Almost done with Beijing! - Part 8

I'm about as done with writing about Beijing as I'm sure you are with reading it. Here's a mishmash of some pictures and videos from our last few days.

We managed to get a good deal from our Hostel and went to see an acrobatic performance one night. The seating set up was pretty weird, we got general admission tickets and had to push our way through the masses to get a decent view. The show itself was good but as they seemed to run shows back-to-back there was a little of the old razzle-dazzle missing from the performers. 

Nevertheless, they could do some amazing stuff. The contortionists were also masters at using devil sticks, the tumblers did something impressive with hats and I'm fairly certain the acrobalancer (it's a thing) below could juggle like a madman. My camera SUCKS at taking night pictures, below are the few that came out.

The closing act was easily the best part, a rendition of the Globe of Death. I think there's 5 motorcyles in the picture below but I had to count the streaks of light to figure that out.

Here's a video I took, apologies for the noise and my cruddy commentary! It starts with 5 bikes in the globe:



Earlier that evening we walked down to Tiananmen Square to watch the flag being lowered. Traffic halts on the 6-lane street between the Forbidden City and the Square so 70 soldiers can frog march across and collect the folded flag. The crowd around the gates was 10 deep by the time the ceremony began. I got my hair pulled and Lauren was accosted by a kid while we waited.

You can see the soldiers marching across the road in the video below. Watching their white gloves swing in perfect unison was mesmerising. The video is commentated in my usual scintillating style.



And finally, a few bits of Chinese randomness!

One of the Restaurants we went to had their china in this handy dandy shrinkwrapped set.

Wang Fu Jin Snack Street - these guys were hawking fried fruit kebabs

I tried dragon fruit for the first time! It was gross. Maybe I got a bad one?

Why are these children so happy?!! It's a skinned adorable cat! Sick. 

The Steph Face - 6 Months In

A craze swept the nation right before I left New Zealand. Inspired by one of the worst ID photographs of all time, people contorted their faces into an expression known as the Steph Face. Now, the Steph face has gone global. Here's proof:

The Great Wall of China

Eating Bugs in Beijing

Traditional Steph Faces in Jeonju

North Seoul Tower Steph Faces

Frozen Steph Face

Guest Steph Faces - Tiananmen Square, Beijing

This picture sits pride of place on our fridge.

I haven't conned any of my kids into doing it yet, but I've still got 6 months left.

Sick of Beijing Yet? - Part 7

After our abortive attempt at visiting the Forbidden City on New Years Eve, we gave it another go the next day. The opening hours worked in well with our hangovers so we donned our sunglasses and braved the crowds.

The Forbidden City (aka the Imperial Palace, the Palace Museum or Gugong) served as home for the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties from 1420 until 1912. The Palace Grounds cover 72 hectares but I might start switching my measurements because 178 acres sounds heaps bigger! The Palace has a 26 foot fence around the outside and a moat, which was frozen solid and covered in corn cobs and trash. The City has a tumultuous history, but I find the eunuchs the most interesting. 

At the end of the Ming dynasty there were around 70,000 eunuchs employed by the emperor, with a few thousand serving in the Palace. Up to half of the men who were castrated died from blood loss before they could serve, and their severed organs were preserved so the men could be buried 'whole.' And I hope you weren't reading this over lunch.

There weren't any obvious eunuchs when we visited but there were plenty of tourists. Amongst these tourists were adorable babies, and after a while we realised we could see naked baby butts everywhere. It seems that toilet training is a little different in China. Instead of disposable nappies, toddlers have pants with a split in the crotch, so they can (and will) squat and relieve themselves anywhere. Here's the google image search you're about to make: clickety-click. I tried to explain this to my co-teacher when I got back to Korea, which was one of the most interesting conversations I've had in the last 6 months.

Okay, enough rambling! Here are some pictures. 

The City at night, with the iconic image of Chairman Mao.

Inside the city. Tourist central!

The Accumulated Beauty Hill, which I didn't learn the name of until today.

This sign makes more sense now. Only a little more.

Two cats warming themselves on a manhole.

Aww yeah, fruit kebabs. Wish they had them in Korea!

