneath a tall roof. We wound up and down the aisles, scanning the pottery, bronze status, and jade jewelry with trained and experienced eyes. We both found a few small things right away, and after an hour or so of more browsing, the cold forced our frozen fingers to seek the car. It was not only cold, but windy today.

Next Lucy was going to treat us to foot massages at her regular neighborhood parlor, but first we had to make a quick stop at the Silk Market. This five story building is infamous for its annoying and loud vendors and for its extensive collection of fake brand name purses, shoes, and clothes. Being surrounded by copyright lawyers and daughters of intellectual property lawyers, we all quickly tired of riding the escalator and finding nothing worth pretending to buy. Although I'm sure that there were some interesting purchases to be made, we had done enough shopping by that point.

The foot massage was overall spectacular. We had been walking a lot this past week so it was just what we needed. They definitely knew what they were doing, but unfortunately Alicia had the luck of getting the sleeper. Apparently Lucy has learned to stay away from this guy because she's been there enough times to know better. It was a little annoying and a little funny, but more than that it was sad to see that this man was working so hard that he was just simply not able to keep his eyes open while he was working. He's clearly not sleeping enough.

All that massaging made us hungary. Lucy we suggested we stop at the Starbucks by the grocery store. We were slightly skeptical about this, but soon decided that their turkey sandwiches were delicious, and that the hot chocolate and coffee (guess who got what) was the perfect thing for a day like today. After eating we went downstairs to load up on some groceries to get us through the week. Lucy surprised us by getting them for us. We were grateful but both thinking that she shouldn't be so thoughtful. Is it possible to be too nice and generous?

We jumped in the car and swung by home to make a pit stop and let Lucy go before heading to Jingshan Park. This park was just north of the Forbidden City and provided amazing views of the city from the hill at its center. We stayed there until sunset, observing the park life and the communities of people talking, playing cards, or playing musical instruments. It's hard not to fall in love with a Chinese park after even just walking through. You find a sense of community not found in many places in the world. We were impressed with the number of people out in the waning winter sun to be with their community and enjoy each other's company outdoors!

On the way back from the park we wanted to drop off some postcards. It was a little challenging as the driver cannot speak or understand any English. We pointed to the word post office in the guidebook, but thankfully realized after he'd starting making a phone call that he had thought we were pointing to the world police. OOPS.

We returned home in time to have some tea and get ready for dinner. We were going to Lucy's favorite restaurant in the entire world, Pure Lotus. Lucy's friend and translator Karen (and husband) met us there. The menus were insane as the restaurant was vegetarian and had to come up with creative ways to make shark fin, chicken, and Peking duck a vegan dish. Thankfully Lucy and Karen ordered and we enjoyed every morsel we tried. The endless supply of tea was delightful and was great for washing down the rich food.

We arrived home exhausted. We planned out our day for tomorrow and passed out.
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