December 1st.

Thursday

We flew out of Las Vegas to S.F.

We lucked out that the plane wasn't completely full. David snagged an empty center row,which means he had 5 seats to himself. I found an empty side row with 2 seats to myself. So we switched off and were able to sleep lying down every once in a while.

At the Beijing airport we met Jannicke. Jannicke is an ex-girlfriend of my brother's who used to work on one of the cruise ships as a stewardess (cleaning guest rooms). She's now an intern with the Norweigan Embassy in Beijing and speaks fluent Mandarin, so she's our resident tour guide. Jannicke is awesome -- bubbly personality and very quick to laugh.

And thank God we had her because it was an ordeal getting a cab. First off, none of the cabs could hold our luggage,which consisted of only 3 suitcases,one of which was empty. Finally we got one of the policemen (they were in charge of coordinating the airport taxi stand) to flag down a larger taxi. The cabbie threw a fit because we had so much luggage and Jannicke and I ended up having to hold the empty suitcase on our laps in the backseat. Then drama ensued when the taxi pulled out into traffic and Jannicke insisted that the cabbie use the meter instead of his own arbitrary number (which he could inflate at will). The guy got pissed and drove us back to the airport taxi stand, parked the car, then got out and walked away, leaving us inside the car. One of the policemen came over to find out what was the matter and there followed 20 minutes of heated shouting in Mandarin between Jannicke, the cabbie and the policeman. It was totally crazy. Finally the policeman made the cabbie get back in and drive with the meter on. Yay for Jannicke!

We checked in to the Great Wall Sheraton, which looks like a typical nice Hong Kong hotel -- gold everywhere like it's perpetually Christmas. After ditching our gear and refreshing, Jannicke led us on foot to a restaurant she and the other Embassy workers normally go to. It was some little hole in the wall identified as a restaurant only because of the red paper lanterns out front, but unfortunately it was closed so we headed up the street to the bar district.

This was a fun walk because though we were walking past bars that served only alcohol (and DVDs on the sly) there were barkers out front trying to lure us inside just like you'd see at strip clubs in Times Square. It was really funny. They were very aggressive. "Psst... DVDs?"

We ended up going to an old favorite of Jannicke's, a mediterranean restaurant. So my first meal in Beijing was beef tenderloin with gorgonzola sauce and pumpkin-potato gnocchi, lol. No Chinese food for us!

We said goodbye to Jannicke and crashed back at the hotel where I literally passed out the moment my head hit the pillow. Interesting tidbit: our beds have no sheets, only a comforter.

Friday, 3rd

I woke up feeling like a human being, which was nice. David and I took a cab to the Sunlitan, which is like telling a cabbie to drop you off on Sepulveda (if you're familiar with Los Angeles). It's a huge street and we had no way of communicating where exactly on theSunlitan we wanted to go so we got out where he dumped us. Jannicke had told us the previous night that there was a market we should check out, so we started walking. And walking. And walking. Did I mention we walked? Holy hell, we walked and didn't see any market and finally turned around since we were supposed to meet Jannicke for lunch. Turns out she'd given us the wrong direction. At least I got to work off some of the food I had chowed on the previous day.

We went to the Norweigan Embassy and met Jannicke there. She walked us to a Japanese restaurant where we had a buffet. Lots of stuff I've never seen before (and I eat quite a bit of Japanese food),so I piled them all on my plate and crossed my fingers. Luckily, almost all of it was good. My favorites were these little pound cakes baked in molds that looked like Buddha's face and were filled with red bean paste.

Jannicke had to go back to work, so my brother and I, armed with correct directions, headed off for the market. We found it easily enough after passing through a street lined on either side with vendors selling vegetables, fruit and a few fried meat items. We stopped in the DVD store first and bought all the bootleg movies we could for anywhere from $1-$2 each. Then we headed into the interior market which is like an indoor swapmeet.

My brother told me that no matter what price you were quoted, slash it by a third and that's what you should pay. So I went around, at first nervous that I couldn't bargain well enough, but I managed to buy everything I wanted for the price I quoted. I learned from David to just walk away and they'll cave in everytime.

I bought so much stuff. It was loads of fun. Fake fur scarves, jackets, pants, sweaters, 2 Cartier watches (we go handbag and shoe shopping tomorrow). After we'd shopped for a long time, we found a store that sells fabric. I went inside with the intention of buying some fabric for my mom.

