my first meal after the train. actual read food! the mozzarella sticks are on the way. that's a chinese diet coke.
croquet league in the park
moat around the forbidden city
me across the street from tiananmen square. that's mao off in the distance - and yes, i'm wearing a faux chinese army hat. ;)
tiananmen. the world's largest public square. it is HUGE!
this would be the countdown clock to the olympics! they're scattered around the city. china is soooo excited about the olympics.
Monument to the People's Heroes
i got the parasol for 20y down from 40y. i love it!
Chairman Mao's tomb is closed for renovations for the Olympics!!! Darn it! I wanted to hit the trifecta and see Lenin, Mao and Ho Chi Minh.
the guard.
Our dear Chairman Mao above the gate to Tiananmen Tower.
smoke break
using a very cool pipe
outside the Palace Museum (current name) aka Gu Gong (chinese name) aka the Forbidden city
Tiananmen Tower
View of the Gate of Supreme Harmony. FYI, the Forbidden City was the home of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Construction began in 1407. It's brand new by Chinese standards!
Gate of Supreme Harmony. The Ming Emperors held morning court here.
my parasol steals the show.
all of this marble was brought in by digging wells along the way and, in winter, creating ice paths to slide the marble on.
Hall of Supreme Harmony. That white path that's easier to walk on was for the emperor only. No one else was permited to walk on it. It runs through the palace complex.
if you zoom in, you'll see that these are all different creatures.
part of the emperor's walkway
The Hall of Medium Harmony
I had an audio tour, but can not remember what went on in the Hall of Medium Harmony. Sorry!
Entrance to the Inner City. The last Emperor was overthrown in 1917, but was still allowed to inhabit the inner city until 1924, when he was evicted. During that time, the outer palace was open to the public. That must've been odd.
Palace of Heavenly Purity. That Banner up on top is where emperors would place a box containing one of the two documents naming his heir. The other was kept on his person at all times. If the emperor died away from the palace, he was brought here & then both documents were compared to make sure that they matched.
in the Palace Gardens.Two intertwining trees. Romantic.
Emperors would come here to write poetry. Hundreds of years of royal poetry.
Mountain climbing is HUGE in China. The emperor and his concubines climbed this once a year and had tea up at the pavillion. The rocks were all picked for their "exotic" shapes and assembled into a mountain.
The palace in the Inner Court in which the last emperor learned English and about the world outside.
The Palace of Concentrated Beauty. In Turkish, this'd be known as the harem.
inside view of the women's quarters.
I found the harem palace section to be incredibly depressing. Girls were assembled from around the Empire, between the ages of 14 & 16. Princes daughter's were exempts. The best were kept. Of those, some caught the emperor's eye and advanced.
View of Jingshan Park, which used to be part of the Forbidden City.
The walls and moat around the palace. The complex is HUGE. Everything in Beijing is on a giant scale. Maps are deceptive because one block could easily be a mile long.
My "rickshaw" driver. I took a little tour of the Hutongs - the ancient courtyard building/alleyway section of Beijing.
High fashion. Note the gloves, visor (these are often worn to cover the entire face), socks with sandals and the detachable sleeves.
Nan Luo Gu Xiang. The alley in the hutong that my hostel was on.
One of the three massage places on my alley.
One of the free public toilets. They are everywhere. Very convenient. There are also signs "WC ---> 50m" etc. all over. Unfortunately, many don't have doors, or walls seperating the squat toilets. I've had a very intimate look at Chinese women's daily lives. Very communal.
"No Sales Outside Shop. No Sales on the Road." In other areas, each little market would have goods spread out on the street for the shopper's easy view.
line of pedicabs taking a group on a hutong tour.
local rideshare program.
recently built courtyard building. the two posts over the door means that this family is well-to-do. Four would mean they're stinking rich and none would mean that they're poor.
men playing chinese chess. it only ever seems to be men, and they mostly play in the evenings.
renovations, hutong style.
the local version of a guy with a truck.
my pastry from the Moscow Bakery. Unfortunately, doesn't remotely resemble the EXCELLENT Russian pastries, but still quite good.
