China 6: Universiade and The long journey home

March 10, 2009 by · Leave a Comment

The city of Harbin is nearly three times the size of Chicago, population-wise at least, so we couldn’t even tell you in what direction the river was from our hotel, nor Beijing for that matter. My dad suggested we get a bird’s-eye view of the city from the Dragon Tower, one of the 25 tallest buildings in the world and the telecommunications center for northeast China. After the Berkowitzes and we paid nearly 20 bucks a piece to ride an elevator, climb some rickety stairs and barely see a few blocks ahead of us because of the smog. My dad really didn’t get the view he wanted, but we did give Ellen a little bit of a scare because of her fear of heights. She did a quick lap around the top and went inside to look at the butterfly collection.

The new ice sports complex wasn’t more than a 15 minute walk, but the clear day was mistakenly took for a warm day, and we suffered because of it. The two rink are connected by a long tunnel lines with inflatable Dong Dongs and the hotel in front of them made us pass through security and metal detectors just to make it into the lobby! We had originally only wanted to stay for the 10-minute practice, but because of a lack of good information, we were told we may not be allowed to enter for the competition. This was at 12:50 p.m. and synchronized skating wasn’t scheduled to start until 9:30 p.m. Instead of taking risks, my family decided to stay and I was thankfully to have brought a book and snacks (we were also told there would be no food, so Nance and Linder brought cheese, crackers, chips and fruit).

Margaret’s team skated third to Roxanne from Moulin Rouge. In the collegiate division, they skate just one program that’s about 7 minutes long and is creative and includes a lot of lifts and stunts. The short program, which is about four minutes and much more technical and precise, consists of compulsory moves that a team must complete – big moving circles that cover 75% of the ice, for example, or a backwards pass. Out of the five teams competing, they came in fourth after the short program for not having all of their moves counted. But, you have to give them credit for learning a new program while perfecting another one for national championships. The girls were upset, but I thought it looked cool and everyone stayed on their feet.

The next morning, my dad and I headed to a Confucious Temple in town. It’s on a pedestrian street, and the first thing I noticed was that the people were actually fat. Not fat in comparison to Americans, but fat in comparison to the other Chinese we’d seen. The temple was masked by a heavy cloud of incense, as people used giant pits to burn incense in paper bags while saying prayers to giants Buddhas placed all over the complex, which is bigggg. In the middle, there’s a giant golden guy and people left food offerings at his feet. The buildings that ring around him have the traditional tiers and dragon riding kings, which made me feel like we’d escaped the city. Then, upon leaving, we saw a monk wearing crocs and talking on a cell phone. And people think China is cut off to the rest of the world!

We met Helen and Larry for an early dinner at the Russian restaurant we’d eaten at a few days before, where I ordered the exact same thing, and headed to the rink for the end of ladies free skate. We sat much closer this time, so we could see every finger on the skaters’ hands as they landed jumps and spun out of spins. For the long skate, the girls skated second, after Switzerland. They had these AWFUL pepto bismal pink dresses and danced to Mamma Mia! and it was a fun program. The hockey team came to cheer them on and many of the spectators behind us took flags to participate. Margaret didn’t skate this program, but she did get on the ice to pick up sequins that had fallen. The finished fourth behind Sweden, Finland and Russia, despite not being the senior team. They were disappointed not to medal, but just recently won the National title at the nationwide collegiate competition. I was especially proud of Margaret because she was cut from the team her sophomore year and won a spot back on the team by dedicating a lot of time to working out and passing skating tests.

Our wakeup call the following morning was 4:30 a.m., and it was even colder than we could have imagined. One of the other dads was nice enough to preorder breakfast for us, so we had fruit and dim sum and sausages and thermoses of coffee. The Harbin airport is goofy city. There was hardly anything written in English, so we couldn’t figure out which ticketing counter belonged to our flight back to Beijing and ended up being pushed to the end of the line with a bunch of other athletes. The security checks were seperated into three parts – ticket and ID, bags and finally body searches. This wasted enough time to get us to the gate with just 2o minutes to boarding.

Once in Beijing, we were met at the gate by an army of Harbin Universiade athletes. I had a four-hour layover and wanted to stay with my family for a little while before heading out, but the volunteers practically pulled me away from them to get the bus to another terminal. They all seemed a little disoriented, so I kept getting handed off from one to another. Finally, I found myself with a tall, skinny boy and another girl. They offered to carry all of my bags, convinced I was an athlete despite my objections. They rode the bus with me even though I assured them it wasn’t necessary and I could get there on my own. The queue at Air France was long, so I once again told them they could leave, but they instead checked me in at the Business Class counter and tried to upgrade my seat before accompanying me all the way to the gate.