As I'm walking down the aisle, these two girls were crowding me from behind. I thought they were in a hurry, so I stepped into a perpendicular row to let them pass by. When I turned around, one of the girls held out my wallet to me. She'd just picked my backpack.

Immediately, the sales clerks started screaming and yelling at these two girsl and tackled them against the racks of fabric. Some male managers ran up and began shouting at these girls and trying to pull their arms behind their backs. The two girls fought them, striking the guys in the face and stuff. All the while the sales girls are shouting at the pickpockets. It was wild.

Then the pushing and hitting got out of hand and somehow the thief who'd handed back my wallet got hit and fell into the metal end of one of the fabric racks. She was knocked unconscious and lay on the floor covered with blood while her friend started screaming and hitting even more wildly.

All this time I'm standing there in shock, unable to believe all this fighting that's going on. As soon as the police show up (we're in communist China here) I start to sneak out of the store, not wanting to be pulled in on anything involving the police. But the salesgirls stop me and my brother and I end up getting taken down into the security room while the unconscious pickpocket is carried beside us, covered in blood.

The thieves are taken somewhere, my brother and I have to go to the police station (I'm starting to think about that Richard Gere movie where he's arrested in China). We have to sit there for forty minutes. Later, the pickpockets come in, the one who was knocked unconscious is now wearing a bandana around her head, drenched in blood (along with her jacket). I can't believe she hadn't gotten any medical attention. I felt really bad for her.

Finally an English-speaking officer, very cute and earnest, tells me there was a seven-year old involved in the theft and they're investigating her parents (I don't know what the hell the officer was talking about. I never saw a child). The officer tells me to write a letter so I can leave, so I write "I, Tricia Owens, give the authorities permission to continue the investigation of my stolen wallet without my further participation". Then they just let us go. It was so dumb. But at least it was interesting.

We went back to the market and shopped a bit more. I picked up the Matrix Revolutions only because the blurb on the front of the DVD read, "Awhite male seeks a stud to controls his slaves." Lol. Wtf?! A lot of the DVDs had totally unrelated blurbs on them.

Dumped our stuff back at the hotel, met up with Jannicke to eat Beijing Duck (Peking Duck). We learned the three ways to eat Peking Duck : dipped in sugar, wrapped in the flour wrapper-thing with plum sauce and scallions, and wrapped in the flour wrapper with garlic, plum sauce and some purple vegetable that looked like pickled potato. One of their specialties was sea cucumber, but it reminded me of what I think Sin and Malice's penises look like, so I passed. Finished off the meal with something that looked like couscous in hot chocolate with berries, and tasted like mud with raisins.

We then took a cab to Centro,a very modern jazz bar that reminded me of any bar in Vegas. They had Chinese wine, which surprised me, but I have the hunch would be pretty bad considering the climate, so I settled with an Australian shiraz, the others opted for cokes. We chatted, but only for ashort while. Now we're back in the hotel and we see Jannicke tomorrow.

Saturday

Today was meant to be the day we threw in some culture with our China.

Jannicke met us and we walked to a nearby Starbucks which was deserted. They didn't have pumpkin spice latte or any of the holiday flavored drinks so I settled with a caramel frappucino, an almond doughtnut and a sweet pumpkin pie dipped in chocolate. The frappucino turned out to be a milkshake, good, but way thick, and let me suggest that you don't buy donuts from Starbucks in China. That puppy was fried so hard it was a sponge of grease. The pumpkin pie was weird, too, very stringy so that you got the impression they didn't use canned pumpkin. I ate and drank all of it, of course.

Jannicke took us to a huge outdoor, covered antiques market. Here the mark-up wasn't as extreme; you could bargain down by about half. Lots of jade, brass, pottery, original art all placed in very narrows rows that required you to shove over at least one person in your attempt to pass. Today as opposed to yesterday wasn't foggy, but the clearness was bought with a prize: it was bitterly cold and windy. Fortunately I'd bought myself a fleece cat hat off of Ebay, so I wore that. The locals got a kick out of my ears. But poor Jannicke and David were miserable.

Vases! Gazillions of them. As far as you can see in this picture and even beyond -- nothing but vases for sale.

A bunch of tapestries. These were more Indian-inspired, but there was something for every taste. Aisles of them. While I was in this aisle, the wind kicked up and a bunch of dust and debris went swirling through the aisle. I got something in my eye and my first thought was, "Omg, I just got yak hair in my eye." I mean, who knows where these things came from or how they got to this market?

