Sunday morning the college provided a driver and car to take me the 3 hours back into Beijing. My plan was to tour around the city for a few days prior to leaving for home. There were a number of sites that I was not able to catch on my first trip into the city, and I hoped to be able to see these before I left China.
I checked into the same hotel - Howard Johnson's Hotel Paragon. And then, just like my first trip to Beijing.....I put on my backpack, grabbed my camera and water and headed out.
This meant I was starting out at about 2:30-3pm in the afternoon. This was a big mistake because Beijing was f'ing hot!!!!! It was 37 degrees, humid and muggy. It was also pretty hot during my first visit earlier in June, but the extra 5 or 6 degrees made it crazy hot this time. After a couple of hours hiking around, I had:
A) completely sweated through all my clothes.....including my underwear (I was not going to mention this in public, but thought I might as well tell it like it is...so yes, Claude, after a couple of days of this it looked like I might have to start using Heather's underwear after all!).
B) bought and drank 3 big bottles of water...in fact I was so thirsty, I had no interest in drinking beer....just water (how dangerous is that)!!!!
C) ....think I got a bit of heat stroke, as I did not feel very good that first night.
This kind of changed my plans a bit, because it was pretty clear that I was going to have to stay at the hotel, or at bare minimum in some air conditioned place during the late afternoons
...however, having said this, over the next 2 and half days, I did manage to hit all the places I had hoped to! These sites, included (no David Letterman top 10 this time...just more of a "list"):
1. The Ming City Wall Ruins Park (and Southeast Corner Watchtower and Red Gate Gallery) - I loved these places! They are not mentioned much in the guide books....but it was one of the best things I saw/visited while in Beijing?Most of the Ming City Wall was leveled in the mid-50's to make way for the train tracks, roads, and developments, which is kind of unfortunate.....and this 2km stretch/park is all that is left of the original fortification.
The Ming Wall was also called the inner city wall, and was originally 40 km in length and protected the city during the Ming dynasty. The really cool thing about this modern day park/site/restored wall section is that in some parts you can see bullet holes in the wall...and at the Southeast Corner Watchtower you can see graffiti scratched into the wall by the allied forces when they attacked and overran Beijing during the boxer rebellion in the early 1900's.
The Red Gate Gallery is also specifically mentioned in the tourist material...but I found this gallery to be less than underwhelming...and not even worth the 10rmb it cost to go in.
The Tower is really impressive! It has lots of archer's windows, and inside is beautiful with huge red pillars and lots of fancy "architecture".
2. Chairman Mao’s Memorial Hall and Tomb – Mao died in 1976, and the Chinese constructed this memorial hall on the Southern side of Tienanmen Square shortly after that...and even though it could be argued that he did as many bad things for China as good, he is definitely revered!
His mummified corpse is also here and thousands of people (including me) lined up for hours to walk through and view his body (which is kind of weird....and morbid). No pictures allowed in here...in fact you can not even bring a bag in!
3. The Bird’s Nest, Water Cube and Olympic Village site – all of which are well known venues from the 2008 Olympic Summer Games. To see inside the birds nest was fairly expensive (in terms of Chinese - 100rmb) but I think it was worth it.
4. Temple of Heaven Park – This is a HUGE park (297 hectares) south of the train station (near the Pearl market), and is not so much a "temple" as a place where the emperor and empresses came to pray for good crops....with various building, altars etc. These buildings all have specific purposes - for example Imperial Vault of Heaven, Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest, the animal killing pavilion etc. etc.
5. Went back to the Silk Market and Pearl Markets for more haggling/buying!!!!
The funny part of this visit is that I went to buy some more watches as gifts...I paid 30rmb MORE per watch than the first time (130rmb versus 100 on my first visit earlier in June). You'd think you'd get better at negotiating, not worse!
In my defence, this time the girl cried. I am not kidding, she started crying and saying that I was wasting her time and was not being fair. This of course made me feel like crap, and I agreed to her higher price.
However.....it was more than a bit suspicious because once I agreed to the higher price, and paid it....she miraculously stopped crying....and I really knew I got played when she gave me her card and said if I wanted more watches - NOT to negotiate with anyone else, and go directly to her booth!
This was not a good sign that I had negotiated a real hard ball deal!!!!!
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