Another great day in Beijing

We sooo lucked out meeting Chad, Melanie, Jack and Jessica on the trip to Datong. They gave us the name of Peter, their English speaking driver, who took them to the great wall. He wasn't able to do it but arranged for Lee (not much English but very helpful and pleasant) to take us at 6:30 this a.m. We were ready; he was on time. Very nice comfortable Nissan car and he was a good driver! Pat didn't wince ONCE while we were driving. Did I mentioned our getting rear ended in a taxi in the middle of an intersection in Shanghai on day two? No one was injured, no damage, just stopped in the middle while cars, buses, etc. came at us from all directions. We went on and everything was fine but Pat is a bit skittish! Anyway, first stop was Mutianya, about 2 hours outside Beijing. It is less restored (but not by much) than Badaling, the closest. I had never been to M. so it was new to me. Clinton was here! We were there way before the crowds, almost had the Wall to ourselves. Very magical and mystical!! Mountains all around, and it went on for miles that we could see over the peaks and ridge of this mountain range. We climbed LOTS of steps and walk from tower to tower. Pat and Marilyn went on for about another 45 minutes and almost made it to the top of a faraway tower/peak. We ran the gauntlet of hawkers on the way back down (we took a cable car up and down) and managed to come away with only 2 t-shirts for J and S, one with dragons, one with pandas. Lee then took us to the Ming tombs, finding a wonderful place for lunch where we treated him to great Chinese food! Sweet and sour pork, broccoli, local fish, fried chicken. Then we went through the Ming dynasty (1600s) tombs of an emperor and his two empresses. Again lots of stairs! We then found the Walk of Animals (it's not called that!) but has stone statues of camels, lions, horses, and officials. Cool! Then back to Beijing to drive by Olympic buildings - the cube, the Nest and the torch tower. Tonight we will go with the Hostel group to an acrobatic show. Tomorrow the Forbidden City and Hutong tour.

Datong

I finally was able to get to the Business Center in this lovely hotel to write. I have skipped some parts of the trip but will try to catch up when we get a moment to catch our breath! But I'll cover yesterday and today. When I was living in China, I made frequent trips with the China Culture Club (check out their website and you can see the wonderful things they offer for ex-pats living in Beijing). I had been on this Datong trip before but am seeing things I didn't see before as well. We arranged at our Leo Hostel (great hostel, great location just south of Tianamen Square) for a taxi for 5 a.m. to the airport. No traffic so we moved right along! We met up with Edwin, our group leader, right inside Terminal 3, Gate 12. Everything is very organized and I wouldn't have recognized the airport from 7 years ago! We will go there again on Weds. when we fly to Xi'an.

There were 39 people in our group so they split us into 2 but we travel together in 2 big buses, lots of room. Andy is the other leader, very cute and enthusiastic! Both guides are extremely helpful, excellent English and knowledgeable. We also have local guides when we got here - they don't want big city people taking away jobs from local guides so they must always hire locally. So Michelle is our local guide.

Datong was about 1 hour north of Beijing, near the Inner Mongolian border. We probably could have seen the Great Wall from the air on the flight but of course the pollution is so thick you don't see anything 5 minutes after you take off. I think it's a fallacy that you can see the Great Wall from space, because of the pollution! My throat is already scratchy! This area produces huge amounts of coal. Kevin said they have condensed the number of coal mines so that the safety is better (there is a "miners trapped" story in the headlines right now in this area). But I remember from before the coal smell is pervasive. When we go the grottoes today, I remember it's right across the highway from a huge mine!