One vendor's booth full of jade. We're talking aisles and aisles of this stuff. It looked like a corridor of pirate booty (if you pretended the stuff was emeralds and rubies). What I thought was funny was that every vendor was selling the exact same thing. And there were like, 40 vendors in an aisle. So were the guys on the ends only making the money? How would you choose which vendor was better?

Ooh, haggling in action! Every market you went to, whether it was indoors or out, the vendors had calculators. When you asked about the price of anything, they typed out the price on the calculator and then handed it to you to type in your price. Here I am typing in 10 yuen after she asked for 20. She immediately accepted without argument, which meant I should typed in 5 yuan(RMB). Damn it! Oh, and in this pic I was buying a multi-colored tiger-eye bracelet (pink, yellow, light blue, neon green -- really fruitsy). Hell, for just over $1 I should have bought a handful of them and sold them on Ebay.

There were two aisles of artists. They had their stuff pinned up in their little booths. My brother bought four canvases of Buddha heads (he's trying to make his condo look like a cool international lounge/nightclub). I bought a Chinese-style painting of a panda for $3. My brother scornfully called it "A little kid picture." Whatever.

My brother bought a ton of artwork and some communist propaganda statues: one, a ballerina in an army uniform, holding a gun while she danced; the other, an army soldier with Chairman Mao's book of quotes in one hand and his one foot balanced on the back of a peasant on all fours with some sort of sign around his neck. What's funny about them is how cheerful the expressions are. They look like demented cookie jars.

We spent several hours at the market, then caught a cab to meet Jannicke's fellow Embassy worker whose name I didn't catch. Unlike Jannicke, this girl's English held a distinct Norweigan accent. I'll call her Helga (lol) for simplicitiy's sake. Helga took us to an old warehouse district that was undergoing a revatalization into an art district, called Seven-Eight-Nine. It was very odd walking between these huge warehouses in the middle of nowhere and entering them to discover they'd been converted into huge loft spaces with modern art on the walls. There were very few other people wandering about.

Here we are in the art district, Seven-Eight-Nine.

One of the galleries.

In a sculpture gallery, my brother bought two pieces of original art for $75 and $30 each. He couldn't believe the prices since they should have gone for hundreds.

After a quick lunch in one of the galleries, Helga had to leave and the rest of us had to get dressed for a musical performance later that night. I had nothing dressy to wear having thrown out all of my 'normal' clothes since I started dressing funky a year and a half ago.I just wore black. My brother, metrosexual extraordinaire, wore a beautiful eggplant-colored silk shirt he'd had handmade in Hong Kong, black slacks, and his new Ferragamo belt. Whatever.

Jannicke took us to Tiananmen Square. We were going to see Handel's Messiah performed in the Forbidden City Concert Hall. The outer gates of the City were locked, so we had to tramp in the backway down curving paths that were unlit and without signs. The sprinklers were on and we had to keep ducking them as they panned the sidewalks. We followed the other Westerners we saw and made it to the hall just five minutes before the performance began. Jannicke's embassy contacts were able to get us excellent seats right on the edge of the balcony.

I didn't have high expections because while I love classical music and operas in general, I wasn't really in the mood for that while visiting China. I wanted to be out eating snakes or something. But the performance was great. I really enjoyed it. When it was over, I complained that it was only about a half an hour long to which my brother responded it had in fact been over an hour. And small slashy moment: the conductor gave a bouquet of flowers to the first violinist, who was a Chinese guy. The guy looked at the flowers, then headed towards the rest of the orchestra with them. I assumed he was going to hand them to the nearest female. Instead, he walked over to the trumpeter and gave the flowers to him. The crowd roared. (I think the trumpeter was rewarded because of his solo performance, but my slashy mind wanted to assume they were boyfriends, hehe).

We walked out of the concert hall in a crowd of the most Westerners I'd seen yet in one area. The front gates were now open, so we walked out and found ourselves right next to the main official palace of the Forbidden City. It's gorgeous at night and we took some pictures even though my crappy camera doesn't have a zoom. It was ass-bitingly cold and I thanked the gods I'd bought my coat during a winter in New Jersey. I knew New Jersey was good for something. I felt bad for the army guards who were spaced along the sidewalks since they had no protection for their face and necks. It was torture, it was that cold.

It's gorgeous at night. It glows red and yellow.

