Saturday, November 4, 2006

Before we report on today’s activities, we need to share a few thoughts on last night’s Peking Duck dinner. We met state-side friends who now live in Beijing for dinner at a very nice restaurant. We had a huge room with a massive table all for our group (of 11). The boys had fun with the gigantic lazy susan on the table. The duck was very good, but the other items ordered were equally as good (well, except for the “dessert,” which was called “Black Sesame Porridge” (your imagination is working just fine). If you’re reading this, Marjorie and Michelle, thank you so much for your wonderful hospitality and gift for making sense of the menu. We had such a nice time.

Now, for Saturday, November 4:

We met most of the rest of our tour group at breakfast, or just after. There are four more families with children in our group, but three are little girls, and one is a 6 year old boy. Good thing my boys have each other. First stop on today’s agenda was Tian’an Men Square. Unfortunately, after we exited the bus and walked a while, we found that it was closed to the public (it’s the largest public square on the planet, but they had it roped off to visitors!)…Police Officers made sure no one crossed over the barricades. It was closed due to the African/Chinese Beijing Summit which is going on and wreaking havoc on metro Beijing’sfreeway system.

So we took pictures from across the road, then walked back to the bus. Interestingly, even tough we could just see (through a thick haze) the Forbidden City from across from Tian’an Men Square, it took over a half an hour to drive to it.

The Forbidden City, for those who are interested, was the seat of power for the Emperor for both the Ming and Qing Dynasties. As it’s name implies, it was completely closed off to visitors and the general public for hundreds of years. Much of it is being rennovated, in preparation for the Olympics in ’08, and we were not allowed to walk inside any of the 9,999 ½ rooms in the City (FYI, since the ancient Chinese believed the number 10,000 represented the perfection of the gods, the Emperor’s palace was created with 9,999 ½ rooms – just short of perfect, I guess). It was terribly windy, and dust blew continuously. Today was not the most pleasant of days to visit China’s number one tourist attractions!

We had a traditional “family style” authentic Chinese lunch on the way to the Great Wall and shopped at a Government owned “Friendship Store.” If you can believe it, I didn’t buy a thing (though many members of my family did!).

When we saw the Great Wall for the first time, it was such a neat feeling. I’m surprised the bus didn’t tip over, with people trying to get a glimpse out of the windows. Though there are four access points near Beijing, our group traveled to the JuYong Pass section of the wall. It was as awe-inspiring as you have probably all imagined, and it is quite a feat to climb it. Eric, Karen and the boys made it to the top of the wall, while I made it to the second tower (hey, I’m a lady in “labor” – due to have a baby soon!). The boys had a contest to see who could reach the top first, but I think it was a tie between Joe and Kegan (though Kegan didn’t use the railings on the way up). The steps are irregular and quite uneven in places, and are worn down near the railings. I kept thinking about how many footsteps over hundreds of years caused them to wear away like that. As we were leaving, we enjoyed the spectacle of a nearly full moon low in the sky over the wall, and it was an awesome sight.

Now, we have to have our bags packed and out in the hallway so they can be transported to the airport for our early morning flight to Guangzhou. We got back to the room filthy and tired (remember, we were in a Gobi-desert dust storm today!), so we ordered in Papa John’s Pizza – just like home.

One more thing, and I really hate to report this. We received news today that our group won’t be getting our babies until Tuesday, Nov. 7. Something about too many groups getting babies, and our group is the largest, so we have to wait. It will never make sense to us, but we don’t get a say in it! It’s not supposed to affect the rest of our scheduled itinerary. As Juliet said, “we’ve waited almost two years, we can wait another day.”

Our next report will be from Guangzhou.