The ever changing price of Gatoraid

Preface to this post: Located a store on Day 13 that sells Gatorade, not as easy as we make it sound. Very reasonable starting price of 3 yuan each.

Day 14 -
Two weeks and still having a blast. Got up this morning with every intention of seeing the well preserved (read: pickled) body of Mao. By the time we made it to Tiananmen square and figured out where the mausoleum was, the viewing time was over. Ah well, we can try again another day. Decided some Peking Duck was just the cure for missing the great leader. Walked a number of blocks until we were able to find the restaurant recommended by a good friend of mine. So you order the duck, the pancakes, and the sauce etc and then stare around the immense hall that appears to be a ballroom converted solely for people enjoying duck over the Chinese New Year. Eventually the duck comes out on a cart followed by a gentleman with a very sharp cleaver. He proceeds to carve the whole thing in under 2 minutes, mess free. Enjoy!
Full and happy, we headed over to the Temple of Heaven Park where the royal family and other important heads of state went to pray for a full harvest and strong year. Very symmetrical and balanced showing extreme beauty (direct quote from one of the signs). As we have signed up to walk the Great Wall tomorrow, it was time to turn in and rest up. Gatorade cost today: 4 yuan each.




Day 15 -
On today's listed literary was a trip to the Great Wall of China. Not on todays listed literary - an aggressive driving lesson where Mario Andretti could learn a thing or two. To begin the ride our driver politely introduced himself as "Joe", and then proceeded to scare the crap our of us with his driving. I am now going to list a series of hypothetical driving situations. Please answer each one (to yourself as to not alarm anyone who maybe a past or future passenger in your car). Passing on the left, why just settle for when the opposite lane is clear of traffic? If five cars physically fit on the width of the road (please disregard lane lines or shoulders) then why not have five cars across? Two second following distance is a: guide line to proper braking distances? or state of mind? Why not slow down when approaching a red-light in order to time your acceleration to perfectly coincide with the light change? (A little note on this. There are count down timers (like a shot clock) displaying the time before the red light or green light changes. Who thought this was a good idea?) I could go on for quite a while, but to save my fingers from typing here is my favorite passing story. Let me set the scene: Four cars headed in one direction, we are currently fourth in line, reasonably clear opposite lane (ie one can not see any oncoming cars), the road curves to the right, and cars One and Two (front to back) are traveling slightly over the speed limit (ie too slow). Our driver goes to pass all three cars at once. Car Three reacts late, but goes for the double pass. Our car swerves wide to avoid Car Three and then falls in behind Car Three. Cars Three and Four (us) pass with reasonable ease. Our car then cuts inside Car Three for the right side pass. Leaving Car Three to negotiate a right hand curve in the opposite lane. I prayed to three gods I know, six I learned of on this trip, and two more I made up. One of them was listening cause I am typing this.

Diagram of this pass available upon request.


The Great Wall is truly great. Somethings get built up in your mind and then are disappointing when you actually see them. Not this. We will get some pictures up soon (the internet in China is proving to be slow) so you can get a glimpse of the grandeur. We hiked the wall from Jinshanling to Simatai. All in all about a seven mile trek along the top of the wall. Most sections had not been restored in any way. The wall has mostly fallen into disrepair, and is quite run down (until you remember the last upgrade was 400 years ago, then it looks to be in good shape). 75% is easily passable (mind your ankles), but some parts require you to exit the wall and hike around. The wall follows the crest of the hills leading to a very undulating trek. A must see if you get to China.



Gatorade price 3.5 yuan each. All at the same store, so far 2 different sales people and three different prices...hmm.


Day 16 -
Happy Birthday John! To celebrate it was decided we would find the store called Decathalon and procure sweatpants in order to not freeze anymore in Beijing. Store has everything and the slogan is "It is essential to make sports affordable", pretty sure that is sports gear for all.
Next stop on the days adventure was Panjiayuan aka the Dirt Market. Filled with every sort of art, craft, antique, pearl or jewelry you could ever desire the place was swarming. Some booths sell the same things as the next (jade Buddhas, dolls, beads, etc), but some booths collections are best described as everything but the kitchen sink. Two pieces of jade, a vase, three vests, a small bowl of beads and a pair of shoes. Was really a cross between a garage sale and a flea market.

As it is John's birthday and the choice birthday meal is lasagna, we went in search of the next closest thing, real pizza. Armed with the name of a place recommended by a friend and a hand drawn map we did indeed find The Tree, this is about 2 blocks into a very small alley, the sort of alley you generally would take one look at and realize you were on the wrong street and turn back, only this time is was the right street. Pizza consumed, he says this was his best birthday in Beijing ever.

Day 17 -
Today we tried to see Mao again. But were denied by our inability to find "Bag Check". This guy is pretty elusive for someone embalmed in a glass coffin. I am beginning to think the viewing Chairman is all a charade to confuse tourists.

