China

Last October, Sam and I went on a tour of the country Napoleon called "The Sleeping Giant." Although physically, China is the fourth largest country in the world (only slightly smaller then the United States in square miles), it has the largest population – more than four times as many inhabitants as the US. We had 24 days to explore this huge country and meet a few of its 1.4 billion people.

First stop: Beijing. Home to over 21 million people, it is the modern capital of the People's Republic of China, with a very long history and many beautiful tourist sites. We managed to see a few of them, including The Forbidden City, The Temple of Heaven Park, Tiananmen Square, and the Summer Palace.

The Forbidden City

The Forbidden City

Outside The Forbidden City

Temple of Heaven (The Chinese are very fond of their selfie sticks!)

Temple of Heaven

Temple of Heaven

Tiananmen Square

Tiananmen Square - Displays celebrating the 66th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Revolution.

The Summer Palace – Home of the last Empress of China

The Summer Palace

Of course, what would a trip to China be without a visit to one of the biggest tourist sites in the world? The Great Wall is a must!

A member of our tour group took this photo of us with my camera, but unfortunately, the focus was on the background instead of us. Still, it is proof we were there!

Can you see how many people are on the wall?! Thankfully, our knowledgeable guide told us to use the stairway leading in the other direction, and our side was much, much less crowded!

Guard tower on the Great Wall

VERY steep steps!

Some steps were like climbing a ladder. Going down backwards was sometimes the safest way!

Although this young woman made a fashion statement for sure, I'll bet she was sorry she didn't have more comfortable shoes on for the climb!

During our visit to the Great Wall, I probably climbed the equivalent of about 500 stairs, but I did it with sturdy walking shoes and a walking stick that I purchased at the gift shop. It wasn't easy, but I was encouraged by the many young Chinese people who smiled and gave me a thumbs up as they passed. Then, at one point, an older gentleman came up next to me and started speaking to me in Chinese. Of course, I couldn't understand him, so a young woman translated, telling me he wanted to know how old I was. This is a very common question in China. When I told him I was 64, he laughed, made a short remark, and took off, almost running up the steep steps. The young woman told me, "He said he is 80!" Only very old people in China allow their hair to go white, so I guess they thought I was much older than I am. I suppose I wouldn't have gotten so many thumbs up if they had known how young I am!

The hotel we stayed in in Beijing, the Qianmen Jianguo Hotel, also houses the 1000 seat Liyuan Theater where Beijing operas are performed every night. One evening, we attended the opera, including a pre-show treat – watching one of the actors applying his makeup.

All the tourist sites we saw were fantastic, and the opera was very entertaining, but I enjoyed other activities even more. Little things, like going to a shop near our hotel to buy snacks and extra water. Meeting people and trying to communicate with them can be far more rewarding than fighting crowds at tourist attractions. Probably my favorite excursion while in Beijing, was having lunch at the home of a family who lives in one of the few remaining hutongs. 

"Hutong" actually means alley, and refers to the narrow walkways between the traditional courtyard homes that used to belong to well-to-do families – before the revolution came along and turned them into multi-family dwellings. Now the term is used to describe those old neighborhoods. During preparations for the 2008 Olympics, many of the hutongs were leveled to clean up the city and present a more modern face of China to the world. Now, however, some of them are being preserved as part of Beijing's heritage. 

We walked through the Lingdang Hutong to have lunch cooked for us by a woman who is a retired restaurant chef. We sat around the table in her tiny kitchen, watching her cook and enjoying the wonderful dishes she prepared for us.

The entrance to the home of our hostess was fancier than most in the hutong. Step to the left of the door, and you will find the community toilets shared with the surrounding homes in the hutong.

Fresh ingredients.

Delicious meal!

Dumplings come in many different shapes. She was making fancy ones for her family's dinner later in the day.

In some of my photos, you may have noticed the beautiful blue skies with puffy clouds, and wondered what all the talk of pollution is about. We were just lucky. It was really, really windy almost the whole time we were in Beijing, and it blew all of the pollution away from the city. One of the couples in our group had arrived two days before us, and they reported that the smog was so bad the first couple of days you couldn't see down the street, and even the air inside the airport was grey and smoky looking! We knew we were experiencing something special when our guide, Mr. Liu, was excited because he thought his six year old daughter might be able to see the stars in the night sky for the first time in her life! 

During the rest of our trip, except for one day on the Yangzte River, we had grey skies everyday, and it wasn't just in the cities. In fact, the countryside is almost as bad, if not worse sometimes, because although the government is utilizing alternatives for coal in the cities, in the countryside there are coal-burning power plants everywhere. In small villages, they often use coal to heat their homes, they still burn trash, and most rice fields are burned after harvest. Combine all that with the moisture in the air, and pretty much all you get is super hazy vistas. I'm sure you will notice in later photos from the trip.






(To see photos enlarged, click on one and it will open a slideshow. If you would like to see more of my photos from Beijing, click on the link for my Flickr album.)