Jason and Carolyn's World-Wide-Website     |     home  |   Wedding   |   Photo Album   |   The Trip   | China August 18 Arrive Shanghai- Jianguo Hotel August 19 Shanghai August 20 Zhouzhang- Suzhou Castle Hotel August 21 Suzhou August 22 Train to Shanghai August 23 Shanghai August 24 Evening train to Beijing August 25 Arrive Beijing August 26-27 Hanging out in Beijing August 28 Depart Beijing on the Trans-Siberian Railway Notes from the Road 19 August, 2001 Shanghai The first sight we were taken to was the temple of the jade buddhas. The buddhas were actually made in Burma and a monk left them in Shanghai about 200 years ago. They were preserved during the cultural revolution by some clever monks who hid them in big boxes with Mao's picture on them. The buddhas are sublime. There are two of them one reclining and one standing. The jade looks almost like alabaster. The actual temple was teeming with people- evidently the 19th is a festival day at that temple. Lots of families were there making paper money to burn- which they give as an offering to improve the afterlife of dead relatives. Our guide Rebecca really pushed her way through the crowd. We tried to keep up with her. The temple architecture was much more splendid than anything we'd seen in Vietnam. Next stop was the silk shop. We tried on a few items and watched a man painting some silk scarves. The ladies had to dig around to find the XXL size shirts for me to try on. This is how we knew it was a shop where Chinese people shopped and not just tourists. We made a few purchases and were on our way. It was only 11 Am so we decided to see the YU gardens before lunch. This turned out to be a mistake- because it took us so long to drive to the garden that by the time we got there we were famished and didn't really feel like walking around in the heat and humidity to see anything. We did tramp through and admire the limestone rock formations. There was also a famous zigzag bridge at this garden. Having oohed and aahed appropriately, we were finally allowed to have lunch. The main course at this restaurant - another 1/2 hour drive away- Shanghai really does feel a bit like LA-was an amazing flayed fish sweet and sour. The fish had been sort of turned inside out so the meat flaked off but the skin was still there underneath. It was really delicious. After lunch we took the obligatory boat tour up the Hang-pu river. We admired the Pearl TV tower and its little bubble satellite buildings. We also passed the port and dry dock. We went as far as the brand spanking new gleaming suspension bridge- which they intend to keep looking that way, because there were people hanging off the wires on little platforms cleaning it. All day our camera had been acting up a bit and after the boat tour we went with Rebecca to the camera section of a department store to see if it could be fixed. This involved winding through underground corridors at the metro station- al lined with goods for sale and snaking our way through 6 floors of a very busy department store- selling everything from clothes and appliances to cars and new homes. Inside the store was not that much different from a US department store- except there were alot more sales people. They all are very attentive and seem to use the patented Communist 3 line method of doing business. One line to pick out the goods- you get a little ticket and then line 2 to pay at the cashiers desk- then back to the counter in line 3 to pick up your paid for goods. Unfortunately our camera problems were more electrical than manual and they couldn't even begin to fix them. SO Rebecca took us back to the hotel -we had an hour to get presentable for dinner and then the acrobats. At dinner we learned the real way to eat Chinese food-with your teeth. Rebecca ordered for us- the menus were all in Chinese. She got heads-on prawns and a couple of smallish crabs and smoked duck. Basically using your fingers is not allowed but biting off a prawn head and then spitting it out again on your plate is expected. In fact you basically shell the prawn or crab for that matter with your teeth, then you spit out the shell and suck in the juices. This can get a bit messy if you are not too practiced at it. Jay declined to try any crab this way and basically gave up and shelled the prawns with his fingers. I wasn't too into the whole biting the heads off part, but otherwise I worked my jaw around some shell. This was also the meal where our vegetable dish arrived and it looked like a nice plate of stir fried green beans. I made the mistake of chomping right into a very hot green bean shaped pepper. I immediately got the hiccups and Jay practically got the hiccups himself he was laughing so hard at me gasping for air. He thought it was especially funny because he'd had a pepper in his chopsticks ready to bite down when my face turned all red and eyes watering etc. Rebecca suggested maybe I needed something hot to stop my hiccups-maybe she meant cold- she had a few problems with things like gender and occasionally synonyms/antonyms. Luckily my hiccups stopped by themselves before I was subjected to any Chinese hiccup cures. All in all this was an incredibly amusing meal for Jay- he sat back and watched me spitting out my food and choking on peppers while he peeled a few prawns with his fingers and sipped a tall cold beer. We took the bus to the acrobat show. There are two tiers of bus in Shanghai- air conditioned and not. The aircontditioned bus costs 2Y, the unaircondtioned is half as much at 1Y- This is about a dime. We splurged on an air conditioned ride. They have a conductor on the bus who you pay, but they make no stop announcements - so you really need to know where you're going. We arrived at the Yun Feng Acrobatics Theater about 15 minutes before showtime. The place was empty. Slowly it filled up with tour group after tour group (mostly groups of retirees Americans, Germans,Brits some Chinese as well.) The stage was big and they had a bunch of fancy new moving lights set up. Unfortunately no one seemed to have taught them how to use their new toys. The acts themselves were incredible- contortionists and plate spinners, tumblers and bicycle tricks. Alot of very young children doing crazy things like balancing stacks of plates off their noses while being lifted in a contorted position off someone's shoulders. The tech side though was soooo bad that it was very funny. I'm pretty sure the