Thursday, September 27 (Mel)

I am ashamed to say that I started my day at Starbucks in Beijing.  I got a double tall mocha and a blueberry muffin.  I celebrated my discovery of real coffee (i.e., no Nescafe) by wearing lipstick to spite Ardith.

We packed our overnight bags for Chengde and left the hotel at 8:30am.  I fell asleep on the bus, even though our driver was swerving all over the road.  I’m used to being thrown all over a bus throughout China.

We arrived at our hotel at noon.  It’s the Mountain Villa hotel, and the most posh place of our entire trip.  We went to lunch across the street, then got on the bus for two sites.  The first was a six-story fortress, with views of the surrounding mountains and countryside.  (So many steps to get up there, proving yet again that China is one big Stairmaster.)  The building was hundreds of years old, with bamboo roofs and ornate woodwork.  It was fun to tootle around there for an hour.

Temple at Chengdu

The next temple was incredible.  Although it was quite ordinary in appearance compared to the first temple, it contained something quite special:  in the middle temple was a 35-meter tall statue of Buddha, made out of wood, with 30 arms, each hand holding a special object.  I’ve never seen anything that huge made of wood.  While staring at this gorgeous outrageously-tall statue of Buddha, one invading thought came to mind - somebody forgot to dust Buddha.

                       
                Ken at temple bells (ring the bells for each wish you want to come true)                                                        Mel at temple bells

Another feature of this temple was the Hall of Hell.  It had pictures of what Buddhist hell is like, including some gruesome drawings of eye-gouging, disembowelments, piercing thorns, and on and on, ad nauseum.  I learned something new today - that Buddhists believe in hell.  I may sound ignorant, but I didn’t know that.

Chengde temple rooftop

Ken and a few other people decided to climb a small ridge to watch the sunset.  I would have gone, but my feet hurt, so I hung back at the hotel and spent the remainder of the afternoon with Grant.  In the hotel gift shop I did manage to find the old-fashioned mahjong playing sticks.  Bonus!  And for only 2 yuan (25 cents).  I did not kick butt at mahjong tonight; Grant beat us all.  The rule was that the person to the left of the winner had to wear the Mao hat (we bought it in Chengde).  We each had to take turns wearing the hat.

Got to bed early, because we have to get up early to go to The Great Wall of China.

Friday, September 28 (Mel)

After a breakfast of Fruit Loops with strawberry yogurt drink (my mistake at the store - I thought it was skim milk) and toast, we checked out of the hotel and headed towards The Great Wall of China.  In anticipation of the momentous event, I wore lipstick to spite Ardith.

The area marked in red is The Great Wall

We got to The Wall and headed up the steep trail.  Each hiker had a girl following them, who persistently tried to sell water and souvenirs while we were walking up the trail.  No matter how many times we said “bu yau” (“don’t want”), they still kept at it.  We reached the tower.  Most of the group went on for a 7km hike on The Wall, but I stayed back because my blood iron levels were bottoming out, which makes me tire easily.  Otherwise, I would’ve done it.  Grant also stayed back, as did three older women from our group.

After Ken and I took pictures at The Wall, I kissed Ken goodbye, then did the one thing I’ve wanted to do:  ate Fruit Loops on The Great Wall of China.  We hung around for a couple of hours, then headed to Simatai to pick up the hikers.

Ken and Mel at the Great Wall of China

Simatai is in the valley regions, whereas The Wall is on a ridge.  Four of us took the cable car, then the “mini-train”, then hiked another steep climb to get to The Wall.  At the top, Grant and I flew a kite.  After a few lazy attempts at getting the kite to soar, a Chinese girl came up to me and said that I needed to run in order for the kite to take off.  I replied that if I ran, I would run off The Wall and die.  We laughed.  After we flew the kite, Grant gave it to the ice cream man at the tower.