We caught a cab and Jannicke headed home since she had to work early on Sunday morning. My brother and I went to our hotel's restaurant for dinner. I forgot to mention that on the way to Tiananmen Square, we passed through downtown Beijing and it's gorgeous! Our hotel is located in the diplomatic section of Beijing where all the embassies are. It's very gloomy and sooo depressing. Everything is gray,no lights. But downtown is exactly what I would have asked for. It's bright and clean and full of neon. It looks like Times Square or streets in Tokyo -- the same as any major modern city. I've always been a sucker for places like that, so if I ever come back, I'm staying away from the dreary section and staying downtown. My brother, world traveler that he is, scoffed at this announcement saying you weren't experiencing Beijing if you were staying downtown, but he can keep his 'feeling the people' attitude while I kick back beneath glittery neon lights while using a bathroom that has a seat.

Dinner in our hotel was our most expensive yet -- big surprise -- but my brother and I got to chat about family stuff, so it was nice. Tomorrow is a lot of sightseeing as we go back downtown and hit some major sights, then return to the market of Day Two and buy some handbags and shoes. I've been keeping close tabs on my backpack ...

Sunday

Today David and I were on our own for sightseeing since Jannicke had to work. We took a cab to the Forbidden City. I loved the move, "The Last Emperor", so I was looking forward to checking out the real thing. I immediately started taking pictures of the first few gates we passed through but my brother informed me there would be better ones later on. The City is one gate after another, each leading to humongous courtyards.

We rented those audio tour guides, but the thing wasn't working correctly. It never stopped and it didn't change according to your location. It was describing areas we weren't even at, so I just stuck it in my pocket. I enjoyed the place better without the commentary in my ear, anyway. This also means I don't have any interesting bits of history to tell you.

As I mentioned, the area is huge, like each courtyard is a football field. Probably larger. There were buildings which contained the Emperor's thrones and stuff, but they were too dark to take good pictures of. I was sad to see that the condition of much of the paint is terrible. Whole ceilings were flaking off. I saw some scaffolding on one of the buildings which suggested it's undergoing some kind of repair or preservation. I hope they do that with the rest of the City.

Just one of many doors inside the Forbidden City. This gives you an idea of the scale of everything.

Self-explanatory. I like this pic just 'cuz it's in black and white. It also gives you some sense of the space within the City. I'm probably standing about midway down this courtyard. Facing me is another building, and a building and courtyard beyond that, etc.

Inside, looking at the incredible walls and stairs everywhere. I also like this pic because there aren't a lot of people in it and it gives you a small feeling of what it must have been like at the end, when there were few people in the City. It was extremely quiet and sort of lonely in there. The place is huge, so there's a lot of places to walk to, but ultimately you're surrounded by walls.

The sign was too little, too late.

This is in the park of the Forbidden City. There were rock formations that looked awesome for climbing, but I doubted the Emperor or his guys did such a thing.

We left the Forbidden City and was immediately accosted by guys trying to take us on tours. David negotiated with a guy for a rickshaw ride through the Hutong. We negotiated 100 RMB, but after the tour was over the guy looked at us innocently (suddenly unable to speak a lick of English) and pantomimed that 100 was for one person, not two. Scammer.

Here I am on the rickshaw getting ready to be taken on a tour through the Hutong, which is one of the old neighborhoods of Beijing. The tour was kinda cool, just because it got us close to the 'real' Beijing. I felt a little embarrassed at first as we rode by broken down, shoddy houses while their poor inhabitants stood in their doorways and watched us ride past with the intention of ogling them and taking their picture. But no one seemed to care that we were there to check out their living conditions. I guess they're used to stupid tourists, or they don't care.

This guy rode through all these really narrows alleys that were barely wide enough for the rickshaw. Then he'd stop in front of placards on the walls which were in both English and Chinese and he'd tell us to read them. They were historical markers, right, but the English translation, while in English, didn't say anything. Like, we'd read it and nod at the guy, not knowing what the hell we were supposed to get out of it. Then he'd say something like "Chairman Mao live here." And we'd go, "Ohhh!! That's what it said!" We needed this guy to translate the English, lol!

This is kinda weird. I was trying to make a panorama but it looks like everything's on an angle. It's not. I am standing in the corner of a courtyard, looking into the courtyard. This is typical housing in the Hutong. Families live in the four sides and in the middle hang their laundry and do their stuff. This courtyard had a bird house with pigeons in it.