Yesterday we bused out to the Hanging Monastery, on Hengshan - one of China's 4 sacred mountains. It was so foggy when we arrived we couldn't see it at all until we walked up near the bottom of the 270! steps. Then it appeared out of the mist! It was built 1400 years ago. They have 3 guesses as to why 1/2 way up a mountain. Most logical is the river running below frequently flooded so they wanted to gods to keep the floods away and not have the monastery flooded each time. Also invaders came frequently to this area from the north (remember the Khans - Kubla and Genhis?) We made it up the steep stone stairs and then dealt with even more narrow wooden with steel grips to wander through the various pagodas. It's really lovely - now just a museum - no monks live here. It's unusual in that it combined 3 religions - Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. There were individual rooms devoted to each and then one shrine on the end with all 3 together. I did think it might be a good idea to have a zip-line down from this spot - don't think that will happen! But I might even have tried it - rather than all the down steps!

On the way back to Datong city we stopped at a small peasant town and wandered through. We were able to go into a 60 year old guys house - basically 2 rooms. One had a big hard area that is the bed, up high, with stove pipes running under it so it's warm to sleep and then sit on during the day. TV was there, electricity wired in, well outside, donkeys around. He farms watermelons (bad season this year he said) and beans. His wife had died. His 2 sons and a daughter live in the city (peasants are allowed to have more children than the 1). We asked where all the women were and he said playing mah jong. On our way out, we saw them through a window and were allowed to go in and watch. It was such fun!  Very different than our mah jog group and play but we at least recognized the tiles. No jokers, winds or flowers that we could see. It was played very fast!

Back in Datong we check in to our luxury for the trip - the Garden Hotel! Even had fluffy white robes and slippers, bed turned down! I soaked long in a huge bathtub! Kerry, you would have loved it!

We then went off the see the newly reconstructed city wall - about 2 km. long with many beautiful towers. Again, climbing stairs! My foot began to hurt and I was hobbling! When I got back to the hotel later that night, I had a HUGE blister on my big toe and worked on that!! Hopefully it will be better today.

We walked through a street food market for a awhile. I saw a guy on a 3 wheeled bike with a HUGE piece of what looked like sheet rock laying across the back, and he moved out into the traffic and actually crossed the street and rode away! I was sure I was going to see an accident! We could barely get across the traffic!

Dinner was lovely - another banquet. People from Germany, living in Shanghai; Derrick who works for 2 months at Beijing American Embassy; Family from Durham, NC - went to Duke - with an 11 year old Jessica and 8 year old Jack, newly moved to Beijing for maybe 2 years. He's trying to arrange for a driver they know for tomorrow to the great wall!

Need to send this and grab breakfast!

More later!

