Trains, Planes, and Food Poisoning, Part II

Dear Readers,

On day two in Beijing, Steve and I departed once again for a day's touring with our private guide, Rain. She called Steve a fat laughing buddha and remarked that I was all tan except my face. I was wearing as little as possible as it was 35 C and 100 per cent humidity. She was wrapped up in jeans, shirt, jacket, large hat and glasses. I don't know how she stood it. We were alittle taken back about her remarks. There was more to come, though.

We arrived with the rest of Beijing at Tiananmen Square. There were thousands and thousands of people there. It was vacation time for the Chinese and everything was packed. A long line of people stretched across the square waiting to see the embalmed body of Mao. We didn't sign up for that-it would have taken all day. Instead we marched through the crowd toward the Forbidden Palace where the Ming emperors had first built their headquarters. This place had been bombed, burned, and leveled several times. The government rebuilt it as a place for the people. And the people thought of it as their second home. Everyone had food, drinks, and something to sell to tourists. We were approached several times by Chinese wanting to take our picture with them. Some people go their whole lives without seeing a real Westerner except on TV. It's considered lucky to pat a white baby on the head, we were warned. No one rubbed my head. Our guide lead us inside the huge complex. We stared at the famous building which were closed to the public. I was told again that there was nothing inside them. On and on for a couple of hours we marched until the guide told us that the last emperor's nephew was still alive and a volunteer at the library. Maybe we could get a glimpse of him! He does caligraphy. She dragged us into a side building. We knew immediately that something was up. Another lady came over and went over the history of the last emperor and his family in perfect English. Then we turned and there sat the sainted nephew with a brush in hand, ready to do a special painting for us! That he did and she offered to sell a scroll to us for $1000. Awkward. We were being scammed by the Palace Museum. We said no and our guide was visibly upset. "We're not rich," I explained. Then we were led to another archive where vases, statues, and all other guaranteed antiques were sold. Again we said no. At this point we realized our guide would be compensated if we bought something. She wasn't a happy camper.

After that, we were taken to a buffet restaurant where a thousand other tourist buses were parked.
I am afraid of buffets because of food poisoning. I was careful to check were things were hot and really didn't eat much. In the middle of the meal, the lights went out. Black outs are very normal there. They came on after about ten minutes. What we noticed the most was the lack of air con. It got hot in there quick.

After that we went to see the Temple of Heaven where the emperor went twice a year to pray for the people-for rain, for famine to end, etc. It was his personal temple and no one else could pray there. We peaked in and there was furniture there and an altar where he sacrificed animals. For a change you felt like you were seeing something authentic. Then we headed for the Summer Palace where the emperor's mother hung out. It was a large complex with a man made lake. It had a Buddhist temple on the mountain and quarters not open to the public. People were packed in everywhere again-eating picnics, sleeping on the balconies, playing checkers. It was now a people's park. We got on a boat and went to the other side of the lake where you could get a better picture of the place. Tired and hot, we said take us home. She wanted us to go to a tea shop where we would be pressured into buying tea we didn't want. Once again we disappointed her. We gave her some money for the work and the driver too. It was probably more than they deserved.

Back at the hotel, we relaxed. We had eaten at the Italian restaurant there and another Western like eatery. It was all good. We decided against anymore tours, though. We decided we could do it ourselves. So the next morning we actually went to the subway and figured out which way to go to get to the Lama Temple (Not llama). Here was the only temple not torn down by Mao used by Buddhists. It was packed with people burning incense and praying again to wooden idols. There used to be 3000 monks there, today maybe twenty. Lamas (Buddhist leaders) use to visit it and it became quite famous. There we were shown the largest Buddha statue in the world (a claim also made by Japan). It was pretty huge! We found some postcards cheap there and again returned to he packed subway where there wasn't even standing room but we stood mashed up against the wall of the train. At one point I had a rear in my face. We popped out at the Capital Museum to see what cultural treasures weren't sold.

Alot of exhibits were closed. We did see alot of pottery, statues, odds and ends. They had shops on every floor trying to sell off the what little they had. We made our way back to the hotel and got ready for our trip to the acrobat show we bought tickets to. We were afraid of the traffic so we got a taxi early. We arrived at a run down building with bus loads of Chinese people on holiday. We looked at each other and wondered what we had gotten ourselves into. Was this another scam? It looked like the old Visulite Theatre in Staunton. Holes in the carpet. We went inside and were escorted inside. Now all the chinese tourists were seated around the edges. We evidently had VIP tickets and the middle, which was completely empty when we got there, was where VIPs sat. We sat there reading the rules of what not to do on the screen in English. It was very entertaining because the English was so bad. We also got a kick out of the tourists and children who ran up and down the aisles visiting and yelling with each other. Then the show started and the VIP section was filled with Europeans, Russians, and Japanese. At least we didn't stick out so much! Every seat was filled.

Then we watched a fantastic show of jugglers, acrobats, and motorcycle riding inside a large ball. It was great. Then luckily we were able to catch a cab back to our hotel. I was pretty worried about that. The next morning we caught the train back to Shanghai. I wasn't feeling too well. We also were told that a typhoon was coming into Shanghai and they were expecting train delays and flood

Strangely enough, I saw the first and last blue sky as we pulled into Shanghai. It had missed the city entirely and hit Korea.