Saturday, October 4, 2008

Beijing Part II

Sorry for the delay in getting Beijing pictures out. We have mid-semester tests coming up next week, so I have to prepare four different sets of science tests. Also, a stomach bug has run through our family (I was the only one spared). So, we have been quite pre-occupied for the last few days. Anyways, here are pictures of day two and three of our trip to Beijing. Above are Dan and Evelyn in the back of the mini-bus that we took to the Great Wall. The Great Wall is actually a couple hours North of Beijing. In order to get there, the gang got up about 7:00 a.m. We went to the subway, which was right at Tienanmen Square, and which was about 12 blocks from our hostel. We walked to the subway and took it to the bus station. When we got to the bus station, we boarded a long distance bus. Evelyn sat on my lap, Dan on Jane's, and Etain on Jiu Jie's. It was pretty cramped for the bus ride, which took just under 2 hours. Again, though, I expected the ride to be horrible, but there were no problems at all. When we got off the bus, we were bombarded by people at the bus terminal, as they knew we were going to the Great Wall. Everyone was trying to get us to choose them to take us the rest of the way to the Wall. We settled on one guy who gave us the best price, so we all piled into his van, which was called a mini-bus over here. Dan and Evelyn above are in the back seat with Jane. As you can see below, I sat in the front seat, Jiu Jie sat in the middle, and Etain pretty much climbed wherever she wanted (no seat belts or car seats here).


The mini-bus ride lasted about 20 minutes. Finally, we arrived in the little town where access to the Great Wall was available. We saw the Great Wall as we were driving, and it was quite impressive. When we got to the town, we bought tickets to get on the Great Wall via gondola. However, the gondola was at the top of a hill, with a cobblestone street full of vendors. The vendors in Beijing were very aggressive; they wanted to make the sale. There were a few instances on the street when we were walking, were approached by someone wanting to sell us something like pillow covers or posters or flags or ornamental chopsticks, which we denied. Rather than getting the hint, the person would follow us for one or two blocks, constantly shouting out ever lower prices. The vendors at the bottom of the Great Wall were no different. When they saw Jane, they would say, "Hey lady", as if that was an affectionate greeting. They sold everything from hats to t-shirts to statues to food. Their favorite thing to do was to say "One dollar". One lady told me that t-shirts were one dollar, which I thought was pretty cheap, so I told her I would take shirts for the kids. She quickly changed her tune, giving a price in Chinese that was nowhere near $1. It didn't work on us, but I am sure it is effective on tourists just up for the week, who don't know the buying rules. (I mentioned to Jane that the Olympics must have been a major boom for street vendors in Beijing, because people probably came over who did not haggle with prices, and who thought the quoted price was already pretty good. Jane's rule of thumb is to try to get things for no more than 60% of the original price quoted. Using this method, she bought some Great Wall t-shirts for the kids for a good price).
We took the gondola to the top of the Wall. Here is a picture of the O'Toole family on top of the gondola base. It was situated on one of the large lookouts on the Wall. You can see the Wall stretching out behind us.


Here is a picture of Dan in another one of the stops along the Great Wall.





Here are Jane and Etain. Directly below them is Evelyn, looking out one of the drainage holes for the Wall.

Here is Dan sitting atop one of the lookouts of the Great Wall. To get up there, you had to climb very steep steps, and then climb a mini-wall that was about 3 feet tall. It was difficult to get up there, but the views were great. (I took a video up there, which I will post later. I am at school right now, and don't have access to anything other than these pictures, which I saved earlier).

Here is a picture of one of the turrets, with Dan at the top of the stairs. When in Beijing, which was totally crowded, everyone that we talked to put in their two cents about where we were going on the Wall. All of the Chinese people told us that we were going to the wrong part of the Wall, because it was not "touristy" enough. However, this pictures, as far as I am concerned, shows that Jane made the right choice on where to go, because there were plenty of times when we could be on the wall with no one else around.

I think that picture is also interesting for other reasons. First, it shows why we did not bring the stroller on the Great Wall. There are tons of steep steps; the road getting up to the Great Wall was hard enough to manage. Also, it has the potential to be a very dangerous place. There were plenty of places where you were solely on your own to ensure your safety. In many places, if you tripped or mis-stepped, you were going to fall 10-12 feet. Further, there were a lot of bricks that were crumbled. There were no railing or guards anywhere. Back home, I don't think you could ever have been allowed to walk on the Wall. When you see this, though, it really gives you the appreciation that this was not built for tourists, but it was built by hand to act as a guard post against invaders. In that way, its ruggedness is very neat. I was nervous in some spots though, for the kids sake.

