At long last! The blog detailing .... memories from my two-week trip to Beijing, CHINA.
It's been months in the making, or at least in the thought pipeline. My trip began mid-December 2007 and ended shortly after Christmas. Cici flew over ahead of me as I still had work to finish up and limited vacation time to spend. And the vacation was time well spent. It was a great opportunity to get away from everything, literally!
About the only thing of note that happened before I landed actually happened before I even boarded the plane. Silly, honest and sometimes crazy naive guy that I am, I mistakenly thought it would be kosher to bring my own toothpaste and perhaps some mouthwash with me on the plane. Wrong! How anyone could MacGuyver something nefarious from these toiletries I will probably never know. But apparently the FAA is aware of something I'm not because these substances are BANNED! Punishable by forcibly trashing my goods. It would turn out to be a big deal on the mouthwash, because I rely on frequent gargling to avoid getting sick. My tonsils were removed when I was 9, so I need to keep my throat clean by other means. But I'm jumping ahead too far...
After a brief stopover in Tokyo (too bad I couldn't get out and look up some old friends) I landed at Beijing Airport in the evening and was quite ready for a shower and a good night's sleep. Cici and her parents met me at the airport and drove me back to their apartment. They were kind enough to leave the apt. to us while they stayed with relatives. I noticed right away that everything had a brownish tint and there was a kind of tinny smell in the air. This was the result of burning coal to heat the majority of residences across the megalopolis. And it was my first introduction to what I've termed the "bacterial soup" that enshrouds the city.
Also contributing to the 'bacterial' portion of said term, people let out loud, mucus-filled globs anywhere and everywhere. With weather as cold as it was, at or below freezing each day, its kind of understandable. Even the inside of apartments offer little relief. As I'd mentioned, coal is the primary source of heat. It's burned in central smokestacks and piped into surrounding apartment buildings. But even so, I found that I sweat profusely each night. Too many blankets, I suppose. So it came as a great shock to Cici's mom when I later asked for thinner blankets...
My second day in China was filled with rest and some photo ops. I'd been brought to meet the broader family, consisting of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Both of Cici's grandparents can speak English pretty well, but her grandmother was convinced it was unnecessary. I think the story goes that I appeared in a dream and conversed with her in fluent Mandarin. And I was much shorter in said appearance, which resulted in a few occasions where she commented, in Mandarin, that I was taller than she remembered.
Everyone was very kind and generous with food and, of course, beer. Cici's dad even broke out the good stuff --a bottle of Chivas Regal-- on one occasion. And other occasions found Cici's brother-like cousins trying to get me soused on a kind of Chinese wine. A kind of 56% alc. Chinese wine... that supposedly makes people hallucinate if over-imbibed... But I held tough. I drank what was poured, except for once when Cici's mom syphoned off some of my beverage when I got up to use the facilities.
So there were good times around the dinnertable. Breakfast and lunch were good too, though. On the way to the Great Wall --we'd left around 6am or so to beat traffic-- I ate a tofu soup that is one of Cici's favorite dishes. We'd even stopped for lunch at a Chinese McDonalds. It wasn't too different from the American version, but with a somewhat more ethnic menu. Chickity-China-The-Chinese-Chicken... But now I'm getting off topic.
Almost every day was another outing to someplace for shopping, photo ops, or hiking and often a mix of all three! We went to the Great Wall, The Forbidden City, some shopping mall the name of which I forgot... we also went to The Summer Palace, a place called Beihai Park and to KARAOKE! This karaoke place was not like any I'd been to before. They had an all-you-can-eat buffet style breakfast, lunch and dinner available and NO ALCOHOL! At least, none that I could find. This absence of booze would be utter sacrilege in Japan. But I didn't mind. Finally, a karaoke experience without drunken a**holes jumping on the couches and singing out of tune and off key to any and every song anyone chose whether or not they were familiar with it.
And then there was the bathhouse. Ah, a nice relaxing dip in a hot tub followed by all-you-can-eat buffet style dinner and sauna and a nice nap... I could live in a place like that. Very restful. An excellent way to combat jet lag. And a nice calm before the storm. Cici came down with a nasty, evil cold... or flu... or something. I found myself taking care of her the best I could and really wishing I had my blessed mouthwash. We got some there in Beijing, which was nice, but I don't think it had any alcohol. Or at least not as much as the stuff I usually get. But it helped. I didn't get sick until the day or maybe the day before we left for home.
It was then that I made my first and only outing alone! Armed with a few phrases I'd written in my Mandarin study booklet, I went out to a fast food restaurant from Japan called Yoshinoya. I was well familiar with the menu... in Japanese and English. But Mandarin was still kinda new to me. Anyway, I made it there and back without incident and returned with a light dinner for Cici and myself. Then I got hit with the worst when we arrived back in the states. Though, at home I was armed with mouthwash, orange juice, apples and a warm, comfy bed to hasten my recovery. All was well in the end.
And except for a mad dash in Tokyo's Narita airport to catch our connection back to Portland, the return went as smoothly as we could've hoped.
So that's about it for story-time. For more fun and information, check out our 400+ pics online at:
Zai Jian!
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