lighting and sound designer studied at the same school if they weren't the same person. The songs just stopped in the middle of acts- like the tape had run out. There were no fades of sound or lights. Just Black out. Lights up. The moving lights were jumping all over the place. They had jumpy color changes happening and drunken follow spot operating. There are special cues you write called "reposition" cues when using moving lights- these ensure that the colors change when the lights are out- or the big jerky moves happen in the dark. Well the Chinese let it all hang out. They also chose to light people alot straight on from the front which is not the way to highlight acrobatic feats- light coming from the side would have given definition to the bodies. We tried to just watch through the technical disasters and not laugh every time the music changed for no reason mid act. 20th August 2001 Shanghai to Suzhou We spent a lot of the morning waiting. We'd left pretty early and been driven out to the 1000 year old village of Zhouzhang. Its about an hour and a half from Shanghai. When we arrived, our local guide wasn't there yet. We waited in the van. He still didn't show. Then Rebecca made a few calls and announced that we could "kill some time" at a local silk factory until our guide arrived.   Rebecca has a few idioms and expressions in English she loves to use. Time is always killed and it never drizzles for her- it always rains cat and dogs. At the local silk factory they were set up to receive busloads of people, but they put on their fashion show for just the four of us- Me Jason, Rebecca and our driver Mr. Shang. The fashion show was very professional. They found some very tall Chinese ladies and they managed to make a bunch of not very stylish clothing looking suitably fashionable.  We were amused but not moved enough to make any purchases.  Time having been killed we headed back to the village entrance. By noon our local guide had arrived- bus troubles.  His name was Wu Hao, we think he added you can call me Tom, but we weren't too sure.  We thought of him as Mr. Wu and tried to avoid having to call him by name at all.  For some reason Rebecca also accompanied us through Zhouzhang and we had dueling guide perspectives. Mr. Wu in the lead might say, "This house was built by a millionaire but his sons were lazy and lost the fortune." Rebecca would then correct or add for our clarification- "Yes, his ancestors or heirs, she could not keep the house." In this way we tramped through the "Venice of the East" as Zhouzhang or maybe the whole region- despite having 2 guides I'm not sure which is correct- likes to think of itself.   Unlike the floating villages of Vietnam and Cambodia this one was actually a stable village with canals creating  venetian alleys.  The buildings were all stone and very picturesque except for the tacky souvenir shops all selling the same goods in them. They did have a few local artisans making things.   In the millionaires house we learned a bit about Ming and Ching dynasty furniture. Ming furniture has simple lines of curved wood. Ching dynasty employs embedded marble into the chairs and tables. For lunch they took us to an air-conditioned pod in a village restaurant. It literally had these space ship like doors and you walked in from the 100 degree heat into a blast of frigid air. Evidently this room was only for the guests- our 2 guides and Mr. Shang ate right outside in a shady but unaircondtioned room.   As in the US, most Chinese food is served family style and as 2 people they served us enough for a family of 4. Basically there is a one size fits all policy for dishes and a required number of minimum hot and cold dishes. So we left a lot of food behind.   The local specialty in Zhouzhang was a sweet ham hock cooked in honey. It was great. After lunch we had some free time to kill wandering through the village. The town was really quite charming and we stopped to have our hands washed in replica ancient hand washing bowls which are made of copper. You wash you hands and them rub them along the copper handles which makes the water inside the bowl jump up and down in a little fountain like dance. Making the water dance is supposed to bring you luck. Jason also bought a "first edition Peking Press 1966" English language Mao's little red book of quotes for about 10 bucks. We are unsure whether or not it really is a first edition. We are sure it was stolen from the Shanghai library- because our guides told us that when they looked it over and saw the stamp on the inside cover. By the way Rebecca subtly gasped when jay said how much he'd paid for it we suspect she thinks he overpaid a bit for it. In China the bargaining is intense(usually about 1/2 the asking price)and we weren't totally up to speed yet. At any rate Jay was very pleased with his little red book. After lunch and shopping we hurried up to go and wait again- we'd said our farewells to Rebecca- we'd see her 72 hours later on the train platform in Shanghai and we were off up the grand canal with Mr. Wu. The grand canal was pretty dull. On our boat there was a group of German retirees. We glided up the canal to another little town. Jay and I have both forgotten the name of it. In fact we'd already forgotten it by the same evening. So suffice it to say we went to another little Venice of the East. This town was much less crowded than Zhouzhang, but also a bit less picturesque. We took a wander over the famous little bridge and then stopped to examine produce in a local market. We met our new driver and were off to Suzhou- another 45 minutes or so by van. We asked Mr. Wu what people did for fun around Suzhou- a city of about 1 million people. He said locals like bowling and karaoke- for tourists he might recommend a foot massage. We decided bowling sounded better. He wrote down the address of the bowling alley for us. He also gave us some dinner locale recommendations- one of which was right across from our hotel. We chose the "Aster Toast Geese Restaurant"- which was across the street from our hotel and in the Aster hotel. For this reason, we did not bring the Chinese phrase book with us- because we figured that being next to 2 hotels the menu would be in English. Well no. Actually there was no menu. A very helpful English speaking waitress wearing a silly goose hat- all the employees were wearing them, not just the English speakers- took us to the raw meat