The Forbidden City really is worth a visit, it's absolutely fascinating and the painting and carving on display are exquisite. Also: baby butts and eunuchs.

Beijingrish

As mentioned in my last post, we went out for Peking Duck and the restaurant had the BEST Engrish menu I've ever seen. For the uninitiated, Engrish is 'unusual English originating in East Asian countries.' Some great places to view this phenomenon are Engrish.com and Engrishfunny.failblog.org, or this one restaurant on Nan He Yan Road in Beijing.

Yes, that last word is 'boner.'

It's a turtle :(

And finally, a bonus sign from the Beijing Zoo:

I Need More Names for my Beijing Posts - Part 6

When we left Lama Temple and the surrounds, we met up with our friends at the hostel and commenced proper New Years celebrations - drinking and fireworks! First we went out for dinner, to a place recommended by our hostel. The main item on the menu was Peking Duck (we got four for under $100, a bargain) but the best items were in Engrish. I spent a good 10 minutes taking pictures and I intend to put them all in a post somewhere. Here's my favourite:

On our way back to the hostel we passed something which seemed to be a designated let-fireworks-off street. There was a small stall selling them for cheap and a few policemen keeping their eyes on the festivities. Every few minutes, someone would walk down from the apartments nearby with an armload of fireworks and spend a good amount of time setting them up before letting them off. As soon as one cacophony of explosions finished, another one would begin. The street filled up with smoke and bright bits of paper, and more than once we were hit with flying debris. We bought a few fireworks of our own in preparation, and our hostel  put on a little display in the alleyway outside. 

Roman candles: $2.50. Five metre roll of crackers: $4. Chance to use MasterCard slogan: Priceless.

Then: drinking! We gathered up the cups from our rooms and banded together to drink 40c Tsingtao and Baijiu, Baijiu is China's soju, but it's lethal. The stuff we got was some horrible percentage of alcohol (Baijiu is between 40 and 60%) and it made me make this face afterwards:

But we are New Zealanders, and years of drinking Kristov and Tui have prepared us for booze like this. We started the evening like this:

A few hours later we looked like this:

And in the morning we all ended up looking a lot like I did, three photos up. Because I still want to have SOME stories to tell when I get back to New Zealand, this will have to suffice: At one point a few of our group had a Roman Candle fight, one person bit another and then poured their own drinks at the bar. One lovely fellow forgot how to play the guitar and yet another tried to steal the fire extinguisher. One likely lass put herself to bed and missed half the fun. It was a much needed improvement on our awful morning.

Beijingaling - Part 5

New Years Eve in Beijing was awesome and awful. We experienced the awful part first.

Although they have fireworks and drinking in common, New Years in China is a little different than in New Zealand. It's a time for Chinese people to visit their families and celebrate together (read the Wikipedia article for more detail!) So many people travel during this period that the process has a name: Chunyun. Work days are altered in order for people to make it home in time for the Eve, and many of the local attractions close early. We didn't know any of this when we woke up early to continue our exploration of Beijing.

The first stop was Tiananmen Square, a 'short' walk from our hostel. The square had been closed for the past few days so we were able to look around for the first time. The reports are true, it's really big. We were hoping to see the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall (as the Aussies had recommended it over Christmas) but we were in for our first disappointment of the day. It was closed, and it wouldn't be reopened until after the 15-day holiday period was over.

Still full of tourists.

Disappointed but not defeated, we crossed the road to give the Forbidden City a go. The entrance was teeming with people - one of them was helping his kid pee on the gate - and following the advice of the Lonely Planet we walked through the first two gates until we reached the proper entrance to the city itself. There were a few men standing outside the gate, preventing people from entering much to the befuddlement of Chinese and Western tourists alike. After failing to find an open ticket booth or any answers, we flagged down a German tourist and he suggested we give the north gate a go. 

The Forbidden City is HUGE, so instead of walking around we caught a cab to the far end and tried to get in again. After deciphering a sign written in Chinese, we realised that the City was closing for the day and we wouldn't be able to get in. Damn.