Leaving for Daton

I learned a new phrase yesterday from my friend Mary who has been teaching here in Beijing for about 5 years - TIC - This Is China!.  This is to express your frustration when things go in circles and don't seem to go anywhere! We have spent many hours and yesterday about 8 wasted hours when we could be seeing sites here dealing with Ctrip.com the website where we have been booking our tickets for internal flights. We went to their office yesterday, riding the subway and then wandering. After asking a parking lot attendant for directions, Sam showed up, speaking English and leaving his job to walk us to first one building where we found out Ctrip had MOVED. Then he took us to the other one, only to find out the FLIGHT portion of Ctrip wasin a different building. We said we wouldn't leave unless they sent one of them with us to the new building, which they did. Only to find out that the office girls were doing all the bookings through Shanghai offices by phone! After much, much frustration, we think we are all set! To reward ourselves, we took a taxi to SanLiTan Rd. area nearby which is the bar street. We had hazelnut hot chocolate and shared a piece of Black Forest cake!!! All before dinner (there WAS no lunch!). We taxied back to the Poly Theater where we met my friends Mary and her husband Tom who live here, she teaching literature at a college and he working on a book (he is retired head of Engineering dept. at Penn State). They took us to the most popular and best Chinese food place (based on local ex-Pats), very elegant, for Peking Duck and other dishes for dinner. It was delicious and sliced up right at our table. Again after much wandering around led by the doorman at the duck place looking for a taxi - 2 drivers refused to take us! we think because we didn't look like we were big tippers OR he didn't like the area we were going to by Tianamen Square, we opted for for the easy and smooth system of the metro back home. Couldn't get any hot water so opted for sleep! This morning I can relax because we have a taxi at 5 a.m. to the airport where we will join the China Culture Club (check out their website for a description of our tour - to Datong, Hanging Monastery, Buddhist caves - and let them take over for 2 days. We will fly about an hour north, almost to Inner Mongolia, stay one night and train back. We opted to pay for our rooms here tonight to leave all our stuff and insure we get these lovely rooms tomorrow night. I don't think I finished writing about our Yangzhou visit where we were treated like visiting royalty. Since Qin Hong, my friend from 6 years ago, was on a school business trip to Guilin, her friend and colleague Jacqueline filled in. She took us to the most amazing foot massage place for an hour and a half of pure pleasure and relaxation, where we got to see a little bit of CCTV, the only English TV station in China, so we could see what people on the east coast were dealing with! Unbelievable for October! On Thursday early we had our second tai Qi session with Baba Ding, and Wei Yuan helping out by translating. A photographer, we think from a local paper, turned up in the park and posed us for pictures in tai Qi postions so maybe we'll make the local paper!! Back at the apartment we were all packed up and presented Mama and Baba Ding and Wei Yuan with our present bags we had prepared! After saying goodbye, we met Qin Hong at the same restaurant (3rd time in 2 days) for an amazing breakfast that everyone loved! It was so wonderful to see her again! She took us to her office (she's now promoted and has a beautiful office ) to call Ctrip (frustration!). Then we were off again for a Hot Pot banquet, where boiling broth with seasonings is in front of each of us, and an array of beef, muttong, fish balls, chicken balls, and vegetables were there to be popped into the broth for cooking. this dish comes from Mongolia, I had heard, where you need to keep warm! I was sweating and bright red from the spices by the end! We visited 2 different classes each to introduce ourselves and answer questions - these were Senior 2 students, 11th graders - same level that I taught when here. There are 800+ students in each grade level at YMS. All were very polite and interested. It did not seem like it had been 6 years since I had been teaching here. We taxied with Qin Hong to Ge Gardens, a beautiful estate from a rich 1700 merchant that he filled with various bamboo plants. It was lovely and peaceful. Lily Chen, mother of a former student, showed up again to walk with us and present me with special teas to take home. It will go with the beautiful teapot and bowls Qin Hong presented to me. We ran across an area in the garden where a movie was being shot and watched for awhile while the beautiful actress played a musical instrument (or pretended to). Leo, Qh'S husband met us and drove us back to pick up our luggage. More later, taxi arrived!

Here are a couple of emails from Pat to friends with her perspective of Yangzhou

From: Pat Bartlett
Date: Wednesday, November 2, 2011, 5:51 PM

Hi, Everyone,

An extraordinary day yesterday. We took the train at 8:15. A very nice young man at the train station walked us through finding the gate and the right train car etc and he even carried two of our bags down the stairs. The bullet train was clean and comfortable, with recliner seats and plenty of leg room and tray tables. Joyce started talking with another extremely nice Chinese young man, called Craig. He offered to help us find the person who was meeting us. As it turned out, he was invaluable, because when Susan's colleague wasn't there at the gate, Craig called him and directed him to the spot where we were. Craig also carried my bag down a long flight of stairs.(It helps to have white hair...) We finally were united with a former colleague of Susan's--Liu Ren Jie.