selection counter. There were all kinds of dishes wrapped in plastic to choose from. Its kind of hard to guess what some meats are raw, but we think we had the toast geese in the restaurants name. We may or may not have ordered snake soup- we actually thought it was a fish soup but when it arrived cooked and we had a closer look at it we really could be sure. We definitely did not order the whole pigs' brains that were sitting there glistening in the display case. The waitress helpfully pointed to her skull saying "pig, pig" to let us know what they were. We helpfully shook our heads, "no no." Well whatever we ate it was very tasty. After dinner we went back to the hotel to get our phrase book and our "Paddington bear" card. All over china the hotels have these very cute little cards which say in Chinese and English "Please return me to the X hotel"- Sometimes they even have a little map on them. You then can show the cards to taxi drivers and have a reasonable chance that they will understand which hotel you want to go to. Well the taxi took us to the bowling alley. When we arrived our driver started gesticulating wildly and saying "bowling, bowling" over and over again- in case the bowling pin decals on the window of the building hadn't convinced us we were really there. The joint was jumping. We communicated surprisingly well with hand signals and the obvious language of context. We managed to rent a lane, get some shoes in our sizes and find our lane and bowl bowl bowl. The bowling alley was actually built a Taiwanese company and had all American computer equipment. Our lane mates were a group of 3 young Chinese who watched our game as much as their own. At one point Jay bowled 3 strikes in a row and the guy next to us hurried off to get a waitress and tried to convince her to give Jay a prize or something. She explained to him something like no it had to be three strikes 1,2,3 or else it might have been no free beer for the big white guy ;it was something like that, anyway there was no free beer or free anything.  There were alot of free thumbs up signs from our neighbors.   On the other side we had a semiprofessional chain smoking strike bowler. He was by himself. He literally bowled 3 near perfect games in a row. He never had a frame with less than a spare.  He also never got a free beer or free anything or even a free thumbs up sign- he looked way to intense for any of those kind of shenanigans. After 2 rounds of bowling we moved on to the collection of half broken second hand video games. All the 2 player shootem up games had 1 gun broken. The pinball machines were missing critical lights.  Luckily the dance on the pads following the arrows game- which we'd witnessed some kids playing in Australia- was working just fine. We danced our way through a techno number- we didn't play well enough to get a second song free. Its kind of like playing super fast dancing twister.   We successfully used our Paddington bear cards to return to the hotel. We still weren't tired and our curiosity about the hotel bar had been peaked by the badly translated description in the hotel services guide: Disco Bar (A World) 2nd Floor The music is get worked up, the time is lie fallow.  A world is move up and down with music Tel:6566 Service Hours:19:00-24:00 How could we stay away? The karaoke moved up and down. The Chinese style of singing takes some getting used to for Western ears. It awfully closely resembles cater walling.   With that example before me, egged on by a very happy Chinese businessman, I stepped up to the mic and performed You've got a Friend to a rousing round of applause from the bar staff and 2 or 3 Chinese there- who may never before have convinced a white person to actually sing for them. Having appeased my adoring public, we decided to retire for the night. 21 August 2001 Suzhou The old saying- oft repeated in Suzhou goes- There is heaven above and below there is Suzhou- by this they don't mean it's like hell they mean its like heaven on earth because of all the gardens.   Our fist stop was the Humble Administrators Garden. Its a huge park.  The lotus were in bloom and there were lovely weeping willows.  The elements of a Chinese Garden: Water, rocks, buildings, trees and bridges.  All Chinese gardens are the harmonious blending of these 5 elements.  Every window in a building is viewed as a picture frame and the view from it is carefully orchestrated.  I think this philosophy has influenced the Chinese art of snap shot taking. They are very serious about framing the shot. It seems to always involve a person, posed.  I suspect there are no candids and no landscape shots in Chinese photo albums.  The setting and the pose are very important. Time and again we saw families struggling to get the kids out onto the rock in the middle of the lake where the natural setting was best to take a picture. Old people were not spared either. If the precarious little wobbly stone teetering over water is the spot, grandma holding little grandchild will stand stock still on it, bolt upright, while the shot is perfectly framed and then taken. In this vain, the shape of each window in the Chinese garden is carefully planned.  Some look like fans, others like moons. If a garden is too crowded its hard to appreciate all the thought that went into the view - you mostly see other people's heads out the windows. After the humble admin garden we went to the #1 silk factory run by the Chinese government. We petted a few silk worms and watched them do some spinning. We also watched them stretch double cocoons into the newest silk product- comforters. They stretch out a few hundred of these previously useless "double cocoons" and create a lightweight yet warm natural fiber filling for duvets. We'd had one on our bed at the hotel and had particularly noted its fine qualities.   After lunch- a dismal affair at a hotel buffet- hardly worth mentioning- we went out to Tiger Hill.  Tiger Hill was notable for 3 things: 1. the 1000 year old leaning pagoda 2. an extensive Bonsai tree collection and 3. Badly translated English language signage.  