The Wall starts at the Pacific Ocean, and goes for something like 2000km.  Throughout the 2000km, men who died while laboring for The Wall or trying to escape that labor are buried in The Wall.  All 2000km of it.  Cool but creepy.

Sign at Great Wall cable cars; #1 is particularly funny

We joined up with the group at 2pm for lunch, then headed back to Beijing.  We stayed at the same hotel (Harmony Hotel in Dong Cheng district), got spiffed up in a hurry, then headed to the opera.

The Chinese Opera House is 300 years old.  It’s designed to hold about 100 people.  We got to go backstage, watch the actors put on their makeup, plus see all the props and costumes.  The “orchestra” is to the right of the stage - a cymbal player, a drummer, a flutist, and a Chinese stringed instrument player.  We saw three short operas:  one about a jailer and a prisoner, one about a girl waiting for her lover, and another about a monkey king who wanted to rule the sea.  Lots of singing, lots of kungfu, and lots of bright costumes.  Opera includes tea and small mystery-flavored snacks.

   
                            Opera:  The mouse and the thief                                                                                                    Opera:  a maiden and her servant

Opera:  the sea king

After the opera Ken, Jon, and I went for pizza.  I knew we’ll be in the States soon and can eat all the pizza we want, but we’re hitting the burnout zone on kung pau chicken, sweet and sour anything, and mystery meat.

Saturday, September 29 (Mel)

Today was shopping day.  We ate our Fruit Loops with (regular, not strawberry) milk, then scrambled to the train station to catch bus #39 to the Pearl Market.  The bus should’ve been put out of commission about 20 years ago.  The engine was like a lawnmower, in that if the driver didn’t hold a lever down, then the engine would die.  So for every intersection, he started up the bus.  Everything was plastic or medal inside.  Many things were rusted. I was afraid that my seat would fall through the floor of the bus.

The Pearl Market is every Russian’s:  many things from clothes to jewelry to luggage to electronics.  Everything is haggled for.  Russians were everywhere, yet they refused to haggle.  Go figure.

Our first item of acquisition was North Face jackets.  Basically, they were namebrand rip-offs, in that the same sewing machines that sew America’s North Face jackets sew the jackets we bought, it’s just slightly different materials and not necessarily sanctioned by North Face.  A lot of items in China are blatant namebrand rip-offs with trademark violations, but since China isn’t fully involved in the WTO yet, then there’s no way to prosecute for these trademark violations.  In my opinion, it’s the fault of multinational corporations anyway, since they exploit the labor of third-world countries in the fabrication of their products.  If the country allows “extra” products to be made for their gain, I have no problem with it.

We found a jacket with a gazillion pockets, and a detachable fleece liner.  We asked for four of them (two are for Ken’s siblings), and started haggling price.  We got her down to 200 yuan each, and she had started at 475 yuan each (200Y=$25, 475Y=$59).  I saw a Russian couple start to pay 475 yuan and was going to tell them (in Russian) not to pay more than 200 yuan, but the salesgirl blocked me!

I went on the rampage for silk items, Mao watches, clothes, etc.  I found pearl earrings for myself for 20 yuan ($2.50).  We ate lunch at KFC for one last time, looked around the shops a bit more, then headed back to the hotel by taxi.

I tried to take a nap while Ken went walking around the city.  As he left, Ken told housekeeping that our toilet was having problems.  About 20 minutes into my nap, the doorbell rings.  It’s the maintenance guy, come to assess the problem.  He calls the guy who actually fixes the toilet, who calls the tool guy who brings the tools to fix it.  China needs to give a job to everyone, so three guys to fix a toilet is one way of doing that.

Since I couldn’t sleep after the toilet circus, then I went to China Post for the internet.  I sent out my last email message from China.  I was sad about it.  I could easily stay another two weeks in China and am not ready to go back to the “real world”.  I’m not ready to deal with two jobs, making dinner, doing laundry, driving, being polite, playing bills, routines, no spitting, no shoving, no yelling.