The 10.5 hour flight passed without sleep, so by the time I got to Paris, changed terminals, had my passport stamped assuring I got into the EU (at which point I realized my French lessons were COMPLETELY worthless because I couldn’t tell the man, “J’habite dans l’Espagne” when he asked why I was going to Spain), then going through security again and having a man tell me our government didn’t spend money properly, I realized I was completely wiped. I could barely keep my eyes open waiting and listening to music, so I grabbed the cookbook my sister gave me. I got on a shuttle to the plane and started hearing Spanish. FINALLY a language I understand and can express myself in! I recognized one of the other passengers from the airport in Beijing and smiled weakly, still overcome by my heavy eyelids and the fact that I’d been up well over 20 hours. He was speaking on his mobile and said, “There’s a girl here coming from Beijing, too. I think she’s foreign because she’s reading a book in English about Spain. She must be going to Spain for tourism purposes.” So I broke out some Spanish slang to tell him I was returning to my curro, or work, in Sevilla.

We talked for a bit (I think his name was Jorge? I was so asleep at that point I could barely string a few sentences together!) and I wished him a good trip. Turns out he was sitting right next to me. Que casualidad, right? We talked for the whole trip before he told me, “Tienes cara de sueno” – you look tired. You think? Once we arrived in Barajas, he offered to accompany me by metro because he lives a stop away from the bus station. I accepted and grabbed my bag from the luggage claim. As we were leaving, a study abroad student chased me down and said, I think you have my bag. I apologized and said mine was the same size and color and I had completely neglected to read the tag. He said, “I asked if there was another big, blue backpack that had arrived and they said no.” AWESOME. It’s 24 hours after I left Harbin and I have no bag and a six-hour bus ride to endure before getting to my bed.

Jorge helped me with the baggage claim simply because I was too tired to speak. My cell phone needs to be unlocked every time it’s switched on by a four-digit pin, but it had somehow become locked while in China and I had to enter a bar code used to activate the card. So when she asked for the phone number so the airline could deliver my bag (which was chilling out in Paris still), I tried to give her my home line. I of course couldn’t remember it, nor did it do any good to give her Kike’s number since he was in Somalia. I started crying out of exhaustion and frustration. The good news was my bag had been located and I had a light load to take on the metro, which has a transfer. By the time I got on the overnight bus from Mendez Alvaro a few hours later, I passed out, only waking up in Ecija, a mere hour from Sevilla.

I have never been happy to get back to Spain. The more I travel and the more of the world I see, the more I feel at home in Sevilla and the more I like even the most bothersome things. I’ll put up with beauracracy and moscas if it means I can drink beer at 11 am every day and get to swear at my kids when I’m frustrated!

For pictures of China and the rest of the year, check out http://sunshineandsiestas.shutterfly.com .

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China 5: Harbin pre-Universiade

March 9, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
I will tell you that, more or less, all fast food worldwide tastes the same. And then KFC creates the spicy chicken breakfast sandwich and I find myself passing the one KFC in Sevilla reminding myself about it. We hopped on a plane to Harbin, a town two hours south of the Russian border, a town known for its cold temperatures, fashion and ice sculpture festival. Yes, ice sculpture festival.I was warned about the Chinese being pushy, but I witnessed it first-hand when the plane landed. We were seated near the back in a nearly empty plane. Instead of waiting for use to grab our luggage from the overhead compartments, someone went careening past us, sending Linder toppling over into her seat. Que moro tienen. We were welcomed to an airport in the middle of an ice field by life-sized caricatures of a snowflake. This would be Dong Dong, the mascot of the Winter Universiade. Apparently my sister and her synchronized skating team at Miami of Ohio are pretty big deals because this competition attracts full time university students from all over the world (including Borat’s home country of Kazhakstan!) The students are treated like Olympic athletes – they live and eat at an athlete’s village, have interpreters and security badges, and are often asked to pose for photos.We took a taxi to the center of town too a big, fancy, five-star hotel. The team mom, Janine, was waiting for us with all of our tickets and plans and schedules for the next few days. The woman is una puta maquina!! (a machine) We joined some of the other team parents for lunch at a restaurant nearby. A concierge insisted he take us so he could translate, as this place isn’t so touristy and we would have a hard time understanding. There were two high schoolers with us who asked, “Do they have sweet and sour chicken on the menu?” only to find out that they had pigs ears and other strange-looking things. By now, we were pros with chopsticks and our stomachs had adjusted to weird foods prepared under questionable hygiene, so we drove our chopsticks into some beef dishes and spicy prawns.