RE#1. The Pagoda was pretty cool. Its 7 stories and has a very noticeable lean. We oohed and aahed appropriately. RE: The bonsai trees- Mr. Wu explained that the Japanese came by about 1000 years ago and happened to go home with not only the Chinese alphabet which they pilfered but also the ancient Chinese art of "ponzai"- better known now as Bonsai. Well the trees were very nifty. Re#3-The translator had a bent toward the philosophical. "Keep Beauty in tree. Show you are Gentleman." "Respect for the Art. Don't Come In!" "Don't speak on Bridge. No Jam." These kept our spirits up in the merciless heat. After Tiger Hill, our official program for the day was over and Mr. Wu dropped us off at a local pedestrian street. We wandered into a shopping mall and confused the locals by shopping for big appliances. They had some very neat French kitchen gadgets. We also attempted to show the camera to some electronics people at a Canon shop. This was a true marvel of language free communication. Using only the words "hello", "Thank you" and "Shanghai" in Chinese we managed to communicate that: 1. our camera was broken. 2.The shop workers let us know they couldn't fix it but gave us a place to go in Shanghai 3.We said "Shay shay"(Thank you) and were on our way. At the Department store- which was called the "SuZhou Industrial Center"- though there was nothing at all industrial about it- we also created a big stir with our big feet. I found some super cool hot pink shoes and when I gave the woman the Chinese hand signal for the number 10 to indicate my size, she barely controlled a giggle. They actually did have a 10- it was a little tight, but when I indicated I'd like to see something maybe a bit bigger she couldn't contain herself and went over to share this news with one of the 20 other sales people waiting around for someone to come and amuse them in their department. In the end I bought the shoes just the tiniest bit too small- simply because when I turned them over to look at the size on the bottom, there was written "Lie Fallow"- just like the "a World" description from the day before. Now Jay and I were giggling. We also caused a big stir in the paper goods and art supply sections where we picked out lots of amusing goodies with interesting English language phrases like "This notebook is so nice you will love to write in it everyday" printed on the cover in big letters- or strange new characters like COOL DOG and his friends. For dinner we ate delicious spicy Seczhuan food- chicken on the bone should be eaten in the same way as shell on prawns- spit out what you don't want to ingest, but don't touch it with your fingers. We caused a ruckus at the restaurant when we left a tip- which is an increasing but not common practice in China. We felt it necessary because everyone had been so attentive and helpful in trying to communicate with us. The way tipping goes is that you leave it and then they chase you out of the restaurant trying to return it. If you are firm they will then keep it. After a while when we tipped, Jay started hiding the money under plates and things so they wouldn't find it until we were too far gone to chase. 22 August 2001 Suzhou - Shanghai We started the morning with more touring of Suzhou.  We visited the "Master of the Net Garden" first.  Apparently there is a re-creation of part of this garden at the Met in NYC.  We liked this garden a lot more than some we had seen.  First, it was smaller and cozier in a way other gardens were not.  Also, I think we really started to understand the framing technique used by the garden designers for the first time.  In a Chinese garden, there are several elements that are always employed.  These are bridges, water, rocks, plants, and buildings.  I think those are all the main ones...  There are usually covered walkways and dividing walls with windows.  No window is put in place without a well thought-out scene created to look out on.   This garden had some beautiful scenes (sometimes called "paintings" by the Chinese) outside the windows.  The garden also contained a wonderful collection of carved ostrich eggs - something we had never seen before. Our next stop was the Pan Gate, one of the main gates into the old walled city of Suzhou.  Once the Chinese start building walls, it's hard to get them to stop.  The gate had been refurbished a bit, but still had some of the old machinery for operating the water and road gates. We had a nice lunch in a private room.  Our guide for some reason didn't want us to sit with the mostly Chinese tourists in the main room - we couldn't figure out who he thought would embarrass or annoy who.  Whatever. After lunch we went to the "National Embroidery Research Institute."  In some countries, the methods of embroidery have been just great for hundreds of years.  Not so for the Chinese.  They apparently want to dominate the world's embroidery culture hence this Institute.  And it turned out that their embroidery was in fact superior to any embroidery that we had so far encountered.  They had several styles - the first was a common sort of pointillism approach, with a bunch of dots making up the picture.  Nothing special although executed with considerable skill.  Another style looks sort of Impressionistic, with many lines of thread making up each scene.  This seemed to take a little more skill.  The coup de grace is the double-sided, one thread style.  This might not seem to impressive at first, but what I haven't mentioned yet is that the picture on one side is different than the other side!  For instance, on one side might be a cat, the other a dog.  They a are same shape of course, since both images are created at the same time.  Of course we didn't find out how this was done since they guard this advanced embroidery technology closely (wouldn't you?) We left the Institute grudgingly and went to buy motorcycle helmets.  I had been admiring the Chinese motorcyclists and the crazy mad styles of helmets they wore.  We found some suitable caps for me and my gang after shopping around a bit.   We went to a few stores because we thought that maybe we would find a helmet that could actually protect one's head in an accident, but this turned out to be impossible so we just bought the most stylish looking ones. We now had exhausted the touristic possibilities of Suzhou, so we went to the train station about 45 minutes early and cooled our heels for a bit. We had an uneventful 45 minute trip back to Shanghai.   Luckily our arrival was rather eventful in an uneventful way, if you take my meaning, in that our guide Rebecca was not at the train station to meet us.  We waited on the platform for 10 minutes because Carolyn noticed that our voucher from the local travel company had our arrival time as 5:21pm instead of 5:12pm which is when we actually arrived.  