Good bye Beijing, We Loved You!

We didn't have a camera cord to transfer Jenn's pictures to the blog until today, when we went to the Shanghai silk market and I asked a random guy who sold Iphones if he had a camera cord that we can buy.  Although I doubted he had what we needed, he of course, pulled the correct cord out of a secret drawer in his both and allowed him to test Jenn's camera on his laptop to see if it worked.  I have to say that I adore the people here- they are so helpful and friendly and really do seem 100% honest.  So, here are a few pics from our last days in Beijing of the two of us travel partners!

Another member of the Jenn & Rachel Fan Club

And more...Jenn with the Beibers...

Under the Lover's Tree :)

On Tienanmen Square

The subway is so packed, it makes STL Metrolink look like first class accommodations

I show a little boy his photo at Panianyuan

Clearly, I have experience in this department :) 

Eating candied huckleberry, that is...

Wangfujing Snack Street

Great Wall- Mutianyu

Jenn told me that the only candid shots of me are of me taking pictures...it's her job to plan the itinerary and it's my job to blog and take pictures

Taking the luge down to the bottom!!

Kitschy but fun!

Jenn and I enjoy the Great Wall

Dinner

We had a traditional Beijing Peking duck dinner at a hole in the wall place called Li Qun Roast Duck restaurant which is located in a difficult to find hutong. 

Cooking the roast duck

Hitting the Great Wall & Getting a Second Wind

I am at this point so tired that I’m  having a hard time staying awake for our last night out in Beijing.  We haven’t really had the energy to go out to a bar or club and tonight was our planned night to do it.  Mary has some friends here who are throwing a party on a rooftop bar in Sanlitun (which is a total high end western-feeling area that is popular with theex-pats) so I figured that I couldn’t turn down the experience.

The Finns

Even though the bar called Mango was amazingly designed on the inside, had a great view of the city at night, and was teaming with stylish ex-pats, I was hitting the wall and was about ready to head home around 11:00.  Just then we were approached by some American students and some guys from Finland who really made me perk up and gave me my second wind.  Needless to say, the night got crazy with me and Jenn dancing to the music on the roof top and we didn’t leave until about 2:00 am.  But our flight for Shanghai leaves at 10 am, which means that Jenn and I will only be getting 3 hours of sleep tonight…

 Cheers to our last night!

Cultivating international relations with the Finnish- we

are brought together by our love of Swedish vodka

Last Day in Beijing: Shop Till We Drop!

Panianyuan- The “Dirt Market”

Since there are so many sites to see in Beijing Jenn and I haven’t had much interested in shopping, but we definitely wanted to go to the antique flea market in Panianyuan today.  It’s supposed to be the best place to get antiques, crafts, and artwork from local artists.  Also, it was the first day that Mary was able to join us on our sightseeing as she had been working every day since we arrived.  It worked out perfectly because she speaks Mandarin and is able to barter with with the locals.  The prices here are insanely low, and we are like kids in a candy store-  I got by boyfriend my favorite find for the day, but I can’t tell what it is because he will be reading my post and I don’t want to ruin the surprise!

hundreds of porcelain vases...

Mary and Jenn check out tea sets

and haggle prices

Showing this little boy his digital picture on my camera was a 

major highlight of my time in Beijing

This little one was fascinated by my camera so I took his picture and showed it to him afterward.  I bought a present for my future nephew from his mother and while we were negotiating a price her little boy started to cry because he was hungry and wanted to eat lunch.  Mary pulled out a small bag of M&M’s and those tears disappeared right away though!  Clearly toddlers’ love for M&M’s transcends all cultural differences!  All of my nieces and nephews love the stuff which is why I like to call it “baby crack.”

 

I'm obsessed with Mao propaganda- I bought a ton of posters. 

But this Andy Warhol knock off was a bit too steep for me at 400 RMB

Wangfujing Snack Street

This was by far one of my favorite experiences in Beijing.  At 4:00 pm every day, there is an open market on Wanffujing street (quite literally means “Snack Street”) where you can get fresh and amazing street food.  Jenn and I are quite literally throwing caution to the wind and trying everything, and I am loving that we are both foodies who love to try anything no matter how gross it looks.  We got fried calamari, stinky tofu, candied huckleberry fruit, donuts, and dumplings.  Everything was hella good and since I am writing this entry in retrospect, I can say that my digestive system has had zero reactions to my samplings of Chinese street food- just make sure it's hot and cooked right in front of you!

Raw fish on sticks and been curd

Candied fruit- we tried candied huckleberry- the traditional candied fruit

stinky tofu...it tastes better than it smells!

Our Rock Star Status Continues....

We felt pretty proud of ourselves for jumping in and navigating the subway….and yes there are tons of people surrounding us and pointing and laughing.

In the subway it was pretty crowded, so I didn't take many pictures- I was protecting my stuff from pick pockets...

Although we navigated the subway perfectly, we were unable to find the Tea Street shops that we wanted to visit at the XISI subway stop.  Chinese maps always seem to be a bit incomplete with misspelled street names or missing streets….so we decided take a break from sightseeing  to stroll through a hutong and grab an afternoon snack and beer at a local restaurant.