Ren Jie drove us around Susan's former school where she taught 11th grade. Then, he took us to a nearby restaurant, where he and another friend took a private room and gave us a delicious lunch of various Chinese dishes---pork and chicken with vegetables, soup, dumplings, noodles, egg, and some shrimp--10 different dishes in all. We met Ding's wife and Mother, whose apartment we would be occupying. They are incredibly nice also. The apartment is fourth floor, and, as I was struggling up the first few steps with my suitcase, the 60 year old tiny mother grabbed it from me and carried it in front of her without batting an eyelash. Take about being humbled. She was amazing. The apartment inside is quite roomy and comfortable. There is one large double bed in the bedroom and one equally large double mattress on the floor of the den, with comforters and pillows. Both beds are hard as rock but turned out to be extremely comfortable. On the walls are huge, stylishly staged mural photographs of the couples wedding, quite different. We met Jacqueline, who took us to the travel agent and then to a facial, which Susan had requested. It was wonderful--a full hour of facial pampering, and our skin was really soft when we finished. (Unfortunately, it didn't make us look 20 years younger, but we felt that way.) We then did some shopping along the old streets and went to a red lacquer place, for which this city is renowned. Back to the apartment to dress and then off to a banquet hosted by Jack, the Vice Principal of the school and former friend and colleague of Susan's. Several other former colleagues were also there-- Margaret, Madame Chun Hong, Jacqueline, the lady in blue, and the four of us. There were probably 30 dishes in all of every variety. Everyone sits at a huge round table and the dishes are placed on a huge lazy Susan in the middle--very practical. You help yourself to whatever you want, but I tried to try a bit of everything, as our hosts were anxious to know our reactions. The fish dishes are full of bones, so not a favorite, but the flavors are very nice and fresh. There aren't enough vegetables, but on the whole, the food was delicious and we certainly ate more than necessary. My favorite things are the dumplings and vegetables, rice, and noodles. I was planning on losing weight, but it doesn't look as if that is going to happen. Everyone crashed when we got home, but I read until about 11:15.

I woke up at 3:15 and finally got up at 4 AM. I didn't want to wake the others while using the computer, so I took my shower and then wrote notes and expenses and read until the rest got up at 6. We ate some snacks and then went off to the park so that Joyce could do Tai Chi with Ding's father in law, who has been studying Tai chi almost all his life. His wife was also there doing. Joyce showed them what she had learned and then the three of them did some routines together. Joyce did very well, and the Ding's were amazingly graceful and coordinated. Susan, Marilyn, and I tried to follow along. I was bumbling and off balance, but I tried and felt good afterward. It has to be incredibly good for your body and mind.

It is getting time to go, so I will continue with our day when I can.
Pat



From: Pat Bartlett
Date: Wednesday, November 2, 2011, 11:30 PM

Hi,again,

After trying to do Tai Chi, Lily met us at the Park and took us to Slender West Lake Gardens. We walked through the beautiful gardens with shrines on the long lake, which is beautiful man-made lake. Trees and flowers are abundant and there are Chinese boats that can take people around. At one point, Marilyn and I paid 2 yuan to feed corn to the white pigeons. We walked from one side of the gardens to the other, until everyone but me was exhausted with sore legs. Then we took a bus to a restaurant, where Jacqueline and her parents-in-law hosted another incredible banquet for us, which, among about 20 other dishes, was Peking Duck with mooshi pancakes. Amazing food... Then they arranged for us to go back to the room to rest and do laundry. Then they had arranged for us to have a foot massage, which turned out to be both feet, legs, arms, and back, done by three guys. It took an hour and a half and was awesome. Joyce had a headache and didn't go, unfortunately. Then we went off to a talent show given by the high school students at Susan's school, which was lots of fun--a sword dance, a play about a couple who wanted to marry, but it turned out that the father of one had had an affair with the mother of the other, consequently, they were brother and sister. It was all in Chinese, but not to difficult to figure out, but we missed much of the humor, because the audience roared with laughter on several occasions. The show finished with karaoke (sp?) Unfortunately, we had missed the first hour, but what we saw was fun. After that, we headed off to another banquet given by Margaret and Edward. Charley and Sunny were also there. It was a very nice occasion with good conversation. Some of the dishes were similar to some that we had the previous day. Then Ding's wife saw us home via bike and taxi. When we returned, we found out that some of the flights that we thought were booked had been cancelled. We did some packing, got on the Internet, and when the others went to bed, I read for a while.

I better send this, because I may not get online for a while.

Yangzhou!!

