Open mouth. Insert chopsticks.

07.20.2008

BEIHAI PARK
BEIJING TRAIN STATION

On our last morning in Beijing we headed off to Beihai Park. Built in 1652, this park is one of the world’s earliest imperial gardens.

Practicing calligraphy with water is a common sight in China. Transient art so to speak.

Hubs took us for another wild boat ride. “Arghh! Ramming speed! Make way for the King of the Beihai seas!”

Dancers practicing in the park is quite common.

Seeing foreign babies sitting on a crane is quite uncommon.

lotus.

Here is a dancing and singing troop. They had special shirts and Olympic bracelets. I think they were promoting One World. One Dream.

At many tourist spots you can rent these ancient outfits and pose for a picture. I thought it was a wee bit too hot for long sleeved silk.

Here’s another large singing troop complete with uniform, a live band, songbooks and a conductor. They’re in the park every Sunday.

I don’t know what it’s called, but it looks pretty.

Water painting.

The first thing to go when making a new friend is to figure out who is older or younger. Is this big sister or little sister? Our conversation went like this:

He’s a year and a half.
She’s a year and a half.
He was born on 12/30.
She was born on 12/30!
He was born at 7:50am.
She was born at 10:30 in the morning.

OK - so we have big brother and little sister by 3 hours.

The most famous site at Beihai Park is this Nine-Dragon Screen. It’s 5 meter’s long and depicts dragons batting pearls in a turquoise water. There’s something similar in the Forbidden City, but this is the double sided original.

After enjoying the park, we went back to the apartment before heading off to the train station.

We absolutely loved our 13 days in Beijing. Come to think of it, we’ve never visited a city just before they hosted the Olympics. Who would have thought everything (including every expressway overpass) would be decorated.

Beijing is known as a city that changes quickly. Just today these changes began:

• the subway line to the airport started
• the new blue subway line opened
• an open top double decker tour bus line began
• odd/even driving days began (if your license plate number begins with an even number you could drive you car today - be careful…if you’re odd and you get caught - your car will be IMPOUNDED. Yes, the Chinese are serious.)
• And finally, at the train station, all people must show their residence card to get into the city. Only Beijingers and foreign guest are allowed into Beijing during the Olympic season.

That’s just one day!

The main Beijing Railway Station.

Olympic spirit is unleashed in all of Beijing! We couldn’t go anywhere without running into a FuWa.

Hmmm…I’ve got that airport feeling.

And here it is: Supreme Soft Sleeper. Well, there’s a TV with two channels. It only worked for an hour. The bed seems wider. Yes, that’s nice.

OK, another TV. Yes, that’s nice.

Oh, only two beds and a comfy chair. Hmmm…where’s the supreme?

OH MY WORD. We have our own bathroom. Supreme Soft Sleeper truly is supreme.

We also have a safe in case we need to store some diamonds or gold nuggets.

Raffe finds a comfortable space.

Schäfer’s favorite thing: a train ride!

What an amazing trip to Beijing.

We headed south to Suzhou, Zhou Zhuang, Zhen Jiang, and Nanjing. All of those photos will be coming soon to a gallery near you.

NOTE: Writing about each day of our Beijing vacation was fun, but I’m not sure I’ll do this again unless we have internet and I can blog each day live. But hey - FREE APARTMENT. No complaints.

07.18.08

798 ART ZONE
DA DONG DUCK RESTAURANT
DRUM TOWER
BELL TOWER
HUTONGS

We headed off to the 798 Art Zone to soak in some perspective. Simply put, 798 was the name of a factory which closed down. The space was then rented by sculptures. Today, the 798 Art Zone boasts over 400 galleries and artist. The energy and creativity here is unlimited.