We then headed to the Silk Market, which really should be renamed the "Hey Lady" market. Basically this is where six floors of knock off vendors try to convince you to pay exorbitant prices for fake brand name labels. As one walks down the rows of shops the shopkeepers guess you speak English and say (at a volume high enough to be heard above the other shopkeepers, but not quite a yell) "hey lady, you buy here, we have nice ____". Now it does not really matter what they are selling, or if it even applies to the particular person they are addressing. They even call out "I got something in my shop you want". Now when you do actually find something you want at a shop with a nice looking sales person you come to realize three things. One, they start you at about nine times the final selling price. Which is really annoying because when they start at 900 RMB you have to under cut them by 90% just so the finishing price is near reasonable. Two, they know the exact price of everything in their shop. They probably have well over 200 different items for sale, and they know the buy and sell price of each. Three, they speak better English then some UN translators. They start with "Hey, you want to buy here" and end with "With the falling dollar and the current economic uncertainties in the US home mortgage crisis, my net profits are slipping. It is only my international client base that keeps me afloat". Also, for simplicities sake, most price negotiations are done on a calculator. And they can do some rapid and creative math when splitting the difference with you. I am not going to go into any detail about what was purchased be cause we didn't get any of your gifts here, no really, we got you all the real things.

- Side note: A couple of fellow travelers are currently trying to stream a Shakira concert performance, but the bandwidth here is not sufficient. Nothing like really choppy Shakira to get you up in the morning.

After the mass chaos of the Silk Market we went to the Confucius Temple. The temple is a working temple dedicated to Confucius. "Working Temple" means it is relatively in good repair, unlike some of the historical sights we have seen. Located here is the description of the history of Confucius and his teachings (all in Chinese so not that helpful to us). The history is written on large stone tablets (3ft across, 8ft tall, and 1ft thick). With my pension for typos, I really would not have wanted that engraving job. What? That happened in 920 not 290? Ah man, back to the quarry, I need another couple tons of polished granite.


Day 18 -
China is the home of the Giant Panda and the Beijing zoo is the home of at least 6 of them and practically on the way to the Summer Palace. As the Pandas are definitely a crowd pleaser, they cost extra on the admission but we decided it was worth the nearly dollar each. The zoo in Beijing, like many things, could use a little TLC, much of the paint is peeling and chipping, cages look pretty run down and overgrown, but hey, maybe this is closer to life in the wild.



Enter the Panda house and are greeted with both the site of an adorable young panda and a Chinese family banging on the glass where it is sleeping and yelling at it so it will move and be more entertaining. Guess there are also different understandings of how one treats animals in a zoo. This lovely woman in a yellow coat continued to harass every panda she passed in hopes of it doing something more interesting than sleeping.

Post Pandas we headed over to the Summer Palace (when a small city doesn't cut it, why not build a lake and second residence?). Something like 136 acres, 85% is this huge lake that was built and enlarged over the various dynasties, similar styling to the Forbidden City but with summer in mind. Of note is a huge marble boat built on the north end of the lake, the empress Cixi used funding marked to the navy to make vast improvements to this residence and then as homage to the group she took the funds from, built this boat. Not sure that is quite what they had in mind...


Day 19 -
Ha, finally got to Tiananmen Square with enough time to find back check. It is across the eight lane street, just follow the signs for "Articles Deposit". Oh articles deposit, why didn't you say so earlier? Of course that translates to bag check. Close enough. The English translations normally make sense with some context. So, after depositing our articles, we join the masses in a semi-line (kept line-like by official looking individuals with megaphones) to see Mao. We passed cleanly through security, no harmful or prohibited item on us, past the booth where you can buy flowers, and into an anteroom containing a large white marble statue of Mao sitting in a chair (maybe half the size of the Lincoln Memorial). In front of the statue are the flowers that you can buy outside. As the line gets ready to enter the room with Mao you are supposed to form a two person wide line in order to get more people past Mao (or so the reader board informs us in may languages). Now up until this point every one has been pushing to get past Eliza and I. They have jumped ever corner where there is a slight gap, pushed past "looking for other family members closer to the front", and cut the line after getting out of line when placing the flowers near the statue. But, now the masses form a single line closest to the rope for better viewing. And this appears to be okay because for the first time in China everyone is quiet, respectful, and lining up nicely. Except for one uniformed guard who is yelling and pushing Eliza, and only Eliza, into forming a second line (no English, only yelling in Chinese). I am not sure what would have happened if I had asked nicely (or not nicely as I was considering) for the guard to please unhand my girlfriend, but luckily it did not come down to that. For once the crowd played into our favor as it pushed us past the not so nice uniformed individual and though to the viewing room. From what we have read there is a waxed version of Mao and a pickled version of Mao. The doctor tasked with embalming Mao was not sure if the process would take, so he had a wax version created. The story goes that you are never sure which one will be on display on any given day. We are pretty sure it was the waxed version.

After Mao we wandered over to the Lama Temple. The street leading up to the temple had more stores selling every variety of incense imaginable. Once we were in the temple grounds we figured out why, it is appropriate to offer incense to Buddha, and it might be one of those "the more the better" type things as people would take handfuls, light and offer then leave them burning in these huge troughs. One of the last building here houses a really huge Buddha, more than three stories high, carved out of a single piece of Sandalwood. On our way out we passed a meditation room that was currently serving as a display room for figures presented to the Lama temple. Half way around the room we noticed a figure on high in meditative stance. As we never caught him blinking or breathing the question of the day continues...wax or real? Pretty sure this was the real deal.

Final stop was Yashow market, which turned out to be like Silk Street. 100% silk, just for you lady, best price for you lady.

Time to grab our bags and head for the overnight train to Xi'an.

Pictures have been updated:
http://picasaweb.google.com/LizaInAsia