Chillin' in China

The past two days, I have just been relaxing. Really, the whole reason I came on this trip was to relax. Obviously I want to see stuff while I'm here, but there's not much to see while Hubby's at work. Tomorrow I'm going to the city of Jinan with the wife of a guy Hubby works with. She has a friend who speaks Chinese and is going to take us shopping.

Now, I promised I'd talk about the train. We left from the new Beijing South train station. Here's a picture of it:Doesn't it look like a giant spaceship that landed in the middle of the city? It's really nice inside, too. And the train was very comfortable. We had first class tickets, which meant more space and seats that leaned back - you can kind of see them in the picture above. Starting out from Beijing, we were traveling at something like 270 km/hr. I'll let you do that math, but that's pretty fast. The speed varied, though. It seemed like most of the trip we were going somewhere around 160 km/hr, slower when we got near towns. It took 3 1/2 hours to get to Taian from Beijing.

I also promised I'd talk about toilets. Feel free to stop reading here. Hubby had warned me, but when you gotta go, you gotta go. Most public toilets here are odd. (By the way, I've never seen so many public toilet signs in a city. Almost every block, there's a sign.) Imagine a toilet bowl mounted in the floor, with treads on either side to keep your feet from slipping. You just squat down over it. There is usually no paper, and if there is, you put it in a little trash can after using it, not in the bowl. Even on a moving train, this is the type of toilet I had to use. It's... different.

In the hotel, of course, we have a normal toilet, with paper and everything. Some restaurants also have normal toilets. But in general, if we're out and about I try to avoid going. I guess tomorrow in the city I won't have a choice. Wish me luck!

More details

Let me tell you about my trip so far. We flew from Newark, NJ for about 13 hours, up over the North Pole and across Siberia and Mongolia to Beijing. I didn't see any sign of civilization until we were over China. Everything up until then had a layer of snow and ice. It was very beautiful, though. I think I got some good video, but here is a picture of a frozen river in the distance.I didn't get any shots of the mountains coming in over Beijing because we were supposed to put away all electronic devices, but I think I'll try to get some on the way home.

The first thing I noticed in the airport was the smell of cigarette smoke. You don't usually smell that in US airports. Well, I've found that people here smoke a lot. I had to leave breakfast just now because someone came in and started smoking. Outside it's not so bad, though. Amusingly enough, there were No Smoking signs on the Great Wall. And even in non-smoking rooms and "non-smoking" sections of restaurants, ashtrays and matches are still provided.

Beijing is a huge city. Not just big, but huge. Usually I can get a feel for a place if I have a map and a couple of day, but I was totally lost there the whole time. We just put ourselves at the mercy of the cab drivers. I think we only got ripped off once. I think. Someone Hubby knew from work had a friend in Beijing who was nice enough to show us around Friday night and Saturday morning. He bought our tickets to the Forbidden City, rented the audio tour guides for us, and found us the bus to the Great Wall. His name was Henry. It seems like most people we've met (maybe all) have an English name that they use, kind of like I was Juana in Spanish class. I guess they find it easier.

Friday night we tried to go to two different bar/restaurants for dinner, but they were both full - no tables at all. So we walked down the street and saw "Peppe's Pizza" up on the second floor of a building. We went there. The menu told the story of the restaurant: an American couple from Connecticut moved to Norway and started a pizza shop, and somehow now there's a branch in Beijing. So we ate American-inspired Italian food from a Norwegian restaurant in China. Now that's what I call multicultural! Incidentally, the pizza here doesn't have tomato sauce, just cheese and toppings. It was really good.

Saturday I already told you about, briefly. I will add that I have rarely seen so many people in one place in my life. Maybe at Disney World, but that's about it. Everywhere we went in the Forbidden City, you had to push and shove to get up where you could see inside the buildings. And then you had about three seconds before someone shoved you out of the way.

I think tomorrow I will tell you about the train and the toilets. You won't want to miss this.

Live from China!

I have only been here since Friday and already seen and done so many amazing things! So, as promised, here are some pictures! Now, before you get too jealous of all the fun I'm having, the temperature on this day was about 30 degrees in the city and 25 on the Wall, and that's without wind chill. I couldn't feel my face after a while.Here's the entrance to the Forbidden City. It is unbelievably huge inside. We were there for about three hours and didn't even see half of it. Hubby took lots and lots of video - I will try to post some of the shorter ones later.Then we went to the original restaurant for Peking duck. Seriously, this place has been in business since 1416! This gentleman sliced the duck for us and they served it in those cute little duck dishes. You're supposed to take a "pancake" which is a sort of very thin rice tortilla, place some duck dipped in sauce and a couple of veggies on it, and roll it up fajita-style to eat it. Absolutely delicious! Then they took the rest of the duck and made a soup for us - also delicious. It warmed me up nicely, which was good because after that we headed to the Great Wall.
You can probably tell that I am very cold in this picture. And this was before the sun went down! Notice how steep the wall is behind us? That was nothing! Look at this:I promise you parts of the stairs were at about an 85 degree angle. And we climbed it. Insane, I tell you!And then just as we were leaving, all the lights came on! They only have a small portion of the wall lit, but how beautiful! On the right, you can see the "One World, One Dream" sign, which is still up from the Olympics.

We are now in Tai'an, which is where Hubby works when he's here. You wouldn't even believe the luxury of this hotel. Today or tomorrow I'm going to go around and get some pics of it. Wow is a word I've been using a lot since we got here last night.