Factory 798 has an artistic pedigree of its own. One of six large sites producing top-secret components for the Chinese military until the 1990s, 798 was built by the East German government with funds earmarked for the Soviet Union as reparation for World War II. Constructed during the late 1950s and early 1960s, just before the Sino-Soviet split, the factory was meant to be an example of harmonious collaboration between Socialist countries, led by the Soviet Union. Its Bauhaus-inspired designs were also meant to showcase (to selected observers, of course) Mao’s vision of China’s future as an advanced Socialist state founded on heavy industry and Communist ideology.

The plant came to an inglorious end in the 1990s, when the Chinese government began rolling back its subsidies for state-operated factories. A large number of the buildings were left vacant, some the size of football fields, many of them flooded with natural light. This situation opened the door for some canny officials from the Central Academy of Fine Arts who were looking for an inexpensive factory site for its sculpture department…

The attraction of 798 for artists was not only the low-cost space, which they began to convert into studios and live-in lofts. Drawn from across the country, these artists were also attracted to the site’s location in Beijing’s Chaoyang District. The region became home to foreign embassies and institutions back in the mid-1990s, and few foreigners other than students were permitted to live anywhere else in the capital.

From that modest beginning, 798 has become China’s premier hub of contemporary art.- studio international

798 is actually quite large. The different colored districts on the map above are huge! Most studios open at 10am.

Schäfer loved chicken art.

Schäfer gets some perspective on animals.

Factory space turned into gallery after gallery.

All that art worked up quite the appetite. We headed to Da Dong Roast Duck. In the 2008 that’s Beijing Restaurant Awards, Da Dong won best Chinese Restaurant of the Year and best Beijing Duck.

Hubs scans the menu…and scans…and scans…

Where is the duck already?!?

Oh! There’s a separate menu just for ducks! Da Dong is famous for their low-fat crispy-skinned duck. My mouth waters just thinking about it.

Our duck was sliced table side.

To eat Beijing Duck, you place a few sauces and various vegetables, along with the duck meat in a thin wrap.

What a wonderful meal! This restaurant was amazing. Of course, after Schäfer was finished Hubs and I had to alternate eating vs. watching Schäfer at the fish tank near the restroom. My toddler has yet to grasp fine dining.

Since we had the entire afternoon to ourselves, we headed near the Bell Tower in search of more hutongs. This time, we opted for a traditional rickshaw ride.

Schäfer totally in bliss!

At the Drum Tower, we climbed the 600-year-old stairs for a view of the hutongs from above. The drum tower and the bell tower were once the keepers of “Beijing time” and would signal the closing of the city gates.

We enjoyed a short drum performance in the Drum Tower.

Look! More Beijing bike lanes!

A small patch of hutongs.

Just a 5 minute walk away is the Bell Tower.

Inside is the original 63-ton bell.

Hubs read the bus signs to find the best way back to the apartment.

For supper, we stopped at Peter’s Tex Mex. I know! We split a delicious beef burrito. Schäfer played with another American boy in the play area. Come to find out, his parents were here with NBC. They had just arrived and would be living in a hotel until September 1st.

From art to duck to rickshaws to ancient bells and drums to tex mex - today was again beyond our expectations.

07.15.08

TEMPLE OF HEAVEN
PEARL MARKET

We started the day a bit slow. Hubs went to Starbucks to download e-mail. Schäfer and I took the bus to the German Bakery to grab Schäfer’s stroller. On Beijing Day 6, we tried an outing with the stroller instead of the Ergo. What in the world were we thinking?

Not only was the stroller a pain…on and off the bus…stairs stairs stairs…cracked sidewalks…but also: Schäfer wanted to be carried.

We don’t ever use the stroller - we solely brought it as wheels for the pack-n-play. Thankfully, the bakery had no qualms about us leaving it there and coming back…err…4 days later to pick it up.

After grabbing the stroller and a pastry, Schäfer and I hoped on the 852 and headed back to Starbucks. But then, things stopped looking familiar. Oops. I knew something was wrong when they announced that we were near the 5th ring road!