Family, with a rare two children, out for a ride in the bicycle only lane.
sun setting over the hutong
cool building with the invisible 3rd wall in beijing.
Chinese National Acrobatic Troupe. According to my driver, they are no longer allowed to perform once they hit 20.
prepared for rain.
flexible young man!
with a strange way of crossing the road.
boys, just having fun.
i wonder why that mattress is there?
why's that kid standing up? he might fall!
oh god!
just hanging out.
surrealism
see, they have an advantage with this routine, considering how much time the average chinese citizen spends on a bike.
how nice, friends out for a ride together.
careful!
someone, buy these girls some extra bikes! 12 per bike is just too much!
neon=china
red lantern street
chinese immigrants in San Francisco must feel so cheated when they celebrate special occasions in our local banquet houses.
Houhai district - bars, teahouses, a lake with boats for hire, people selling things on the street. i bought a new battery for my camera.
bars across the water.
woohoo!
couple setting loose their lantern. it floated off into the sky over some houses. i hope it's not a fire or getting clunked in the head hazard when it comes down.
middle-aged couple out for a ride. taken while riding my own rental bike.
cable car up to the great wall of china
yeah right! i walked.
first view of one of the towers.
it just keeps going.
ladies who demanded that i take a picture with them. they were all laughing hysterically while their cameras were being used. they were less amused when i wanted a picture, too.
me with (from left) fergus, james, and hiro. guys from the hostel on the same 6k hike of the great wall.
we happened to be there on the day of the Great Wall Marathon. Cool!!!
running the wall
it's so beautiful that it just seems fake.
some random girl with a gorgeous parasol. ;)
oh! that was me!
a less restored section of the wall
in one tower, i could signal to someone in the next tower.
the engineer who built this section should have been fired.
ancient and modern staircase side by side. i guess restoration isn't that bad.
almost every tower had at least someone selling ice water. most were more elaborate. i forgot to buy a t-shirt!!! i'm so bummed.
wow. some things, you just really have to do. Mao said that a male couldn't call himself a man unless he had climbed the wall.
doesn't it look fake?
it just keeps going. the 6k that i hiked had 30 towers.
the runners get water and cookies here. they run back and forth on one of the better sections of the wall.
good thing the sign is there. otherwise, i'd have been running up that without a care in the world.
sometimes the wall was cruel.
view from the wall. this is the side that was being protected.
this lady was sitting right next to the "Danger! Keep away" sign. this struck my funny bone, but when she saw me dig out my camera, she declined to be a model.
that would be me.
james gets cred as the photographer
moments of absolute beauty made it all worthwhile
fergus and hiro taking a break
moi
poignant moment
wildflower growing from the wall
preparing to jump
there's only one way down.
we were a bit more careful after one girl took a header and fortunately only had scrapes to show for it. her forehead stopped less than an inch from the corner of a stone.
and we're walking.
another fun climb
very lucky girl with the scrapes, modeling some of my antibacterial bandaids.
i ran into tim from the train on the wall. it really is just a tourist trail through china.
it was a rough and winding road.
terraces
this would be the money shot.
my favorite ascent.
it really was impossible to get a pic without someone in it. i gave in and decided to think of the people as symbols of the massive population of china. ahh, rationalization.
hiro and i followed the sign and went around. we let fergus and james conquer this one alone.
we only went as far as that horizontal line in the top third of the pic.
paddies.
we did cross a very cool swing bridge.
view from the wall.
That was me in the harness, zipping aross the river. Hiro accidently took video instead of photos, so here's the ticket stub instead.
not shown, the zipline we took down the mountain, and the boat that took us across the river to the carpark. goodbye, wall!
i just love the solar powered street lamps.
the 5 olympic girls. stuffed animals, keychains, hair ornaments, etc. etc. etc. of these girls are available everywhere.
uni's reincarnate form
i know it's her by the white fur, pink ears, bicolored eyes, and of course, by the biting.
dinner.
crysanthemum tea
zoom in on the fim figure in the center. that would be a man in his undies just stepping outside of his house. nothing more natural.