I made the mistake of putting on my backpack when we were getting off the train, and the 18 kgs started making me cranky.  Instead of taking off the backpack and relaxing, I suggested that we catch a cab to the hotel and try to contact Rebecca from there.  Carolyn agreed, although she knew that Rebecca would be freaking out. We got back to the hotel and managed to work everything out.  Rebecca came to meet us at the hotel and sort of apologized but spent more time explaining that her voucher had the wrong time on it.  She suggested that the next day we should visit Wuzhen, and we agreed. For dinner that night we went to "M on the Bund" which was listed by Conde Nast as one of the world's Top 100 Restaurants.  It was a swanky place on the roof of one of the buildings on the Bund with great views of the TV tower across the river and also the ex-pat population of Shanghai.  It's owned by Australians, and it shows on the menu.  Carolyn had lamb, I had steak.  It was a nice short break from Chinese food.  We talked about traveling, and all the great things we had seen and done so far. After dinner we hopped a cab back to the hotel to rest up for our excursion the next day. 24 August 2001 Shanghai to Train Station We spent the morning packing up, which has gotten to be our routine on long travel days we seem to really need to take the morning to get our stuff in order. We also did some banking and other business- this was FUN in China. Forms filled out in triplicate etc. You need a voucher proving you changed $'s into Yuan in order to change Yuan into dollars. We were trying to get a lot of cash because Mongolia and lots of Russia are credit card free zones and unfortunately travelers check free zones as well. So errands accomplished we went down into the swanky new Shanghai metro.  Like the rest of Shanghai its been built in the last 10 years and is still expanding. So far its only 2 lines but I think they have plans drawn up for close to 10. The stations sparkle and have all kinds of funny little signs indicating "no spitting" and "no jumping on the tracks" with helpful diagrams.   They announce all the stops in Chinese and in English.  We went right to the People's Square in the center of town. Jay wanted to do some drawing and I wanted to go to the Shanghai Museum- which luckily enough is very picturesque. So after a quick dumpling lunch we split up with me inside and Jay outside the museum.  While I toured 3000 year old bronze and jade pieces, Jason became an exhibit for the local Chinese- crowds of up to 20 stood around and gawked at him while he drew- we have the photos to prove it.The museum in Shanghai is just as high tech as the rest of the city- they have motion sensors which turn on the lights for sensitive paintings and calligraphy examples as you approach them. I now have an understanding of the prototypical "Ming Vase"- they are very lovely. 2 kids had been kind of staring at me while I was wandering around the museum and they were leaving the same time I was and they followed to come over and join the crowd staring at Jay. Like all the Chinese they were very interested in Jay's drawing of the museum.  We chatted with them using our phrase book and their knowledge of English.  I got through my name is etc. When it started to drizzle and we were leaving They came running after us to get our names on a piece of paper. I gave them a card- so maybe they'll e-mail us.  We took their names as well. Next we both went across the street to the Urban Planning museum which is a wonder as well. They have these full floor models of Shanghai present and future. Its central planning at its most glorious with high tech schematics of the expanding electrical grid and networks, visions for the future when houses are all wired up with computer functions and projections of the subway lines etc.  Its a very impressive museum. We had to get back top the hotel by 4:00 to get picked up for our evening train to Beijing. 25 August 2001 Beijing It got light very early on the way to Beijing. They have 1 time zone in all of China so the lightness/darkness is a little wacky in some places. Otherwise, this train ride was a non- event. I read and Jay drew and drank beer. We shared the compartment with two men who both slept basically the entire way. We were met at the station by a guy named "Mario" who didn't really seem to be a guide or driver. His car was not very official and kind of a mess and he didn't really know the right way to drive to our hotel, but we got there- it was actually very close to the station. He gave us his mobile number to call if we needed anything in Beijing. Our hotel was by far the worst we'd stayed at in Asia. The staff was surly and barely spoke English. The hallways looked like they were last renovated about 15 years ago- the rooms maybe a few years before that. By the end of our stay there Jay had decided the place was a forced labor camp for unruly Chinese teens. I like to think of it as simply the surliest hotel in China. Either way it was strikingly bad- especially in a place where everyone else was so friendly and nice to us. We showered up and set right out to see the Forbidden City. We took a taxi there and stopped at a kiosk for a little breakfast. I had a pastry and Jay had a whole roast chicken leg. He was very pleased with the clever little plastic wrapper it came in which allowed him to gobble up roast chicken without soiling his fingers. As we walked toward Tianamen gate- with its giant Mao poster smack in the middle of it- we were approached by a very well spoken young man who asked us a lot of questions. He explained that he was a student in the Fine Arts College. Actually lots of people had been talking to us on the street so this didn't seem too odd. He spoke very good English and told us that his teacher was having an exhibition right inside the gate to the Forbidden city which we could go and see. We agreed, since we were going there anyway, to take a look at his exhibit. He gave us information about the gates and history on the way in- I thought he was trying to sell us guide services. It turned out he was just trying to sell us some bad art. We followed him up into the second gate which was pretty neat because it hasn't been totally renovated. This was a lengthy process which involved checking our bags- I guess they were worried we might try to steal some bad