After the rickshaw guy ripped us off, we went to Tiananmen Square. Basically it's a big square. A big, concrete square.

There are some statues and what looks like a basilisk. I'm sure you more educated readers out there know the significance of everything I saw, but I'm like a hick, so I just looked at stuff and went ooh! when appropriate. It was painfully cold yet again -- come to think of it, it never warmed up -- and pretty windy. A few people were flying kites but it turned out they were the ones selling them.

I have to mention that one highlight of this vacation for my brother and I was the little babies. They stand out because unlike the majority of Chinese, the babies are bundled up in bright colors. They're also wrapped up until they look like Michelin tire guys (puffy jackets so thick it makes their arms and legs stick out from their bodies). It was so adorable seeing these little blobs of color waddling around.

After wandering around in circles in the Square, we decided to go downtown to a shopping district called the Wang Fu Jing. We'd seen it the previous night on our way to the concert. It's typical downtown in a major city. I really liked it. I bought a couple of goofy hats.

We wandered into a modern shopping mall. We were starved, so we looked for a restaurant. I should mention that this is the first time during the trip that I would be using a squat toilet. What a delightful experience! Thank you, Terri, for advising me to bring tissues and hand sanitizer! There wasn't any toilet paper and when I first walked into the stall I looked down at the puddles of -- whatever-- on the tile beside what is essentially a urinal laid on its back on the ground, I cringed. I was wearing these pants which tie around the ankles, and the ties were dragging in the puddles of -- whatever....I was whimpering. Yuck!

So let's talk about food now! After a thorough sanitizing, I joined my brother at some restaurant inside the mall. I don't know what ethnicity it was, only that it was Asian. We pointed to a few things in the menu with no idea what they'd taste like. One was pork with vegetables and the other was fish with vegetables. Then a hostess brings over another menu and has me pick out a fish which I assumed was the one that would go in the fish and vegetable dish. We eat our meal and it's pretty good. I think it was chopped fish with bamboo shoots, spicy bacon with a type of green bean, and steamed and fried bread with honey/lard (maybe butter, but I doubt it). We're all done and we're happy at what we picked. We signal for a check, and then the hostess brings out a whole fish. I didn't want a fish. I'd ordered fish with vegetables and I'd gotten it and ate it. But no one spoke English and here's this whole fish staring me in the eye (literally), so we ate it. Well, the fish dish alone cost more than the rest of our meal combined. Which still only came out to about $11, lol. Still, I think we were tricked.

On our way out of the mall, we stopped at this placed called BreadTalk because you know I'm a sucker for the carbs. The place was packed! I grabbed a tray and a set of tongs and elbowed other people out of the way to get to bins of sweet breads stuffed with unidentifiable pastes, most of which were green which I don't recommend as a color. It looks like bread mold. We'd end up eating nine of these later that night. They were good....

While doing some research for this trip, I immediately looked up the native food. I'm all about trying out funky new foods. One thing I found in the Sweets section, was this thing which is Hawthorne fruits dipped in boiling sugar and skewered. They're like miniature candied apples, only softer and sweeter with a slight raisiny taste. Some varieties have peanuts sprinkled on them before the sugar hardens (the best!). They also had candied pineapple and strawberries, which you can see on bottom of the stand. These things were like 12 cents each. The damn skewer alone costs that much in the US (well, not really, but you get what I'm saying). Everytime I saw a guy selling these skewers on the street, I bought one, even if I wasn't hungry. I was addicted.

Here I am, looking like a cat in the headlights. This was a cool little shopping street. I bought some paint brushes and other knick-knacks here. My brother bought 6 more Buddha paintings after haggling with the guy for like, twenty minutes (we walked away and the vendor ran a block to catch up with us to tell us he agreed to the price).

This one street had nothing but food stalls. But get this: there must've been like, 4 blocks of food stalls and yet every single one of them was selling the exact same thing! Every stall looked like this one! I don't get it. How do you choose one over the other? How do *they* make any money? All the food up there on the skewers is raw, btw. Lots of vegetables, some meat, squid, etc.

Monday

Today, Jannicke had booked us a flight to the city of Xi'an so we could check out the terra cotta warriors (one of China's great discoveries). Let me just say that every single night, David and I have been going to bed in the wee hours of the morning. We both normally have whacko schedules when we're at home (he works swing shift, which is 8pm-6am, and I'm just crazy) so that wasn't really going to change much just because we're in China. So when we woke up at 6 am on Monday, I wanted to die.

