The Emperor's Pads

Today was the first actual day of my tour, and it was pretty intense. But before we get to that, let me tell you something very important about Beijing that I forgot yesterday. It is VERY cold. Now, in terms of actual temperature, it is not that cold. I would say it hovered between 0 and -5 degrees Celsius today. But there was a cutting wind that I was not at all dressed for. I also made the silly mistake of not bringing any gloves. This is because in Canada, I just keep my hands in my sleeves. Thing is, when you're taking pictures, it is really hard to do that, and I took a lot of pictures. Almost 100, although not all of them were upload worthy. Indeed, only about 40 were. Point is, every time we left the bus, my hands went numb.

So, to begin with, we visited the Forbidden City in the centre of Beijing. The Forbidden City is the palace where the Emperor lived from the time it was built in 1420 until the last emperor renounced his throne in 1912. All told, 24 Emperors lived there. It is an incredible place. It was designed to copy the Purple Palace, where the gods lived in Heaven, since the Emperor was thought to be an Earthly manifestation of the divine. Because it was so holy, common people were not allowed inside, thus: Forbidden.

It is also a very big palace, with many different parts, for the emperor to do various kinds of activities. Indeed, the emperor would keep in shape just walking around to the different places he had to go. It was designed according to Feng Shui, with Earth in the middle, Water to the North, Fire to the South, Wood to the West and Metal to the East. It is incredibly designed and everything, down to the tiniest detail is so precise and beautiful. The emperor thought he was hot stuff, and he built the palace to prove it.

After the Forbidden City, we took off to the Temple of Heaven, which isn't so much a temple as it is a place where the Emperor went twice a year to nicely ask the gods for a good harvest. The Temple is even larger than the Forbidden City, except that it is mostly forested. There is something called "The Long Corridor" which is where they used to walk with the sacrifices. Now it is a place for street performers and street vendors to do their stuff. There were people singing, dancing, telling stories and selling you just about anything you ever wanted (more on this later).

Then we broke for lunch at a nice Chinese Restaurant, which obviously caters to Westerners, because not only did they serve us chicken wings and french fries, but the Chinese food they gave us was not prepared in the usual Chinese way. See, the Chinese like to eat all of the meat, not just the bits that we Westerners like to eat. So that means they don't bother to remove things like gristle, fat or bones, which combined with the fact that you can't exactly remove those things with chopsticks, makes for an interesting restaurant experience. But this place didn't do that. Everything was quite clean, and the food we did have was easily identifiable, which is not a trait most of the food I've eaten has.

After lunch, we went to the Emperor's Summer Palace, which is a huge expanse of land, even bigger than the Forbidden City. This Palace had an even longer "Long Corridor", the longest in the world. It also had a man made lake that some emperor had made as part of a garden for his mom. Those emperors really thought they were something special, let me tell you. They just loved to show off.

And that was the end of the tour. Except for the rather significant parts that I left out. First of all: the other members of my tour. They were all from New Zealand and Australia, and holy crap were they ever walking stereotypes. No one said Bruce, but I kept expecting them to. They were loud, crude, laughed a lot, and drank a bunch of beer. And that was just the women!

Secondly, our tour twice stopped at these Government stores. The first one was a pearl store, where the lady showed us some pearls inside an Oyster (which was still living when she pulled it apart). Then we were expected to look around and buy something. In this case, I rather defied their expectation. The cheapest thing there was some tiny Pearl Earrings, and they were $40 USD. Now they were very beautiful, and some of the necklaces there were the loveliest jewelery I have ever seen. But when prices start at $40 and rise steeply from there, I'm sorry, but there's no one I love that much.

You see, the reason we come to these government stores is for them to recoup the costs of the tour, which is subsidized. So the prices there are higher than what you might find elsewhere. I knew this going in, and so there was no way I was going to lose the advantage of my incredibly cheap tour by spending ridiculous amounts of money on jewelery.

