back in beijing...

We continue to make our way to Kobe, Japan with our current location at 2105 Sunday night ship time...
Latitude: 32 degrees 33.63' N
Longitude: 133 degrees 41.33' E
Course: 60 degrees

A group of 38 of us (2 faculty, 1 staff, 2 "tagalongs" [me and one other], 2 tagalong teenagers, and 31 students) left for Beijing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing by first boarding a bus to the airport in Hong Kong at 6:00am on Monday, March 30, and catching an Air China flight. Going from Hong Kong to anywhere in China is considered an international flight, so we had to clear customs in addition to the usual security checks and so on. The Hong Kong airport is quite nice, with free internet and lots of shops and food places. I had the impression that most things run on time -- our three hour flight did and the experience was very pleasant. We even got breakfast, something that does not happen on North American flights any more! The airport in Beijing is pretty spectacular too.

We were met in Beijing by our tour guide, Andy, who we later learned is 29 years old and who has a University degree in English. We went first to a nice restaurant for lunch and sampled some of the local dishes. It was a good meal and we went then to the Temple of Heaven http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Heaven, a Taoist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoism structure built in the 15th and 16th centuries. On our
walk to the main building, we passed many people of all ages, engaged in leisure activities: games, playing musical instruments, dancing, singing. One young couple was having wedding photographs shot. The attached video is one of the larger group activities we witnessed. After an hour or so walking around the grounds, we returned to the bus and went to our hotel for check-in. My roommate was our assistant librarian on the ship, a young woman from Alabama.

Later that evening we went out for a Peking duck dinner. We had duck in all ways you can imagine and it was very good, although I found that I was quite tired from the traveling and earlier activities of the day. We returned to the hotel and I think most of us had an early night.

On Tuesday morning we were up fairly early for a buffet breakfast in the hotel since we were to be back on the bus by 9:00am. The hotel was full of tourists from all over, and we all sat at very large round tables with people we didn't know. People seemed very intent on eating breakfast and there was little talking going on. It was all very efficient and we made it to the bus in good time.

Our first visit on this day was to Tiananmen Square http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square. This year is the 20th anniversary of what much of the world calls the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and what the Chinese call the Tiananmen Square Event or the June Fourth Incident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989ki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989. Our guide spoke of the structure of the Square, and of the fact that it is the largest city square in the world, but said nothing of the "Event", something that many of us found disturbing, but not surprising. It was quite cool outside on this day and a number of the students bought hats (see photo) from the street vendors at the Square. These vendors were selling all kinds of junk and chased around after us trying to bargain with us. We are all getting pretty good at saying no (since this has happened everywhere we have travelled), but they did not give up easily -- perhaps because so many bought hats. Mao watches with waving hands were popular items too, even though these students are too young to have any memory of Chairman Mao waving in front of the cameras.

From Tiananmen Square, we went to the Forbidden City http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_City, walking in through the Meridian Gate. We used electronic headsets with technology that could detect where you were and deliver the appropriate dialogue, which made it very convenient for everyone to move through this massive site at his or her own pace. We spent a little more than two hours there, but you could easily spend days seeing everything. It was sobering to see military training exercises among buildings called "The Hall of Supreme Harmony" and "The Hall of Earthly Tranquility". The movie "The Last Emperor" had run on the loop on the cabin tv's the week before so the area inside the walls looked very familiar. I am happy to have had the experience of being there and seeing it first hand -- it is a magnificent place.

After lunch at another nice restaurant, we were treated to trishaw (variation on the rickshaw where, instead of a two wheeled seat being pulled by a person walking or running ahead, the unit is attached to a cycle so that the whole thing has three wheels) rides through Hutong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutong lanes and a visit to one of the courtyard homes. Our group visited a family who had eight people in three generations living together with the courtyard in the center. We had an opportunity to talk to the woman who was in the middle generation and to see the kitchen, a couple of bedrooms, and her artist husband's work area. After a little more than an hour in this area, we went to the Bell Tower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Gulou_and_Zhonglou and walked up some steep and deep stairs to the top where we could see the huge bronze bell contained in it. It was quite cold and windy by that time, so we didn't stay long and went downstairs to a tea shop where we had a tea tasting with pomp and ceremony. It was a lovely place to get warm!

Once at the hotel, we were on our own for the evening, and my roommate and one of the students and I decided to go in search of western food. The only place we could find within walking distance was MacDonalds, which I never eat at home, but which I found was absolutely perfect that evening!