art. We finally got up into the tower and it was clearly not great examples of Chinese painting and calligraphy. Each of the students had been deployed to bring in lone tourists who had just arrived in Beijing and then basically not let them leave until they bought something. He'd asked a lot of questions about what we might have seen before, how long we'd been in town, how long we were staying which I think he was using to calculate how much he could ask for these calligraphys etc. He quoted ridiculously high prices and we really weren't very interested but in the end when he accepted our less than 1/3rd the asking price offer we felt obliged to buy a little calligraphy with the symbol of happiness for the newly married couple on it. He seemed a little hurt like we'd made him lose face by not buying at the good tourist price, but he escorted us out and we got our bags and went on in to the Forbidden city as we watched other Chinese students attempt to pick up other English speaking couples. In fact a different student tried to nab us on our way out of the Forbidden city 4 hours later. The part Jay liked best about their pitch was when they claimed it was the last day of the exhibit. We were very tempted to come back the next morning and see if they were all there again. Well. We moved on and got our tickets to the Palace museum and our audio guide narrated by Roger Moore- we decided to share one guide. Jay did all the listening. I walked around next to him and he told me the salient points. The Forbidden City was overrun by Mexican volleyball players- well actually all kinds of International athletes in town for the Universade- University Olympics of some kind. We identified the athletes by their 1. height 2. Tendency to travel in roving packs of college age men and 3. lariats with ID badges stating their name, country of origin and sport. We noticed one of the volleyball players had a China patch on his bag and we stopped him to find out where he'd gotten it- having not been able to find patches yet in Shanghai. He told us there was a booth not far from the back of Tianamen square. We thanked him and got back to Roger Moore. The Forbidden City is one of those places which you've seen before in films and newspapers etc. so you have a heightened sense of stepping through history when you are there. Basically you walk through the immense complex in a straight line from South to North. We took a few detours to the side courtyards- one had an exhibit of mechanical clocks. There are many many steps in the Forbidden city and quite a few gates. There are also alot of Chinese from, we assume, rural areas who find looking at the white people as much fun as looking at the old buildings. It was here we were most giggled and laughed at and asked to pose for pictures. The picture posing reached a fever pitch in the Forbidden City and Tianamen Square. We even watched families teaching little kids the process of the Chinese picture posing. The whole family gets on the back end of the camera. They set up the little kid in the perfectly framed natural environment and then wait until he looks just right- by smiling, shouting jingling keys etc.- usually baby photo ploys and then when he's smiled just right the whole family applauds and then they usually send Grandma out to the same rock in the middle of the lake to take another identical photo- or else they ask a silly looking giant white girl to stand with the kid for the next photo. Who knows how many Chinese living rooms we will be adorning in the coming months. It was at the Forbidden City that we noticed two unfortunate trends in Chinese kids- crotchless pants outfits on the baby boys, which are just too ridiculous for words- baby bottoms hanging out all over the place and little girls with very boyish haircuts who looked like a bunch of midget cross dressers wandering around. After the Forbidden city we walked through Tianamen Square and back to the street market behind it. We were looking for the patches stall, but never found it. We did find some neat art supply kits and other goodies though. Tianamen square, best known for its massacre is now - maybe it was then too, a place for kite flying - especially at night. They light the whole thing up and people crowd around and fly kites. Its pretty cool. They also stand around posing for a lot of pictures. We didn't find our patches, but we knew they were out there, because we saw some on Beijing 2008 Olympic sweatsuits. They are REALLY excited about hosting the Olympics. The city is all ready filled to the gills with Beijing 2008 T-shirts, sweatsuits, etc.- some of them were being sold even before they found out they got it- Beijing 2008 Candidate City. So at least we knew if worst came to worst we could by some Chinese Olympic Team suits and cut the patches off the chests. We killed time in the area of the markets until dinner. We've got to go and catch a train! We'll hopefully do more soon- maybe Irkutsk. 26 August 2001 Beijing We had a big agenda for this day - 1. see Mao 2. go to the antique/souvenier market 3. buy some more slide film 4. find our China patches for our bags 5. Go to the Opera. A lot of this agenda was thwarted by circumstances beyond our control. First of all Mao's mausoleum was closed inexplicably. The sign said it should be open, but it wasn't- we accepted this and moved on to the antique market. I'd be surpised if anything here was more than a few days antique, but this was nevertheless a lot of fun. We got to see a lot of different methods for making the same new item look like an antique- a little dirt at this stall, some paint applied and then taken off at that stall. My bargaining skills were honed by this point and I got so good that the Chinese were congratulating me at the end of the sale. At this market I evolved a very good technique of countering their inital offer with something so low that everybody had a little giggle about it. For instance I wanted this tile mat thing shaped like a cat and the guy started at 1600 Yuan. I countered with a sheepish 50 Y. He laughed and came down to 800. I went up to 75 and he came down to 400. It went on like this until we agreed at around 200. We bought a lot of goodies here and a few extra bags for carrying things around. The market was sprawling and took a long time to navigate, but eventually we'd seen it all and grabbed a cab back to the hotel. We next set out to find a photo shop