I went to Grant’s room to chat away some time, then back to my room to get ready for our last group dinner.  But before dinner was the CD guy.  The CD guy is someone who sells music CDs and movie DVDs for dirt cheap.  A CD is 6 yuan (75 cents) each and movies are 10 yuan ($1.25) each.  He’s not exactly reputable, so his “business license” claims he sells the covers, not the actual CDs.  We bought 12 CDs and 3 DVD movies.  We had to have the special knock to get in the door (hahahahaha).  It was in Grant’s room.

Our entire group went to the duck restaurant for dinner.  We all walked slowly, since it was our last evening together.  We ordered all the usual dishes, and four roasted ducks.  The group egged Ken on to eat the duck head.  He gnawed on the duckbill a little bit, then Jon and Ken dissected the head.  (I had to look away during this, and told Ken that I ain’t kissing those lips for a while.)

After dinner we walked to Tianamen Square and half the group flew kites.  As we were leaving, the police were slowly descending on the crowd in order to clear them out.  I was 10:30pm.  At the underground walkways, the police were forbidding everyone from entering the Square, only letting them leave.  The reason they are doing this is because they want to avert any possible “trouble” for the big National Day festivals.  Last year the Falun Gong group set themselves on fire at the Square in order to protest the government crack down on the religion.  So now the police are on hyper alert and clear out the Square every evening.  National Day festival means that everyone has an entire week off from work - October 1-7.  Banks are closed, as of course all government offices.

We walked back to the hotel, got the mahjong set, and played our final game in China.  As luck would have it, we all won a game each.  But there was much trouble made to play this game in the café.  Why?  Because we moved a table 2 feet.  The café workers were horrified and told us we must not move the table.  Jon said we must move it for one hour, then will move it back.  She said it was not allowed in the rules.  Jon asked to speak to the manager.  She said the manager was gone for a little bit.  Jon said he will speak to the manager when he returns and then proceeded to set up the tables for mahjong. The workers were speechless.

Halfway through the game, the waiter, the lot attendant, and the security man were involved in our mahjong game!  And who should show up and proceed to tell me how to play - the café manager...

Chengde (Ken)

In Chengde, we saw a temple that was built as a one-third scale of the Lhasa temple (the rightful seat of the Dalai Lama in Tibet).  Even though it was built with numerous facades, the temple was still breathtaking for its scale and its location on the mountain, overlooking the surrounding mountains and countryside.  Much of the temple grounds were overgrown with trees and grass, and in places, plaster and paint were flaking away; since the temple wasn’t really operating anyway, it made the place seem like more of a relic. 

We also went to another smaller temple, with a colossal wooden statue of the Buddha, looking both beautiful and fierce, and some grotesque statues depicting Buddhist Hell. 

In the evening, Robbie, Ann, John,  and I climbed up to a natural rock pillar on top of a big hill to watch the sunset.  We took a taxi to the base of the hill, bypassed the chairlift, and found the road/path to the top.  It turned out that the road passed through a little village tucked into a small valley.  Yet another out-of-the-way place that the locals seemed more than a little surprised to see us westerners.  From the village, the path veered off and went up the hill, basically though the front yards of small homes on the hillside, then past fruit trees and small patches of corn on the hillside.  As we wandered up the hill, a dog came out and barked at us.  At one point, we had to stop and ask a woman (by pointing), if we were on the right path to the top.  She was quite friendly and responded in the affirmative.  When we got to the top, it turned out that we would have had to pay to get to the rock pillar (it was in something of a park at the top of the chairlift), so we just found a spot to watch the sunset and headed back down.  As the sun sank behind the hills, for the first time in China, I could feel the chill of oncoming fall.  We passed the barking dog again on the way down, and this time its owner, an older woman, came out and scowled at us.  I was last in the party, and the dog (a small terrier mutt) lunged as if it would bite me.  Wanting no part of rabies, I ran, passing Robbie, Ann, and John.  The dog chased me right past the other three, but soon, thankfully, gave up the chase. 

