Summer Travels Begin (7-9)

Monday was my Peace Corps Close of Service. Since Peace Corps provides accommodation for two nights, I decided to take advantage of that and went to Chengdu on Sunday. The university provided a driver, which was nice. Late Sunday afternoon I went to the River View/Bamboo Park, which is near the Peace Corps office. I’ve decided that it’s my favorite park in Chengdu and have recommended it to others who want a beautiful place for a few quiet hours. It had rained Sunday afternoon; so the ambiance was especially nice. I purchased a cup of tea, which comes with a thermos of hot water, and sat enjoying the tea and reading for over an hour. Then I slowly walked along the paths, discovering one I hadn’t been on that leads to the west gate. I also discovered a sign that explained that the park has over 200 types of bamboo and is the largest bamboo park in the world.

Doing the Close of Service check out took three hours, most of which was chatting with the director and Mr. Xie, my program manager. Somehow the COS process always seems anticlimactic. After finishing I went to the hostel where I met Ercilia to begin our five-day holiday. That evening we went to Wuhou Monastery, another place I enjoy walking around, as she hadn’t been there. I started to realize how exhausted I felt after the last several weeks. That night I slept for nine hours, the best sleep I’d had for quite a while.

Tuesday morning we started our Beijing adventure. I got off to a rather inauspicious start when I got off the bus with my small backpack that I use for overnight trips and walked to the airport entrance with Ercilia. When the security guard at the door started scanning her bag, I realized that I didn’t have my big backpack that was in the bus’s luggage compartment. I ran back (Fortunately it wasn’t far.) and got there just after the last passengers disembarked, quickly grabbed my bag and returned to the building entrance. The security guard had a big smile as he scanned me and my bags. I was glad to have provided him a moment of amusement. And gladder that I had retrieved my bag so easily. It was a quick reminder to get into my more vigilant vacation mode of traveling.

We had booked a four-day tour to see Beijing’s highlights. I’m really glad, as is Ercilia, that we didn’t try to take in everything on our own. We were met at the airport and delivered to the hotel. Jerry, our guide, gave us a map and directions to go to the Wangfujing night market that Ercilia had read about. So, after settling in, we headed there by foot, which took half an hour. On the way we enjoyed looking at the doors to houses. 

First we found the food stalls and had fun walking along, looking at and photographing the various snack foods. They are so colorful. 

They include seafood, dumplings, exotic snacks—bees, scorpions, spiders, and centipedes (I think these are mostly for young Western men.)—sweets, noodles, skewered meats and squid and various other organs we don’t eat. Just about every kind of snack. 

Eventually we selected what we wanted to eat. I had a chicken pocket and sticky rice between tofu skin. It wasn’t great, but it was fun to try it. 

After eating, we had a look at the pedestrian shopping area nearby. It has Chinese department stores 

as well as famous brands such as Prada.

Wednesday morning we were off for the day’s tour: Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Temple of Heaven. I’d seen them all when I was here 27 years ago and remembered bits of them as we walked around. One surprise in Tiananmen Square was the long line to visit Mao’s mausoleum. Jerry said people are sometimes in line for three hours, but Chinese people feel that they have to visit their “Chinese god.” I know we didn’t wait that long when I was here before. 

New in the Square are two huge video displays that were put up for the Olympics so people could watch the events, since they couldn’t attend the games. Now they display advertisements. 

We did join the Chinese in having our photo taken in front of the famous gate to the Imperial Palace/Forbidden City.

The Forbidden City, also called the Palace Museum, is overwhelming. Built in the 15^th century, it was home to the emperors for 500 years. It has almost 1000 rooms. Buildings are red, as that’s an auspicious color for good luck, and have yellow roofs, as that’s the color for purity. They were renovated for the Olympics. 

The walk from one end to the other is about a kilometer. I’ll have to review my old photos, but I seem to remember going to more places than we did now. 

The only building we were allowed to enter is the Hall of Clocks, home to over 1000 18 and 19^th century clocks from China and a few European countries. I found myself enjoying these more than I had anticipated, and the building itself was beautiful. 

We were allowed to “fight the crowds” to look into and photograph two important rooms in other halls. 

The imperial gardens are lovely even with the crowds.

After visiting these two sites, it was time for lunch. Daily lunches at nice restaurants were included in our tour package. We chose a sea fish dish with pancakes and several vegetable dishes: eggplant (Ercilia’s favorite which we had every day), broccoli, green beans, mushrooms and cucumbers. All were delicious and we ate too much.

The Temple of Heaven is where the emperors went once a year to pray for a good harvest. The buildings are blue for heaven and green for earth, as they connect the two. One building is for praying for a good harvest, the earthly part of the complex.  

Another important part is the altar for praying for good weather, the heavenly part. In the center of the altar is a round place where the emperors prayed. Now groups of people stand on it for photos. Jerry commented on their lack of respect. 

In addition to the historical buildings, the temple grounds are beautiful. People can enter them and walk around for a nominal fee that does not include the buildings.

The temperature was about 32/90 degrees; so we were pretty wiped out after walking around for several hours. Back at the hotel we both had a short nap and read for a couple hours. Then it was time to head out again. We took a trolley to Beihai Park, which isn’t far from the hotel. There we walked around for an hour enjoying the lake, lotus flowers, and buildings. 

We walked up to the white pagoda that we could see from the hotel’s rooftop restaurant. Since it was evening, many Chinese people were walking for exercise.

Jerry is 30 years old and has been a tour guide for three years. He learned oral English at a six-month intensive training. (Of course he had studied English for about ten years, but speaking is not part of most classes.) He comes from the northeast part of the country, but has lived in Beijing for nine years. However, he is still not a resident. Since he can’t afford an apartment in the city, he commutes 2.5 hours each way by bus and metro to get to work. He has bought an apartment and lives by himself, making him a slave to his apartment. He knows his speeches well but sometimes was not able to answer additional questions; his presentations seemed pretty rote. But he is a pleasant person.