We went to the airport, where I promptly fell asleep on our carry-ons. I followed Jannicke and David through the super confusing check-in process (if you can't read or speak Chinese, don't even think about using the Xi'anyang Intl. Airport; just go home). On the plane I slept some more. But on the drive through Xi'an, I was able to stay awake because it was really pretty. Lots of rural areas and not as dirty/dingy as Beijing. I liked it a lot. We checked into the Sheraton, where I threw myself on my bed and fell asleep again. An hour later we were on our way to where the warriors were.

Jannicke, btw, had negotiated with the cabbie who picked us up at the airport to be our driver for the day ($50). This fee would cover his service and the tolls and gas. And get this -- the driver had to haggle for the price of the gas with the station attendants! There was a price listed on the pumps (for tourists, I guess) but that wasn't the price our driver negotiated, which was about half of that. Crazy huh? Anyway, our driver knew an English speaker who could be our tour guide at the terra cotta warrior place, so we met up with the tour guide, who was college educated and very friendly. But I couldn't get over the fact that we haggled with this tour guide down to $9 to lead us on an hour and a half tour. $9! I felt bad for him. He wasn't a kid or someone who looked like $9 was something he desperately needed. He was well dressed and like I said, educated. But he was fine with it so he got $9.

He was a good tour guide, too. He was very passionate when he spoke of things, so that was cool. The terra cotta warriors, if you don't know, are clay statues meant to replicate the army of the first Chinese Emperor Qin Shihuangdi, who wanted to take his empire with him into the afterlife. He had people make these statues so they were life-like and modeled after the strongest warriors of the area. Horses were made for the clay warriors, too. The Emperor had all the statues sealed up in his secret warehouse-like place. And when Qin died, he had his son bury him Egyptian-style with all his belongings and his 3,000 concubines (still alive). He had his four favorite concubines drink mercury so they would die quickly. Nice guy.

I thought this was pretty cool. I didn't realize there are this many terra cotta warriors. And this is only part of them. The archaeologists haven't dug them all up yet because they discovered that the colored paint on the warriors oxidize and fade away just two weeks after being uncovered. The Germans have given the Chinese a process to preserve the color. I think our guide said there is five years left on the first test of that color preservation. So far, so good. If the preservation works, they'll dig up the rest of the warriors and apply the German technique to them.

You can see in the back of the rows the big jumbled mess which the archaeologists have to deal with when excavating the pieces of sculpture. Insane.

Little bro. The warriors behind him are actually replicas that the Chinese governement (or archaeologists, not sure) are producing for sale to the public. They use the same clay used to make the original warriors, which is supposedly some super-duper clay that obviously stands the test of time. Our guide made this big hullabaloo about how rare these replicas are and that only world leaders and a few privileged Chinese own them. But, he said, they've started allowing the general public to buy them. I was thinking, "wow, these things must be like, $30,000!". When I asked our guide how much, he said, in a very excited voice, "TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS!". I blinked and cried, "That's it?!" And get this, in the gift shop, they were running a sale: all terra cotta replicas were half-off. Haha!

The place was cool and had a nice newly-turned-earth smell. There are 3 pits in various stages of recovery. Archaeologists were supposedly working on them every day and the public could watch them in action. Apparently the archaeologists were all on their lunch breaks while we were there.

We'd gotten to Xi'an relatively late because our initial flight was cancelled and we'd taken a different one. By the time we were done with the warriors, it was early evening and honestly we were pooped. My brother and I slept on the drive back to the hotel.

For dinner, we walked around the hotel and settled on some random restaurant. The food was okay. Jannicke doesn't know all the food terms, so we were still guessing about a lot of the things we ordered. One really funny thing (which I wish I'd taken a picture of) was the dumplings we ordered. You know, something similar to potstickers. Jannicke misordered and we ended up with 50 of them. 50! We already had six dishes on our table and here came enough dumplings to feed a terra cotta army. I think we ate six and gave up.

Tuesday

We checked out the hotel and left our bags with the bell desk, however I was told I couldn't leave my laptop there because someone might steal it, which prompted my brother to sarcastically question the safety of the rest of our stuff. Anyway, luck me, I got to carry my 10 lb. laptop around that day.