Our hotel is located next to a new mall known for its fashion. We were disappointed times ten to find Hello Kitty stores cozied up to a wannabe Starbucks and an appliances store, but the basement supermarket was definitely a trip. We got pushed into the Super-Walmart like store that had everything-even free sample! The candy aisle featured corn flavored soft candy, and there were a few aisles dedicated to noodles that just required hot water. A sandbox full of rice stood in front of the checkout lines. I’m used to seeing supermarkets dead after the meal time started, but you could barely steer a cart through this place! The kids were snapping pictures because they’ve never seen anyone chopping fish heads off and the guts spilling out, nor to watch a woman boil pig feet or makes an omelette right in front of you. There were all kinds of strange foods for sale, and in the international aisle, I was not shocked to find just olive oil from Spain.

We had a rest, which consisted of my dad and I propping ourselves up on the silk blankets and watching the National Geographic Channel while we ate some cookies we found at the supermarket. We also picked up a few beers because Harbin is known for its beer culture, as well. The city welcome the first beer factory to Harbin in 1900, and surprisingly the beer is better warm! Janine made a reservation for us at a Russian restaurant down the street. Even at 5 p.m. the place had live music – a tall, blonde Russian woman and a shorter man clad in traditional clothes kicking his legs in time with the music. Rose and I split borsch and chicken stuffed with grapes in a cream sauce and I had some Russian beer. It was AMAZING to not eat Chinese food for the first time in a week! Because of our fears of sanitation and some sensitive tummies, we tried not to go too wacko with the foods.

The following morning, after getting things settled with the schedules regarding practice and competition, my parents, Linder and I took a cab to Central Street, a long strip of Russian tea shops, American fashion stores and ice sculptures. I swear, if it weren’t for all of the Chinese characters on the buildings and all the Asiatic people, this city could look European! There is baroque architecture up and down the street, Orthodox turrets piercing the sky and Russian letter accompanying the characters. Snow began falling, making the weather outside nearly unbearable by the time we reached the Soagua river, marked by an odd-looking monument to the hundreds who died when the banks flooded in the 50s or something.

Harbin’s always featured for its ice and snow festivals, which consist of three parks – two of ice sculptures and one of snow. The Children’s Park is located right off of Center Street and is a couple of acres of castles, pirate ships and Disney characters. The park was closed, so my mom walked into the first doorway she saw to try to get warm and ended up in a pet shop. It was the ODDEST place I have ever been, and thankfully it wasn’t a puppy mill. There were plants next to dog booties, dozens of turtles piled into a single tank and grain. It was like a Chinese Farm and Fleet.

Nance and Linder headed for home, so my dad and I stopped to have a coffee at a Russian Restaurant to warm up. We sat in the plush booths for two hours and our coffee stretched into beers and eventually onion rings and a club sandwich to split. We could watch the entrance gate from the window next to our table, so as soon as the giant ferris wheel started turning, we bought our tickets for 150RMB and went into the park. The fence was made of ice with Mickey Mouse ears, and recreations of famous Disney movies and sets were all over – Cars from Cars, a few castles, spaceships from Toy Story, the pirate ship from Pirates of the Carribean, Aladdin’s castle, life-size Shreks, etc. Everything was carved from ice that’s carved from the river – huge blocks that are worked on by artists from all over the year. My dad and I took an elevator to the top of one of the castles and pushed each other down ice slides (probably not smart or safe) and ended up with snow-covered butts and then climbed a pagoda when the lights began to turn on. Pink, blue, green and gold lights are frozen into each of the sculptures and at 5pm they began to light up, starting at one end of the park and spreading to another. Aladdin’s castle glowed a golden blue, the lighthouse on the pond became a pink beacon. Children suddenly appeared from the trees for all I know, and they were running through the park carrying fruit kebabs.

We had a meeting with the girls FINALLY back at the hotel at 6:00, so my dad and I tried to hail a cab. Most people sped off upon seeing us, and the cabbie who picked us up picked up another guy two blocks away! Because it was rush hour, we were told cabbies often pick up several people in more or less the same direction. What was even stranger that he started screaming and then drove onto the sidewalk and proceeded to speed past the traffic until the next traffic light! It was great to see Margaret, who gave me the Gwenyth Paltrow Spain cookbook with made me crave Spanish food. I ordered gazpacho off the menu that night for dinner while we caught up with Margaret, who told us all about life in the village and the crazy dude from the US Hockey team who followed around all of the synchro girls. Hay gente pa todo.

The next morning we ate breakfast at the hotel, the same fried noodles and dumplings we’d been eating for over a week. My dad and I bought cookies and Sprite for Margaret, who wasn’t staying in a five-star hotel and had only eaten bread and fried rice since arriving. Janine arranged for us to take a tour of the city with an interpreter who I didn’t understand (this, after listening to pueblo kids for three semesters). We picked up the skaters at the village and Margaret and I sat chattering more than our mother does while the interpreter Cindy droned on. Our first stop was at St. Sofia church, a Russian Orthodox, brown brick church with green turrets surrounded by a plaza. There was Universiade memorabilia all over the place and people snapping pictures of 20 girls wearing the same red jacket (known to them as snuggies or elmos). The church is breathtaking on the outside, but the inside has a souvenir stand and its all falling apart inside. I really love old, abused objects, but this place just looked like crap. A choir sang songs like Santa Lucia in Chinese and wore these obnoxious pink dresses, which I later came to realize were the same as my sister’s long program dresses.