The Great Wall (Ken)

As much as I was expecting it to be a cliché, the Great Wall of China turned out to be a peak experience; that is, all except for an altercation that occurred during our hiking on the Wall… 

We started out early from Chengde.  When we got to the dropoff point, there was a whole gaggle of peddlers there, each with a basket of bottled water and souvenirs.  We had to mill about for a few minutes to get our tickets straightened out.  Then as we filed through the path entrance, they literally lined up and matched up with each of us one-on-one, as we headed up the path.  Each hiker had his or her own personal hawker. 

Starting point at the Great Wall

Mel and I got up to the Wall with the rest of the group, and took a few photos.  Then I took off with Jon, Heidi, John, Robbie, Ann, Ted, and Ivy, while Mel and Grant saw us off and returned to the rest of the group to meet us at the other end of the hike.  Meanwhile, our souvenir peddlers faithfully followed us along.  For the most part, they were content to just follow us each silently.  At first, we thought they would give up, but finally we realized they would follow us for the entire 3-hour hike.  At this point we hated to do it, but we had to be firm and basically rude, telling the vendors to go back and leave us alone!  Finally they left us, and there we were on our own, hiking the Great Wall.  It was a beautiful cool day, with the sun shining through big white clouds.  The Wall runs right along the crest of low mountains.  From any point, looking forward or backward, it winds like a ribbon across the mountains off into the horizon.  In places it was very even going, obviously having been restored, in other places it was crumbling and the footing unsure.  The grade went from nearly level to lung-and-leg-burning steep ascents.  Every several hundred yards there was a guard tower, each in a different state of repair.  We hiked for a couple hours, and had the wall all to ourselves.  I never got tired of stopping to examine the details of the wall or the towers.

 
Great Wall of China

Then we got to a guard tower at which three men were waiting.  As we tried to enter, they indicated that we needed to purchase tickets.  We had not been informed that we would need to buy any extra tickets besides the one we had already purchased.  Jon and Heidi had been warned of scams, and we all were sure it was a scam.  We argued with them for a couple minutes at the tower entrance and showed them the tickets we already had.  They emphatically demonstrated that their tickets were different from ours.  We couldn’t go back, and even though we had the money amongst us, we didn’t want to pay for a scam.  Finally Jon tried to force his way past the three men (each a full head shorter than him).  They grabbed at him, there was a scuffle and he raised his fists ready to swing.  Someone in our group (Heidi, I think) shouted and thankfully everyone recovered their composure enough to discuss things some more.  We argued for a good ten minutes more (imagine a heated argument where the parties do not speak a common language… oh, wait, that would just be like a married couple arguing).  John got out his cell phone and pretended to make a call, asking if we needed tickets and if we did, that Grant would take care of things at the bottom.  I’m not sure if the three men got the gist, or whether they even believed John was on the phone, but after his fake phone call, I just forced my way past the guy and walked on down the wall, and none of the three men stopped me.  Everyone else followed, but one of the men went walking past us, and made a beeline for the end of the wall segment.  We spent the rest of the hike wondering if we would be arrested at the end of the hike. 

       
                            Unrestored archway at Great Wall                                                                                                Side view of Great Wall

We got to the exit/entry point, and couldn’t find Grant or anyone else in the party, but went to the ticket booth and found our friend from the tower there.  We quickly established that he was legit after all.  I think we all felt like total asses.  We sheepishly and profusely apologized, and paid for our tickets.  We made a show of getting our money out of the bus, to try to make it look like we didn’t have the money with us on the Wall.  The man was incredibly good natured about the whole thing.  It occurs to me as I write this, that maybe he didn’t want to make us lose face more than we already had.  When Grant showed up later, we roundly chastised him for not having prepared us to expect these guys on the hike.

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Next installment: 

saying goodbye to China...

mkadenko/01.01.02