Kylin at the Summer Palace
for more info...
people waltzing. it really is all the rage in beijing.
for those too young to waltz, there's hacky sack. you'll see circles all over the city.
beijing has a huge emphasis on physical activity. go out to a park from dawn 'til midnight and you'll find dancers, martial artists, hacky sack players, croquet teams, a plethora of activities. beats watching tv every night.
the Summer Garden is a huge garden complex laid out around a lake with scattered temples and palaces. gorgeous.
view of the lake with modern Beijing in the distance.
this spot was my favorite.
if you look at the first row of buidings beyond the center of the roof, you'll find a micky dee's. my map of beijing marks all mcdonalds locations with a red 'm'. at first, i thought that was m for metro. nope. there are quintuple as many mcdonalds as metro stops.
guy testing the head of each buddha to see if it'll come off.
the temple of a thousand buddhas. (my name for it)
as you can see, previous vandals succeeded in breaking of buddha head souvenirs.
i ran into emma and dave from the train here. really small world.
the shop.
water lilies
another so-perfect-it-seems-fake moment.
my descent into the artsy shot.
i want a gate like this for my house.
why aren't baby feet allowed? they're so small and cute.
the marble boat
i just love these. something about so much effort being put into such a minor detail. amazing.
a whole boat...made of marble!
dragon boat tour
the composition here is a commentary on how fergus is like the stone. we were late to get me back for my kung fu show, but he kept stopping for more photos!
people flash the peace sign while being photographed here and in japan.
that is a very lucky lion dog
guy selling melon slices on a stick
just a crowd
the bus
schoolkids.
mom and daughter
the point of this pic was the mom and child on a bike with the child having a sun/rain protector. i just think that's great.
the bicycle is really underutilized in the US
couple at the corner engaged in major pda
i saw this exact outfit about 20 times in beijing. the white and black dress with a fitted bodice and full skirt paired with either red or black high heels
start of the kung fu show.
introducing the story of "the pure one"
mother drops the young "pure one" off at the temple to be a monk
he works to turn his body into iron
he gives into the temptation of a beautiful illusion (in the form of a cute girl)
spinning wildly into illusion - losing his buddhist philosophy and damaging his kung fu.
accepting discipline of wood and metal in penance. (he broke things and had things broken on him, culminating in breaking 5 pieces of metal on his head)
fighting to defeat his ego and enter the temple gate to become a warrior monk
accepting the staff and the mantle of abbott from the old master who then immolates himself on a giant funeral pyre.
epilogue in which everyone does their best tricks.
and the old abbott spiritually reincarnates as a young boy who will be the next abbott, thus keeping the balance.
hostel shower, also the bathroom floor. it's tilted so that the water goes into the drain behind the toilet.
the drain, and our nice western style toilet and paper repository.
handy pre-written flashcards to show people where we're trying to go.
spa
the mani-pedi foot massage zone
my masseuse. there's no problem with couple massage here. up to three people might be receiving a massage at any one point. we're all wearing clothes though.
my foot bath to start my pedicure
the nail polish options
the best pedicure ever.
chinese red! of course, she waited until after convincing me to have this color to tell me that it cost 15 yuan extra.
the hike. everything is true except for the local tour guide. we saw neither hide nor hair of her.
Peking Downtown Backpacker's Hostel and Cafe
monks hanging out
at the airport, everything is in english and chinese. handy.
i love the fancy display of the cigarettes. funny.
more monks. i missed the shot of the monk with the tattooed head talking on his cell phone. argh!
our plane. i had the by now standard experience of a woman trying to take my window seat and then behaving as if i were the one at fault for wanting to sit in my previously requested and properly assigned seat. Cheeky!
the economy shuttle
the first class shuttle
beijing from the air. very dark. surprising. they must have low voltage lights. farewell!