Here is a picture of Evelyn and me walking down from one of the stops. You can see how steep the grade is of the Wall in this spot.

Here is a picture that Jane took of the kids and me. Jiu Jie is hiding behind me, not wanting to be photographed.


Here are the kids relaxing on the wall. The further you got from the gondola, the less people there were. We were able to take these pictures without anyone around because we were a pretty good distance away at this point.


Here is Etain on the Wall. As you can see, though she knows how to walk, she still prefers to crawl.
Here is the newly two-year old Evelyn, striking a pose on the Wall. She is always willing now to get her picture taken.

Here is Dan. Jane was a bit disappointed that the leaves had not started to change colors, but I think it was pretty impressive nonetheless. (I found out that the Wall is also "open" in Winter. I cant imagine trying to walk this thing when snow is covering it. I don't know of anyplace nearby, within 30 minutes, where you could get medical attention other than simple first aid.)

Here are the girls and I on the gondola on the way back down from the Wall.

When we left the wall, we took another mini-bus back to the bus station. Luckily, on the bus on the way back, we were some of only about 15 passengers. As a result, we were able to each have our own seat, with most people napping. The bus ride back took only a bit more than an hour, and we easily managed the subways to get back home. We grabbed some quick street food for dinner (Jane and I are starting to prefer street food rather than sitting down at restaurants). After eating, everyone went to bed. Jane and I planned on going out, but we were too tired.


The next morning, Etain woke up quite early and was quite cranky. She needed an early nap, so while she napped, Jane, Dan, Evelyn and I went for a walk to a nearby park. The park, which I think was called Behai (Bay-hi) Park, was the site of a large temple. It was very cool inside, and I am glad that Jane and I stumbled upon it. Here are Jane and the kids at the entrance of the park, which had a sculpture of flowers. The kids are showing their meat on a stick, which was very good. It was not like a hot dog, but was rather like a breakfast sausage that has a maple syrup taste. Evelyn sure liked them, she had about 3 of them.

The park was enormous, with a large lake in it. One side of the lake had boats on it, and the other side was covered with huge lillypads (The two sides were separated by a walking bridge). Here is a picture, which I like, of Jane standing in front of all of the lillypads.

Here are the kids and I, again in front of the lillypads. In the distant background is the large temple. We did not make it up there, though, because there were too many steps for the stroller. There was also plenty to see otherwise.


Throughout the parks in China, you can see people doing exercises. Many people go to the park to do their tai-chi, which is like a slow balancing karate. In different areas of the park, there were many people doing different types of exercises. In one spot, there were women with the long ribbons that you sometimes see in gymnastics. (Think Will Ferrell in "Old School"). In another part, there was a guy singing with a bunch of random people who came with instruments such as Chinese violins. In another part, there were roughly 30 couples doing ballroom dancing. In one spot, we saw people standing in formation and doing this exercise in which they balance a ball on a paddle that was like a tennis racket. It was very cool, because they would roll the ball back and forth, flipping in over there backs and through their legs. There were two guys, who had to be in their 70, who were masters. They were passing the ball back and forth, flipping it fluidly behind there backs to each other. It was pretty mesmerizing to watch.
In another part, people were doing hacky-sack. Here, Dan got to join in for a bit (you can see that the guy is holding one of the paddles in his hand).

Here is another picture of the kids in front of the lillypads, but also in front of a large basin of yellow flowers. The kids were very good over the trip to Beijing.

I like the picture below, which just shows the lake full of lillypads.


As we were leaving the park, we noticed people who were writing Chinese characters on the ground in water. They used sticks that had sponges at the end. It was impressive for them to do, because they applied different pressures to make the lines thicker and thinner. This woman was pretty good, doing two lines of characters at once.


After we left the park, we headed home to eat lunch and get Etain and Jiu Jie. We then headed off to do some shopping for the rest of the day, of which I will have pictures in the next blog (which I promise to get too soon). Sorry for the short descriptions of events, but I only had a bit of time to put this together before my class started, which I have to head off to now.

First, though, below is a picture of the Water Cube which I accidentally deleted in the last post.


























1 comment:

Anonymous said...

By far my favorite pics so far are in this batch. Nice job you pretty O'Toole's.