Another place we went to was a Tea House. We were ushered into a room with a nice Chinese girl in a Kimono-y thing who gave us samples of various types of tea. Now this tea was very spectacular. I am not the biggest fan of tea, but I am a fan of this tea. She also explained the culture around tea, and it turns out there is a tea tree that is 1700 years old. I find that pretty darn impressive. Tea from this tree is rather expensive, as you might imagine.

Another thing: everywhere you go, there are people selling you stuff. And not in booths or something, just running around with merchandise in their hands, pushing it at you, nattering at you in Chinese. The things they were selling were this: Rolex watches, Gucci purses, Olympic toques, postcards, and occasionally food. You can be quite sure that none of these things were actually what they purported to be (with the possible exception of the food. But I wouldn't bet on that). These people flock where the tourists are. Now I usually just ignore them. But the Aussies (I'm going to lump the New Zealanders in with them), LOVED to play with these people. Some vendor would come up to them, and the Aussie would say, "One Yuan" (One Yuan = $0.13 CAD) The seller would say something like "50 Yuan", and the Aussie would repeat "One Yuan." This would go on for quite some time, with the seller lowering and lowering his price, until eventually the Aussie would start coming up and they'd meet somewhere around 15 Yuan = $2 CAD (which is ridiculously cheap, even for imitation Gucci). Thing was, these Aussies weren't buying things they needed. Nope, they were just screwing around for the heck of it, and would usually end up mocking the poor street vendor for a while before they eventually bought whatever crap they were selling.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, I was very cold. I did not pack enough warm clothing, because I did not think it would be so frigid. So, I wanted to buy some gloves. They were a very nice pair, they say "The North Face" on them, which is a good brand (except they are likely not actually North Face). The guy offered me 40, and I got him down to 15, with some help from the Aussies. I also got a Toque, for an extra 5 yuan. That's about $2.75 CAD for a nice pair of gloves and a Toque. Thing is, I don't have the heart for bargaining. I like to see a price, decide if I like it, and then buy something. I don't want to argue with some guy over it, because he has no qualms about rambling on and on about how I am cheating him out of money, which makes me feel bad, although he is clearly lying, or he wouldn't sell it to me. Anyways, it is quite an experience, but I prefer the old "read the flier" method. I like me some price tags.

Then, once I got back to the hotel, I decided I need a new coat. I am going to the Great Wall tomorrow (which is north) and then to Xi'an, which is just as cold as here. So, I went to one of the shops on the street, half-heartedly bargained with the guy, and bought me a bitchin' coat:



This is the same style of coat and hat that the People's Liberation Army (China's national army) uses. I bought this coat for three reasons:

1) It is really really warm. The second I put it on, I was warm outside for the first time since I got here.

2) I wanted, as I have wanted for years, a long coat. This is the only style of long coat 'round here that isn't a woman's coat.

3) I love the style. I happen to think the PLA has really stylish outfits, even if they are supporting a repressive reigeme.

I see poor people wearing these all over the place, because it is very cheap, and very warm. In fact, by purchasing this coat, I have gone from Rich Tourist to Possible Homeless Person, and people have started treating me accordingly. If they don't look too closely at me, people will happily push me out of the way (not violently, just taking my place in line), and if they DO look to closely at me, they have this look of surprise, and then they gape for a second. Every time. I haven't got this many double takes in a long long long time. Although I think that is largely the hat and coat together.

Anyhow, I am in love with this coat, and I may never take it off. My hotel room is also very cold, because I have a remote control for the heating system, but I have no idea where to point it, so my room is about 13 degrees. Last night I had to sit wrapped in a blanket, but TONIGHT, I have my coat. I am warm warm warm.

OK, so here are the pictures. Flickr was going to make me pay for more storage space, so now I have moved on to Windows Live Spaces. This blog is rapidly becoming a "Picture Storage Sites of the Internet" tour.


Windows Live Spaces