which sold slide film. We had a lead from the guide book and went in that direction. We also wanted to get 1 roll of film developed to see if our new camera was working properly. We couldn't find the shop listed in the guide, but we did see a Kodak express nearby and dropped off the film. We went in search of lunch while they developed the pics. There happened to be an Outback Steakhouse right next to the camera shop- inside the worker's stadium complex. Our sister in law in Rockford, Ali, happens to work at the Outback so we thought we better stop by and check it out for her. As franchises can be, it was eerily the same inside. We ordered steaks and the signature bloomin onion dish. It all seemed very much the same- except the lack of garnish. In the restaurant we saw the tallest Chinese man ever- he must have been 7 feet tall. He probably played for one of the sport teams involved in the Universade at the stadium. The only big difference between the Outback Beijing and the Outback Rockford was the ratio of staff memebers to clients. We found this to be true throughout China, every department store has a helpful staff of 10 people standing aorund waiting for customers. We had at least 3 staff members dedicated to our enjoyment of outback steaks. At the end of lunch we went to pick up our photos which had turned out just fine. Next stop was the military surplus store, because we hoped they'd have patches with the Chinese flag on them. They had spare boots, and office furniture and uniforms of all kinds (nothing in our HUGE sizes) but no patches. We even had drawn a helpful picture on the back of a business card which when presented in combination with our sample "I Love NY" patch was our visual-aide for shop keepers. We next went to a department store to look, again nothing. We even went to the "Friendship Store"- which used to be the hard currency store for Party members and Foreigners back in the day before special economic zones. They have all kinds of souveniers and stickers etc., but no patches. We were starting to think we'd have to buy the Beijing 2008 Olympic sweatsuits we'd seen which had the patches on them. But now we had to return to the hotel to pick up our Opera tickets When we got back to the surliest hotel in China the driver from the tour company called to tell us that he would be picking us up at 6:45 instead of dropping off the tickets at 5 as we'd arranged the day before. Well this left us with a couple of hours to kill and so we went in search of the business center at the hotel to do some emailing. Now the hotel claimed to have a business center; it also claimed to have a bar; it also claimed to be a 3 star hotel. It had and was none of these things. The staff which did not speak English finally appointed someone to tell us that the business center wasn't working today-it was a holiday-I suspect of the permanent variety. We then decided to try the Visor's from the room for an internet hookup. We managed to cause a total meltdown-fatal error and lose all of our information and pre-written emails(due to a digital phone line fiasco). Luckily we have a back up Visor so all we totally lost was some email and very little other info. By now we 'd managed to use up all the time before the Opera. Our driver met us at 6:45, but when we set out I looked at the tickets in the front seat and noticed that they were for the acrobats and not the Opera. I was especially annoyed because I'd confirmed which specific opera theater and everything the night before on the phone. The driver did some quick thinking and drove to the acrobatic theater to turn in the tickets and then took us to a nearby Opera -unfortunately after we got inside we realised that it wasn't the real opera-it was a show for foreigners, an opera demonstration of sorts. Basically it sucked.The actors seemed third rate. We got a display of the various varieties of Opera and scenery etc., but no entire story . I was very annoyed, because I knew we didn't have time the next day to go to the real one. Well next time we're in Beijing I guess... When we emerged from the Culture Palace there was a group of older people doing their evening line dancing excercise in the parking lot. That perked up my mood a bit. We decided to head over to the pedestrian mall in town to have one more look for patches. The shops were closing, but we kept walking until we found a little stall selling army/navy kind of gear. They had patches alright-all American patches. We showed them our visual-aide and they pulled out a catalogue. Yes, there was our patch. They spoke no English and we were using the Chinese phrase book at the back of the guide. We tried to tell them we wanted 2, tomorrow we'd be there to pick them up at 20:00. Then we had to negotiate on price. This I found unbelievable, we were basically special ordering something and still we had to bargain. I was a little half hearted about it. I didn't throw in my usual pretend walk away. The thing about the walk away is that both buyer and seller know its fake, because once you've seriously entered into the bargaining process it's very hard not to come to an agreement and buy. Well we were very excited to have found our patches. We were a bit worried that either they wouldn't be there tomorrow, or there'd be 20 patches at 2 o'clock etc., but figured we 'd deal with it then. We now needed to eat. Luckily there was a dumpling house basically across the street. At this place you ordered how many grams of dumplings you wanted. That was the only choice. We wanted many grams and had many grams and it was delicious. We went back to the hotel happy we'd almost accomplished one of our main goals. 