So new day! Our last in Yangzhou! Tuesday we taxied to the Shanghai Railway (we concluded that with our luggage, it’s easier to taxi than struggle with all the metro steps!). The station has changed SOOO much since 5 years ago. Every train has their own waiting section clearly marked. The announcements are also in English. What ease!

The bullet train was sleek and quick – about 2 hours to ZhenJiang on the south side of the Yangtze where Liu Ren Jie (Danny) was going to pick us up for the drive to Yangzhou. Joyce befriend a Chinese businessman going to Z. with a cell phone who contacted Danny as we neared the station. He escorted us to the center of the station, with a confusing number of exits, and kept calling Danny until we finally met up. Such helpful and gracious Chinese people!

Danny worried we couldn’t fit all our luggage (we each have a backpack and a rolling suitcase – no one had to check any luggage on the plane). But we managed and drove through the fog and construction, over the new (2005) Yangtze River bridge into an every growing Yangzhou. I didn’t recognize anything until we turned onto HuaiHai Lu (Rd.) by the Bank of China (with an ATM). The school has some new buildings and more going up. We crossed the street to the little restaurant where I used to get takeout lunch (because people wouldn’t let me eat there without staring at my left-handed use of chopsticks so I’d take it home and eat in peace!). Upstairs we got a “banquet” room which just means private circular table with our own waiters. He ordered amazingly wonderful food and we wrote down each dish in Mandarin, pinyin (shows the pronunciation in our alphabet) and English. We’re set now when we try to order on our own (I hope) NOT that any of us are going hungry – 4 banquets in the 2 days here and one day to go!

Danny then drove us to Ding Wei Yan and Wei Yuan’s apartment (he was my doctor for knee acupuncture when I worked in Y. and is now studying in Boston for his higher degree in Sports Medicine – living with Jack who also taught here. WY is his wife who moved to her in-law’s apartment nearby for our visit – both incredibly generous to us!). The apartment is lovely with 2 of us in one bedroom and 2 in another (with borrowed mattresses for us for the 2 nights), a lovely central living room, little dining area and kitchen and then bath. 4^th floor up is challenging with the youngest of us being 66 but we’re managing! The tricky part has been the maze getting here and some taxi drivers who don’t really know the way. One night we came home at night in a taxi and we didn’t recognize the area. We were afraid to get out and leave the taxi and be totally lost when up popped “Mama” Ding!! We were never so glad to see anyone!! We think Jacqueline, who has been SOOO helpful in Qin Hong’s absence, must have called her to say we were on our way and she looked out for us, and led us to where we recognized the path.

We meet “BaBa” Ding at 7 a.m. in a nearby park for tai chi – he is a master, Joyce teaches it on the Cape and wanted a session with a master. The other 3 of us kind of fumbled along trying to match. Ding’s parents are so wonderful and helpful and generous with their time for us. As have been every Chinese person we’ve encountered! Which is why it was such a wonderful year for me in 2004-2005! The other 3 women completely understand why I enjoyed it so much when they saw how we’ve been treated! As my friend Mary who is teaching in Beijing and we will meet up with tomorrow night for Peking Duck dinner said in e-mail, we’ve been treated like Chinese royalty!

Wei Yuan connected by cellphone (neither mine nor Marilynn’s is working, or we can’t figure them out!) with Lily Chen, a teacher from a technical college here who is the mother of Cecily, my Chinese daughter, former student, now a grad student in communications in Beijing – hopefully we’ll meet up with her this weekend. Lily had scheduled tickets for us at Slender West Lake, the local tourist attraction, a beautiful spot modeled after West Lake in Hangzhou, but ours is long and skinny! We wandered through various pavilions and garden scenes. She then took us to meet up with Mama and Baba Ding (what we call Ding’s parents!) for a banquet lunch – more wonderful food and gracious hospitality!!! We were given directions by Lily to go for our foot massage – an hour and a half of being molded, rubbed, pressure points, lotioned!! Pure heaven! In a very elegant salon with CCTV in ENGLISH! I forgot to mention the day before Jacqueline had taken us for our banana facials! She first stopped to purchase milk and bananas which at the salon were mixed up for our facial mask. Lovely massages, pressure points, rubbings and an hour later we all looked gorgeous and years younger! Qin Hong had asked me before I came what things I wanted to do here and those two were DEFINITELY on my list.

