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Trip to Beijing day 4

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Real Estate Agent with John L. Scott Sp34627

 

Day 4 – Trip to Beijing

 

Okay today I woke up and many things hurt… I took 800 mg of Advil and hoped for the best…. Today we planned to go The Great Wall of China…. We were going to do it like the Chinese and take the train for $1/ each way…  Today we are joined by Daniel Wenz from the College of Idaho.  We had breakfast and realized we were running late so we took a cab to the train station.  Then we found a huge line…. We waited on it for about 30 minutes.  I sat down next to an older Chinese lady.  At first we communicated through sign language.  They were from Szechwan.  I understood the word Szechwan I was able to indicate Jesse was my baby.  Later Jesse came and translated.  Then the younger  man who was with the group came up and spoke fairly good English.  There was man who was working in Beijing and he was being visited by 2 of his teachers and a spouse plus his 96 year old grandmother.  I think at first the woman I was talking to thought I was old and pregnant… I indicated I was just fat… I have only seen one fat Chinese woman and it is possible she is not from China.  Emil and talked to some of the officials and the train we wanted was full and the next one was in 2 hours and we would have to stay in line for the 2 hours.  Taxi drivers kept coming up to us and offered to drive us up to the Great Wall for huge amounts of money.  The guidebook warns us off these entrepreneurs.  If you want an guide arrange it ahead of time. We ditched our plan for The Great Wall and decided to go to the Lama temple instead…

 

As we approached the temple there were several people selling incense… Emil bought some and we were surrounded by people who wanted to sell us incense.  One lady put some in Daniel’s hand and wouldn’t take it back… Of course she wanted money… Daniel finely was able to hand it back.  Emil distributed his incense among us and it helped with people not surrounding us.  The Temple is the holiest sight for Tibetan monks outside of Tibet.  It is an active temple with many worshippers and monks.  Apparently you make some prayers and then light the incense and put it in a fire pit then go into the pavilion and pray again in front of the  Buddha.  I have several pictures.  The incense Emil bought was cheap because the dye came off on our hands.  Here are several pictures…

 Lama temple BeijingEmil at Lama Temple with IncenseBuddah at Lama

 

 Stephanie, Daniel, Emil and Random monkThe Kids..Jesse Holmes, The Oldsterswifi

We then got some coffee and pastries at a shop.  Then we went to explore the little alleys Hutong’s.  The first one we found was very utilitarian and not to interesting to us as tourists.   The public toilets were communal.  There was a women’s building and a men’s building.  There were no doors on the squat toilets.  I had found my Western limit.  I am willing to squat but not do my business with anyone else looking.   I wonder what Chinese women with bad knees do…. My knees are killing me…   In this very poor area they had an internet café.  We found a bigger street and walked  along it for a while.  We bought some yummy waffle like things for 1 qui each.  Then we found a more interesting looking alley.  Daniel got some kind of pickled veggies with rice in a lotus leaf…. I have had such things in the states.  I bought a pancake with veggies that I shared.  Randall persists on calling it Chinese Pizza but I read a cookbook a long time ago and it describes these yummy things.  I see no reason to eat Western food while I am here (unless the kids want some).  It was fun entertainment and cheap.  Daniel looked in the trash can and was totally disgusted with what he saw… He describes several small animal carcasses.  I will be a vegetarian in the alleys.  We then found a tourist alley where everything seemed expensive, even by western standards.  It was very decorative. 

 

The disparity of the University area and the alleys is sad. I am sure that many people are subsisting on a few dollars a day or less with using common toilets while in other areas people seems to have lots of money to spend… There seems to be a lot of havesReal alley( Hutong ) with Internet Cafe and have nots in communist China. 

 

We went to a pretty lake where things were expensive.  A good meal here would cost at least $20.  There were boats to rent and we sat at the Starbucks and watched the people.  After a while Randall and I left the kids (the youngest is 19 and the oldest is our Jesse at 25) and went to the hotel to rest.  Around 6 PM Jesse picked us up for dinner.  We had a Mongolian hot pot for dinner.  We had a communal pot where we cooked all sorts of things we bought.  This was an upscale hot pot restaurant that seemed very popular with the locals.  The food was good and the kids seemed to know what they were doing.  I am sorry I didn’t take any pictures.  The idea is that the Mongols cooked their dinners in their helmets…. Now it seems to be a Chinese national cuisine.  First you choose your pot (spices) then you choose your ingredients.  Then you put it in the pot to cook.   We walked through the western style mall where everything seemed expensive.  It was less appealing after the time in the alleys.   We went back to the apartment where I promptly fell asleep.  At about 8 we went back to the hotel and collapsed for the night.

Posted by

 Debbie Holmes

John L. Scott Real Estate

  

(208)761-2551 Email: d5holmes@msn.com

To search Boise Homes visit my website

 

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