The plan for the rest of the day until our flight left was to hit the sights of Xi'an, starting with the Dayan Pagoda (Big Goose Pagoda). The Big Goose Pagoda is located in the Da Ci'en Temple, which is the best-preserved Buddhist temple complex in Xi'an. I guess monks used to live in the complex and they weren't allowed to eat meat. They were craving it bad when suddenly a flock of wild geese flew over their heads. Supposedly all the geese dropped out of the sky, dead, so the monks abandoned thoughts of meat after that, lol. They erected the Big Goose Pagoda to commemorate that great event in vegetarian history.

This is the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. It's pretty cool-looking, huh?

The view from the top of the Pagoda.

We walked around the temple complex, looking at the Bell Tower and Drum Tower.

Afterwards, we headed for the city wall of Xi'an, which is the best preserved city wall in China. David had expressed an interest in riding bikes atop the city wall and that sounded like a cool idea. Again, we had to climb what seemed like two miles' worth of stairs to get to the top of the thing. The wall was extremely wide on top, like a 3-lane road, and didn't have much of a view since the view was of Xi'an and there's really not much going on there.

Here's Jannicke on her single bike, while David and I are on the tandem. Our tandem rented for $2.25 for an hour. Ridiculous.

Here's a good shot down the Xi'an wall. The good thing about going to Beijing in December is that no one else is there (besides the locals, of course). We were racing Jannicke up and down this thing and didn't have to worry about hitting *anyone*. And my brother, annoying little brother that he is, offered to switch so I could steer in front. What a little liar. He could steer from the back and he deliberately steered us into every pothole on that wall. And this damn bike had no shocks. I was screaming at him like a lunatic the entire time. It was a good thing few people were there to witness this.

We got bored of the bikes after fifteen minutes and turned them in. Between climbing the Pagoda and riding on the tandem bike from hell (and those potholes!) I was walking like I'd ridden a horse. We decided no more climbing for a while, and just cruised the streets, shopping. I bought another one of those fruit skewer things, and bought some purses and makeup cases for friends. Everytime I haggled, I walked away feeling like I got ripped off. And yet it was so stupid of me to feel that way when I was paying only $2 for a purse or whatever. I blame my brother for making me so paranoid about getting the best deal that I overlooked the big picture: everything was dirt-cheap to begin with, even if I *had* paid full price.

Some local art.

After walking and walking, we needed to eat before we headed off for the airport. We ended up settling on a restaurant that looked like a ski lodge. It was really funny -- big logs everywhere and you sat on stumps, yet they served traditional Chinese food. They served us this soft tofu which was covered with a gravy that tasted like beef barley soup. I actually liked the combo. My brother pointed out that I was scooping the mushy tofu off of a 'plate' which was essentially a straw mat. I shrugged. Then he pointed out that there was food crusted all through the weave of the mat. Like, food that I hadn't ordered.

I still ate the tofu.

We flew back to Beijing and because it was still early in the night, we went to a massive DVD store. I pretty much lost control there. I started off with one of those hand baskets that you get in grocery stores. I filled that puppy up until it was stacked above it and overflowing. A clerk took it for me and handed me another empty basket. Hell, I filled that one up, too. I couldn't help myself. They carried bootlegs of *everything*. In addition to box sets of TV seasons I got nearly 200 movies. It all ended up costing me 1100 RMB = $173. It was a great ending to the day.

Wednesday

Jannicke again had to work today, so my brother and I headed off for the Great Wall with a cabbie whom Jannicke had hired for us for $55 for the day. We headed for the Wall at Badaling, because in case you didn't know, the Great Wall stretches all across the country and there's no one place to view it. Some places are incredibly steep and are nearly impossible to climb with any enjoyment. Some places, like where we went, are pretty good both in terms of view and the amount of climbing you had to do. For example, Juyongguan Pass is supposedly a really nice section view-wise, but we drove past it and the thing is practically straight up and down.

An unexpectedly fun part of the Great Wall is the ride up and the ride down. You sit in these individual little sleds on a contraption that's just like a roller coaster. Here, we're being pulled up the hill. I brought out my camera too late to take a picture of the entrance of this tunnel we went through. There was all this neon lighting on the entrance, making it look just like a roller coaster. It was way funny.

The Wall is neat. But it gets tedious fast, I'm afraid. It's just stone after stone and I don't know, for some reason I thought it would be more exciting. I think it would have been cool if it had been snowing, but it was fiercely bright. It was actually extremely cold, but after climbing so much, I was ready to strip off all my clothes.