Massage was followed by a trip to Yangzhou Middle School for the end of a student run talent show that the Senior 2s had worked hard on – a couple of singers, singing groups, a little skit of course all in Chinese that I was able to figure out the tragic scenario, my favorite – a girl and guy, sword, dancing, lovely! Across the street to a restaurant where Margaret (who had been to Westport and Cape Cod and showed Kerry around when she was here so always asks about her and Jackson and Sarah!) and Edmund her husband hosted us for another banquet. Sunny and Charlie attended, two teachers I had banqueted with 5 years ago. Can’t remember if I mentioned Jack, the vice principal now but a teacher and exchange teacher in Westport when I was there, hosted our first evening banquet where Madame Hong, and Nan Xing’s wife also attended.

I’m going to send and post this as I’m late for tai chi and our final day. More to finish up later! One week past – so much done! 

Testing the new workaround

My nephew sent me a workaround that I'm testing to see if it will post. Susan

Red Bus Tour in Shanghai

We operated on 4 hours sleep last night, after our marathon at the Internet cafe and going to bed at 1:30 a.m.  Joyce decided to take an R & R day and relaxed, did tai chi in the park, went to lunch at the huge J.W.Marriott hotel next door with a gorgeous view from the 35th floor.

The other 3 of us did the Big Red Bus on-off trip around Shanghai. We started with a lovely drive through the French Concession area. Shanghai in 1842 (after the Opium War and as a result of the Treaty of Nanjing) was opened to foreigners and Shanghai was the center. France settled a concession area, the British down around the waterfront (the Bund) and the Americans. The French area became the best address in Shanghai, with boulevards lined with plane trees and beautiful mansions (like the Ruijin) that have become hotels. It's still an up and coming hip area.

Our first stop was the gorgeous Jing'an Temple west of town. It is unbelievably restored - tons of money poured into this. A huge white jade Buddha from Myanmar (Burma), a gigantic silver Buddha, and money is being raised for a golden one! There were monks chanting near the white Buddha and a side altar we think was for a funeral of a young girl. The monks gathered around, it looked like 3 family members offered prayers and incense and they chanted. We bought incense outside, lit it and followed the bowing to the 4 directions like other people were doing, and then left our incense burning on this stove. We also threw coins up into a stupa-like thing in the central courtyard.

One of the chapels had a crew restoring a beautiful 3-D ceramic mural with wooden trim frame. Apparently during the Cultural Revolution, this was taken over and made into a factory. But they did a gorgeous job restoring it. Unfortunately had a LONG wait for the bus to come again - guy said it was traffic holding things up.  We opted NOT to go into the Jade Buddha Temple as it was not as magnificent and we'd wasted time waiting. We rode around town listening to a great narration on earplugs and got off at the Yu Yuan Gardens stop. This is in the Old City area. Hungry now, we headed for the most popular eating spot in Shanghai - where they make these great pork dumplings. Just follow the queue, the guidebook said. It was about a 20 minute wait line. But was worth it - about 15 dumplings with soy sauce. We also added some bean cakes (kind of sweet) and satay (chicken) for a wonderful walking lunch!

Did some shopping for chopstick gifts and wandered around the very Chinese area. Wandered through the picturesque and tranquil Yu Yuan Gardens to various rooms and landscaped displays. Very scenic!

An early dinner tonight as we leave at 7 a.m. for the train station. Going now to enjoy our lovely room with our own shower and bath! Can't wait to see my friends tomorrow in Yangzhou! It's been 5 years!

Zai jian!