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July 14, 2008

Gavin’s Adventures In Beijing, Day 6

After three days of hard work, the weekend arrived. Brooke and I decided to do a bit o' sightseeing.

• From The "Jet Lag Cries 'Uncle'" Department: I awoke on Saturday to a feeling that was wholly alien, bizarre, and unfamiliar - that is, I felt refreshed and happy. No horrible fatigue behind the eyes, no crazy dark circles, no slow-draggin' of my sorry self from the bed to the shower. Eyes opened, smile appeared, bounced out of bed. About. Freakin'. Time.
• A peek out the hotel windows reveals that the weather is cooperative. A bit of sun is breaking through the white Beijing fogginess; the city seems to be inviting us in.
• Two of our colleagues, Hao and Fara, generously agree to show us the city, to which Brooke and I readily agree. They prove to be fantastic guides.
• First stop: The Temple of Heaven, 600-year-old complex that is now a public park, much like the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. People are strolling down paths, playing modified games of hacky sack (with this crazy, badminton-esque shuttlecock thingy), taking pictures, gawking at the relics. The Temple grounds are walled off from the rest of Beijing, and go on (seemingly) forever. We take it all in, walking from the north end of the park to the south, then out to the east.
• My longstanding transit fetish is indulged with a quick trip on the Beijing Subway system; we take Subway Line #5 to a shopping district not too far from the Temple. The subway is thoroughly modern, clean, and quiet - stations of this design are typical of any Western city (frankly, we could be in London, for all anyone knows). The #5 uses glassed-in tubes, much like Line 14 on the Paris Metro.
• Tickets are 2 Yuan (about $0.30).
• For lunch, we hit this Brazilian BBQ buffet restaurant. It's apparently a very popular cuisine in town, and the waiters are forever visiting our table with skewers of this or that meat on them, trying to carve off pieces for us to try. Everything is delicious.
• After much moral dithering, I ask to try Starbucks. Fara and Hao crack smiles; Brooke looks vaguely relieved. Turns out that Starbucks in Beijing is pretty much Starbucks everywhere; apart from the Chinese on the menu, the items, options, and prices (adjusted for Yuan) are identical.
• (The place is full of Westerners. I hear more unaccented American English in 20 minutes than I've heard in the last 5 days.)
• Starbucks also has free WiFi, which allows me to take my iPhone out of airplane mode and send an "I miss you" e-mail to Elaine.
• We pop back to the subway and transfer to Line 1 (the oldest line), which ultimately takes us to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square.
• Look, there's no real way to convey how huge these structures and places are in words, so I'll just say this: we emerged from the subway, strode a few steps, turned to the left, and ... the expanse just goes on. Tiananmen Square is a broad, sprawling expanse of concrete, brick and emptiness, bordered by the Forbidden City at one end and government buildings on the others. It's enormous. Standing alone on a football field at night might give you a sense of it, but just barely.
• There are tourists, citizens, and guards everywhere. The cameras-per-square-inch ratio goes up noticeably.
• We walk the square to the gates of the Forbidden City (adorned with a gigantic picture of Chairman Mao), and then walk in.
• Beijing is a city built on a series of concentric rings. The inner ring, Ring 1, is the oldest; subsequent rings represent later generations of the city's growth. The Forbidden City is, in a literal sense, Ring 1 - it's the original seat of power, the home to the emperors who ruled China for centuries. It's called "Forbidden" because you would be killed if you went in without permission. Today, about 50 Yuan does the trick.
• The emperors are gone, but the Forbidden City is preserved by the Chinese government as a public museum - a museum that runs 1km by .7km square. It's big.
• The City contains everything a city would expect to have - buildings for the people who lived there, for the various support functions (guards, priests, etc.), for ceremonies, for celebrations, for dining and you name it. The City is surrounded by a high brick wall, and that has a moat outside it for good measure.
• Hao and Fara have arranged for a guide to take us around the city, and they leave Brooke and me alone to head out to connect with her. I stand, just trying to drink it all in and ... failing. It's too much.
• The level of detail in this place is mind-blowing. I look at rooftops, and notice that the roofs are ornately adorned, hand-carved, hand-painted. Every surface has incredible detail, which means you can sit on a bench and stare at a wall and see something new just about every time you move your eyes. As I take this in, it dawns on me that all of it was built without the aid of robotics, computers, or mass-manufacturing techniques of any kind. It's just ... craftsmanship.
• Oh, yeah: no nails. Anywhere.
• The tour is about two hours. We walk and walk and walk, ducking down alleyways, taking in exhibits of concubine's quarters, seeing the temples and the seats of power. The guide is good; she knows her stuff. Very shortly, I'm in overload.
• The doors in this place are not built for white guys with high-protein diets. I duck a lot.
• The toilets are ... well, they're holes in the floor. Porcelain, yes, reasonably clean, yes, but you better have good knees and a sense of humor if you need to use the can.
• We wind up leaving as the City is closing, which makes hailing a cab a rather time-consuming activity.
• Dinner is Schezuan at a place off a hutong. As expected, the food is astoundingly good. We drink Tsingtao, a local Chinese beer that's light, refreshing, and not too booze-y.
• I woke up easy, but I go to bed hard - it's been a long day. (I'm still smiling, however.)

(If you're interested, I've posted a number of pictures from the trip to my Flickr Photostream.)

Posted by Gavin Shearer at July 14, 2008 9:37 PM. Posted to MSFT | Travel.

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