27 August 2001 Great Wall of China/ Beijing The driver picked us up at 8 AM. First stop of the day was Fedex. We had a bunch of things to send home. This turned out to be harder than we expected. The office didn't open when it claimed to on its answering machine, the staff there didn't really know about how to send a big package to the US etc. Well it took about an hour and a half, but finally by 9:30 we were actually on the road to the Great Wall. The driver thought we were a little crazy because we'd picked an unrenovated spot mentioned in the guide book to hike for the day. The driver agreed-okay, if you don't mind being where there aren't any other people -he said. Trekking poles in hand we didn't mind. We drove on expressway for an hour or so, then turned off near the Ming tombs and continued on back roads to the little town. I never cease to be amazed at how close to big cities the complete rural areas kick in. It still shocks me in places near NY and LA as well. Well less than 2 hours from Beijing people are riding donkeys instead of bicycles and are hand picking fruit in orchards. Suddenly, while still enjoying this pastoral revelry, we caught our first sight of the wall-snaking along the mountain side. Incredible. The terrain is so steep in parts that you can't imagine that a wall would be any use against people willing to scale these jagged rocky mountains, but there it was going up and down the rock face. We zigged and zagged and asked directions a few times and finally reached the village which was the starting point of the hike. It was not entirely remote-having been mentioned in the guidebook and all. There was now a little cafe there and a few mini-warlords creating clearly fake, but what are you gonna do, tollbooths- charging about 2Y (or 25cents) to pass through. The wall was very STEEP in parts. It was a hot day and when we reached one of the look outs we were happy to find a guy hanging out sitting on a hypothermia blanket selling water, coke and beer. We chose water. The wall looks very intact from afar, up close it is varying degrees of falling apart. The section we were on is very overgrown with weeds and inhabited by bugs and some stinging plants. We did see other people on the trail, but it wasn't overly crowded. We continued up until it got really really steep and really really falling apart. Then we turned back and took some time for Jay to do some drawing and I did a little trip book writing. We also took a rubbing of a tablet at the base of one of the towers. The Chinese locals were setting off fireworks in the valley below us and the sound ricocheted all around us. It souned like thunder. Whenver we stopped moving the bugs attacked us. Jason's exposed leg got stung by some kind of vicious plant. We were tired, sweaty, hungry and out of breath- all in all a great hike. When we got back to the village the local Chinese flocked around to examine our trekking poles. They thought that they were the greatest things since sliced bread. One of the admirers was a local girl in high school named Noodles. She said that a few years ago when some tourists were at the shop and asked her what her name was and she thought they were asking what those were on the shelf and said, "noodles" and that's been her English name ever since, because she liked the fact that it was funny. Noodles had a lot of things she was planning to do next year or the year after- or maybe when she'd finished high school. She was cute and we enjoyed talking to her while we sipped hot refreshing tea brought to us by her mother. We got back from the Great Wall and went straight to the sci-tech plaza ex-pat super market to stock up on train food for the next morning. There were a lot of rich Chinese buying peanut butter there. We joined the trend. We then grabbed a cab across town -back to the patch sellers. Well, well well. Our Chinese was not quite as good as we'd thought. The lady pulled out 20 patches for us. We didn't even have enough Yuan left to buy all 20 even if we'd wanted them. Hemming and hawing and extreme face losing went on on both sides; we ended up buying 2 for a very high premium (about $5\patch)- which was just about all the money we had left in Yuan.It had been a long road but finally we had our patches in hand. We found the whole search for the patches in China very ironic because all the patches from other countries were of course, Made in China. Go Figure. Well, we now had very little money left and very big hunger- all we'd eaten was some toast for breakfast and a powerbar after our hike. We stumbled into a restaurant and sat down and ordered tea. They poured it using a very elegant long spouted teapot-kind of like a super long watering can. Well we then purused the menu and  discovered we couldn't afford to eat anything here and they didn't take credit cards. More face losing as we paid for our tea and left. Its a good thing we're not Chinese, I don't know how we  could have dealt with all this lost face if we were. We found another restaurant up the street and managed to check out the menu before we sat down. The kitchen was closing but we got our order in. We had some delicious stir-fried broccoli, shumai, and sweet and sour pork. 28 August Trans Siberian Railway to Ulaanbaatar,  Mongolia   6:00AM wake-up call 6:05 AM JJ's watch alarm rang 6:07 AM I jumped in the shower 6:13 AM the final alarm rings-I poke Jay and he asks if they forgot to give us the wake-up call. General scurrying ensues. Our hotel has one good aspect-it is very close to the train station. Check out is easier than expected. Walking to the station is slightly harder and farther than it looked the night before. We weren't carrying heavy bags the night before when we scoped it out- from the inside of a taxi. We get to the station at about 7 and head up to the waiting room. A station official taps Jay on the shoulder and sends us through the fast lane and we are on board by 7:15. We came  through so quickly that we didn't have a chance to mail out our final China postcards. The conductor suggested that we could mail them at one of the later stations in China. Our train pulled out at 7:40 AM on the dot. At 9:30 AM we passed a very impressive and very restored section of the great wall. All the passengers flocked to the windows with cameras and video cameras snapping\rolling away. We met our neighbors- an older couple from Washington state. This was a very ritzy train and we had a private shower\sink which we shared between our compartment. We didn't have enough money left in Yuan to eat in the dining car, so dug into our provisions and enjoyed some cup of noodles for lunch. One of the Chinese kind had a packet which seemed to contain raw chicken. We just threw that  bit out and ate the noodles and spices part. We had long and involved debates and discussion to pass the time away as the scenery turned from green mountains to sand dunes. The corridors of the train got all dusty. We ate more noodles for dinner. The train rumbled into the night and something in our car sounded like a cricket. This lulled us to sleep for a little while... On to Molgolia China Links: Trans-Siberian Railroad page CIA World Factbook entry for China