David had this great idea that we'd bring along a hat and take pics so we could make Xmas cards. Good idea, but we were too lazy to make cards, so we just have pics. The Wall is crazy -- it whips back and forth every which way. Like, if you breached it, there was no way to tell if you were actually inside or not because there'd be another wall just yards away. I can totally imagine some invading army climbing the walls, then getting confused and climbing the next nearest wall and effectively climbing right back out of the area they were trying to invade.

My brother, looking cool because his clothes aren't baggy. Ah, but he also froze his ass off the entire time. Look at how bright it is. Owie.

One thing about the Wall that I didn't really think about is that it's built over hills. Like, *major* hills. Check out the degree of angle on these steps (right hand side). Some places looked like they had 45 degree slopes. It was nuts. And in some areas the steps were like, two feet high, so you're doing a Stairmaster workout whether you wanted to or not. My ass was burning.

After the Great Wall, our driver took us to the Ming Tombs. The Ming Tombs have to be the most disappointing thing we did. David commented that we should have yelled at our driver for not warning us how boring the tombs were (he was joking). Because, yeah, that was a total waste of money. To quote from a tour guide I found *after* the fact: "The front hall, considered the square of the Palace, has no building within it. No special artifacts remain in either the left and right palaces ..." Exactly.We were looking at nearly empty rooms. I couldn't believe it. It was the worst.

This was also the place where I had my second wonderful experience with a communal toilet. Oh, god. Call me a whiny baby, but I thought I was going to pass out. I have *never* smelled urine in such concentration before and yes, I have been in public park restrooms. This was a hundred times more potent. I held a handful of tissues over my face and I was still gagging. After I ran out, I tried to trick David into going in there, but I think my face was green. He refused.

Next stop was the Summer Palace, which is the best preserved royal garden in China. It's a huge park-like place surrounding Kunming Lake. It's truly gorgeous.

This is at the Summer Palace. The water was frozen over and people were taking chunks of ice and skipping them across the surface. For some reason the crowd of visitors would let out loud cheers whenever somebody heaved out an especially large chunk of ice.

This is Longevity Hill. It's really nice how nature and architecture blended together throughout the Summer Palace gardens.

Steps! Leading down!

More steps! Lots and lots of steps!

The Summer Palace gardens are huge. I don't think we even explored half of it. But we were pooped and we actually hadn't eaten all day. We decided to head back, but not before a last stop at a new market. David bought 8 belts and 23 keychains (Gucci, Christian Dior, Ferragamo, etc.) and I bought a $15 hardside suitcase (which would later crack open on the flight home, though nothing actually came out of it).

When we got back to the hotel, we played with our DVDs and waited for Jannicke to get off work. Then we met her at the embassy again and she led us to another Westerners' secret place, a pizza joint/bar called "The Hidden Tree". "The Hidden Tree" was hidden in a ghetto, but it was worth the nervous trek through the alleys to get there. Awesome pizza. New York style, which I found amusing. Everyone in there was Western. The place was perfect for us to wind down and replenish our low reserves.

Afterwards, we headed back to our hotel to hang out in the lounge and listen to the Filippina singers who were pretty good. We chatted with Jannicke and drank a bunch of booze. Jannicke finally had to go and Dave and I hugged her and thanked her for putting up with us for a week. She's a great person and now my friend :)

Thursday

The next morning we got up early to go check out a bootleg software store before we went to the airport. Unfortunately, David woke up terribly sick (not vomiting, but with a bad fever). So we missed out on the software store which really bummed me because that's where I could have saved a lot of money. I also felt bad for David since I knew how bad the flight back was going to be for him.

But fortune was on our side. A tip for international travelers: if you have the option, book your seats at the rear of the plane. That way if the flight doesn't fill up (like ours didn't) you can snag a row all to yourself. Luckily David and I both got rows by ourselves and were able to lay down and sleep for most of the flight home. We zipped through Customs, connected through San Francisco again, and then made it home to Las Vegas without any delays.

I've got two suitcases full of stuff I still haven't unpacked yet. But that wasn't the best part of the trip. For me, it was spending quality time with my younger brother. I hope he has as good a time together as I did. I'm pretty sure he did :)

Add one more full stack (to make up for the boxes that contained collections) and you can appreciate the magnitude of my DVD gluttony. We took all of the discs out of their boxes and put them into CD cases so they'd be less conspicuous when we passed through Customs. Turns out we had no reason to worry. Nobody checked nothin'. Mission accomplished.

--Tricia, December 29, 2004