Hutong bikes

Spicy pickles???  Yum!

We Meet the Mario Andretti of Rickshaw Drivers

Again, finding a cab at certain times could be no easy task so we were luckily approached by a random guy riding an unmarked rickshaw who said he would take us to Beihai Park for 40 RMB (which is a total rip off by the way).  Since our legs and feet were dead tired from our adventures we bargained him down to 20 RMB and he motioned for us to hop into the gypsy rickshaw.  Moments later we realized the error of getting into the rickshaw- this guy was biking at full speed from street to street, almost took out a pedestrian (which nearly knocked us out of our seats), and then speed up into oncoming traffic.  Once we reached our destination and he asked to be paid, I realized that I only had a 100 RMB bills.  He of course had no change, so I gave him 17 RMB and waited for him to completely freak out on us for short changing him.  Thankfully, he recognized our rock star American tourist qualities and allowed us to go on our way with our 3 yuan discount.

Beihai Park

Dinner at Chaoyang Park - A fabulous traditional Beijing meal & a Fodor's Choice!



Deep fried vinegar peanuts are a recipe that I will be learning as soon as I get home...

We are Rock Stars, Obviously…For so Many Reasons

Today I got up at 4:30 and had big plans to tackle my VPN issues.  Long story short, after an hour of being treated terribly by the online chat tech support, Jenn and I decided to log on to my computer with her username and password.  And viola!  It worked- and we made quite a scene of excitement in Jamaica Blue coffee shop! 

The plan for today is to hit as many major sites as possible, so I’ll keep it short and show the good stuff:

Tienanmen Square (this was an hour long cab ride!! And it wasn’t very far at all, the traffic here is insane and at some times of the day it is nearly impossible to find a cab.

The iconic Tiananmen Square view of Chairman Mao actually doubles as the entrance to the Forbidden City (The Gate of Heavenly Peace).  The scale of the square is unfathomably huge scale  and makes everything around it look far away and diminutive.    The national anthem continues to play over and over again on a scratchy record player and propaganda is displayed over and over again on huge digital screens glorifying China’s people, culture, and landscape.   Most propaganda is in Chinese and English so that foreigners can see that the government is very concerned with modernization and keeping up with the west.  The phrase “Civilized Chaoyang” can be seen all over the business district.

I'm having a moment with taking pictures of bikes...

Chinese Paparazzi

Jenn and I have been very much aware this entire time that we seem to make quite the spectacle when walking around the city, except inside the Forbidden City gates we felt even more ridiculous since we were asked on multiple occasions to take our picture with older Chinese couples and with younger guys (who Jenn calls Chinese Justin Biebers) which further convinced me that we were really rocking the US tourist look.   Our only explanation of this is that many visitors of the Forbidden City are domestic Chinese tourists who live in the countryside and rarely ever see Caucasians.

Our Chinese Biebers Pose

Lunch today is chicken with rice and steamed cabbage

Little kids here are so cute...I want one :) Plus a bike- BONUS!

 Forbidden City

We Conquer the Great Wall and Summer Palace-- and a Chinese Toilet Claims its First Victim

Today Jenn and I hired a driver to take us to the Mitianyu section of the Great Wall, which is a less touristy (which is a totally relative term here) and well preserved section of the Great Wall.   Our driver was amazing- for $60 he drove us all over Beijing for 8 hours and spoke pretty good English, so we were able to ask him some useful Mandarin phrases on the 1 hour and ½ drive. 

Mr. Zhong, our Chinese driver (shhh..he's taking a nap)

 Beijing countryside

Hands down the absolute highlight of the day (besides experiencing the Great Wall)  was Jenn’s first try at using a Chinese toilet…..Since I have used one Chinese toilet so far I am clearly the more experienced Chinese toilet user- so she asks me which way you should face while using, should there really be so much splashing, why is the floor all “wet” around the toilet, etc etc.    So we are popping squats and doing our thing when next thing I know she is freaking out in the stall and says that her Great Wall lift ticket just fell in the toilet!  Fortunately we were able to rescue the ticket from its unsanitary liquid doom and wrap it in a plastic baggy I found hanging on the toilet partition door which I can only assume functions as a poop pick up bag??  Anyways, it gave us a good chuckle before we took the lift up to the Great Wall!  They still accepted her ticket and I do hope that poor Chinese woman who took her ticket took the time to wash her hands after handling it!

 Are those poop bags???

 The contaminated  lift ticket is now “hermetically sealed”  in plastic bag-

If Jenn tries to show you any momentos in her scrapbook when we get home

be sure to wash your hands after viewing :)

Ascending the Great Wall by lift

 A few pics.  There are no words to describe how amazing it is to be up here.  
 It’s also an incredibly laborious hike.

It’s a bit kitschy, but we totally took the giant slide-luge back down the mountain.  We couldn’t help ourselves.  I'll have pictures of that tomorrow hopefully.

Summer Palace- it’s raining!!!!  We blew through her in like 1 hour.   It was beautiful, but people were getting pushy because they didn’t want to get wet.  Our driver told us that we are lucky it rained at the Summer Palace because it’s the most beautiful when it rains.

2008 Beijing Olympic Village..still raining