I asked to bus attendant if they went to the Lidu area and she gently told me I was on the wrong bus. Yes, she was gentle. By this point, I had a sleeping baby strapped on me.

I called Hubs and he gently reminded me of the correct bus number. Yes, he was gentle.

Despite all this gentleness, I was so internally put out by my mistake that I was just going to take a taxi back (after all, this was suppose to be a restful morning), but there were no taxi’s to be found.

So, I crossed the street and caught the 852 in the opposite direction.

An hour later, I was back at my original bus stop across from the bakery - pastry and stroller still in hand.  I patiently waited for the 648.  By the time we got to Starbucks it was lunch time. So much for an easy morning.

But hey - if you ever need to take a bus to the 5th ring road - the 852 comes highly recommended.

We had a set-menu lunch at Peter’s Tex Mex. It was yummy as always: chicken tortilla soup, potato salad, the Texan burrito, cheese quesadillas, etc.  Then, we headed back to the apartment and set out for the day.

After a bus to the subway and then a couple of changes on the subway line, we found ourselves at the beautiful Temple of Heaven. With the flash of our student ID’s and the purchase of 2 tickets, we easily found our way inside.

We walked through a long corridor of Beijingers playing instruments and singing songs.

Each musician had large, hand written song books available. Upon request, any song would be played as long as someone was willing to sing along.

Welcome to the age of the electric erhu.

The Temple of Heaven was designed as a venue for the annual imperial ceremony to appease the heavens, secure good harvest, atone for sins and receive divine directions.

This is the Hall of Good Harvest. The hall was built in 1420 entirely without the use of nails, cement, or beams and is held together by an elaborate network of interlocking pillars. (Take that Ikea!)

Inside, the four gigantic “dragon” pillars represent the seasons and two dozen smaller ones symbolize the 12 months of the year.

The Hall of Good Harvest was quite impressive. All if it had been freshly hand painted in preparation for all of the Olympic guests.

This is The Imperial Vault of Heaven. It is a smaller version of the main hall. This vault is likewise topped by a blue-tiled, mushroom-cap roof, on which a blue-green dragon plays with a pearl. Who knew?

Behind the Imperial Vault of Heaven you can find the Echo Wall. Thanks to its perfect curvature, a mere whisper at one side will supposedly travel with perfect clarity all the way to the other. There were a few too many tourists for us to give this a try.

The Imperial Vault of Heaven housed tablets used in sacrificial rites.

Entering the Round Altar.

On the Round Altar looking back at the Imperial Vault of Heaven and in the distance the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest.

The round altar’s structure, surrounding stairs, and railings are all based on the lucky imperial number “9.” The three tiers of the altar represent the heaves, earth, and humankind. From the central stone on the top tier, the sound will bounce off the stones.

The Temple of Heaven grounds are absolutely beautiful. It has a large park - so take a picnic!

Just across the street from the Temple of Heaven is the famous Pearl Market which sells all kind of famous designer (read: fake) products on floors 1-3 and pearls on floor 4-5.

We headed up to the 5th floor to Cathie’s Jewelry. The 4th floor also has lots of pearl vendors in little booths, but Cathie’s pearl quality came so highly recommended that we had to go and check it out for ourselves.

Schäfer please do not break Aunt Cathie’s pearl necklace!

Hubs and Schäfer check out the pearls.

Pearl shopping with a toddler…

What a beautiful selection.

Cathie’s assistant watches Schäfer run around the store while whipping out a necklace at Olympic speed.

Whew. What a day! Hey look at the bus sign! Why there’s the 707!

We opt to take the bus home. It ends up taking us over an hour, but at least we could relax the entire way as opposed to: subway line, to another subway line, to yet another subway line, to the final bus. One mode of transportation is a blessing.

Hubs loved the Temple of Heaven so much that (someday) he wants to go back in the morning just as the gates open so he can get better shots without people. That’s my Hubs.