A little defeated, we consulted our list of attractions-to-see and got on the subway towards Lama Temple and Ditan Park. The park has a festival over the New Year period which sounded awesome, and it's a little harder to close a park.

Are you picking up a theme? The festival was a bit of a disappointment. Aside from some cool food stalls and lantern displays, it was more like a carnival. There were shooting galleries and clown games and hoop games, it just seemed cheesy and Western. Here are a few pictures of the good bits:

After spending a few yuan on some food at the stalls, we walked towards Lama Temple. The temple is one of the largest and most important Buddhist temples in the world, and guess what? It was closed too. The incense stalls which lined the street outside were open though, and this is where Beijing started to become more awesome.

According to Chinese mythology, the New Year period began with a fight against a beast called the Nian. The Nian would attack and devour crops, livestock, villagers and delicious juicy children. To protect themselves, villagers would wear red and make heaps of noise. The solution: red fireworks! Chinese people roll out metres and metres of firecrackers and set them off throughout the day outside their stores and apartment blocks. We wandered away from the temple feeling dejected and entered a bit of a warzone - gunpowder filled the air, all we could hear were loud explosions and the ground was covered in burn marks and red paper. 

Incense lined up for sale.

This little Chub was sooo cute!

In the interests of keeping my blog posts short(er), the awesome part will be continued in the next blog entry.

Yeah Beijing! - Part 4

To continue the theme of excessive walking which permeated our visit to Beijing, on the Tuesday after we arrived we visited the Summer Palace, haven for Empress Dowager Cixi of the Qing Dynasty. The palace started out as the Garden of Clear Ripples and was first built in 1750, and it covers 290 hectares. The grounds are three-quarters water - in the form of the manmade Kunming Lake. The lake covers just over two square kilometres and is about a metre and a half deep, the excavated earth was used to build the palace's other major feature - Longevity Hill.

And now that I've bored you with facts cribbed from the internet, on to the actual palace. Entry is about Y30 ($6) and we paid an extra Y30 for a through ticket, which let us in to a few extra areas, like galleries and gardens. Like everything else in China, the Summer Palace is HUGE and we spent about 6 hours walking the grounds. It was a walk just to get to the palace in the first place, the entrance is located about a kilometre from the subway exit and we ended up just following the crowds as there weren't any decent signs and the Lonely Planet sucks (see the previous entry for more details about how much.) 

About here I have a confession. I found the Summer Palace to be a little boring. In part, it's because it's the Summer Palace. As we were in Beijing during the bleakest part of winter, the lake was completely frozen and the trees were leafless and the gardens were fairly blah. A lot of the cool activites you can do at the palace - like paddle boat across the lake! - were closed because it's winter. I was also suffering from what I call 'temple temple temple,' everything started to look the same and I couldn't appreciate the interesting bits because I was all templed out. In Europe this phenomenon is called 'church church church' or 'museum museum museum'. The third (and probably biggest) factor was that this was my fourth day of just walking around and looking at stuff. I'm lazy as hell and going from deskwarming to walking for 10 hours a day was a bit of a shock to the system. 

The highlight of our day here was the frozen lake. On one side of the island in the middle, you could rent some sled-type contraptions for Y25 ($5) and slide around the lake, which kept the four of us entertained for half an hour. Somehow I forgot to take pictures, probably because I was busy shrieking like a 6 year old after some raspberry fizzy. Below are a few pictures of stuff I liked.

The beautiful Seventeen-Arch Bridge leading to Nanhu Island.

View from Nanhu Island to Longevity Hill, across the frozen Kunming Lake.

Ignoring the 'Don't walk on the ice' signs everywhere, we walked on the ice.

Photo taken mid ice-walk, looking at the Jade Bridge.

Looking back over the lake. The cluster of black specks near the island are people on sleds.

The Marble Boat

The Long Corridor, it stretches for over 700 metres and has 14,000 individual paintings.

This guy. Look at those PANTS!

The steep ascent to the Tower of Buddhist Incense

To summarise: the Summer Palace would probably be magnificent in summer. It was pretty good in winter but I wasn't in the mood for it. I'm quite keen to head back to Beijing in summer so I can see it in the right conditions.