We drove across the city to a recreational area called Sun Island Park. The giant snow sculpture park dominates the lake and hills that make up sun island, featuring reindeer and Santa Clauses to pay homage to Finland, as well as the recreation of a Bird’s Nest, a mountain dominated Dong Dong and his female counterpart, Dong Dong. There were giant lions, mountable pigs and tractors (have to represent Iowa) and dozens of representations of oxes. The city had experienced a heat wave a few weeks before, so half of the statues looked like hoodlums had knocked off the arms or Santa or the snouts of the reindeer. Afterwards we had dinner at a famous dumpling restaurant that Margaret’s coach wanted to go to. I expected this place to have dumplings de puta madre, but they gave us soy bean crazy things, tripe and another assortment of weird things. I have no idea what I put into my mouth, but I didn’t like most of it. I had to wash it down with coke, which I also don’t like much.

I was the most excited to see the Ice Sculptures on a bigger scale than the one my dad and I had seen the day before, called the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival. I was blown away by this place. The west end of Sun Island practically glows from the arena, which is about as big as three football fields. The whole thing is surrounded by a wall of ice and a decorated main gate, like the portada de la Feria here in Sevilla. Inside, with only a time of 30 minutes allowed because of the cold, my sister and I RAN around the whole park my dad caught us in his viewfinder and said something along the lines of, “There go the girls; nice to see them enjoying the festival.” I would have loved to get better pictures of the miniature temples and pagodas, the bright green Dong Dongs or the Giant Peaceful Buddha. In years past, the festival has been more extensive and they’ve collaborated with other countries to recreate famous landmarks. Margaret paid some of the University’s money to take our pictures with snow foxes, who were so afraid of the heat lamps they were put under. If they didn’t grow up to be so ferocious, I might have tried to keep one!

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Beijing 4: Temple of Heaven, Tianamen Square and Hutong tour

March 5, 2009 by · 1 Comment
Our last day in Beijing started just as early as the others, even though we took a van down Wafujing Jie to the Temple of Heaven. Dad went out to get breakfast and found just McDonalds. Signs around the city advertise value meals for the equivalent of about $2.80!! My dad got breakfast for four – coffee, hashbrowns and a sausage biscuit – for less than $10, and it was easily the worst food we had the whole time in Beijing (and I love McD breakfast!). Sadly, our sweet little Mr. Tian could not drive us, as Jack explained, because Beijing traffic laws dictate that you can’t have your registered car on the road more than five days in a week. How this is inforced, he couldn’t tell us, so he hired another driver who was about his age.The roads were packed, even at 9am. We first went back to the Silk Market so my mom and Linda could finish the end of their shopping, but we had Jack run around and bargain for us. Thankfully, we were some of the only people in the mall and did a good job. According to Chinese tradition, you must make the first sale of the day in order to have a good sales day. I got gifts for cheaaaaapppp! And we didn´t lose our heads with all of the people running after us practically shoving the goods into our hands.The Temple of Heaven is a series of small temples and a large, circular one to which emperors used to pray for good harvests once a year. Like all great cities, the center of Beijing was built on an axis that starts at the temple of Heaven and runs through Tianamen Square to the Forbidden City and beyond. We entered the park surrounding the buildings, all built on the axis, from the west gate. Snow had, again, fallen in a light dust, but people were outside exercising and playing a game that was like hackey sack, only with a shuttlecock. And, in a cement jungle, this was one of the only natural places we saw. This is where the doggies were hiding!

We went to the Imperial Vault of Heaven, a circular building at the southern part of the park that´s preceeded by an acoustics wall and a round, granite altar. The decoration mirrored that of the forbidden City – golds, reds, jades and royal blues. Walking along the axis back north, we passed a series of guards marching, half of them dressed in plainclothes. Their discipline is astounding. The Temple of the Great Harvest, also cylindrical but with three tiers, is covered in paintings and embellishments on the inside to match its grandeur from the outside. The street sweepers were doing their jobs, making small mounds of snow with equal distances. Jack told us that the characters on the front meant “good Harvest Year”


Jack and the nameless driver took us to Tiananmen Square, the largest public, open air square in the world. My mom remembers watching Mao preside over military parades from the Gate of Heavenly Peace, so she just about flipped out as we pulled up. Jack lead us through the underground security points, where we had to put our bags through a scanner and get the wand passed over us. The day was icky and gray and the snow had begun to turn to slush. I got all crabby because my boots soaked through and I hate my feet being wet. We came into the square at the southern edge, meeting a large tower with the old train station behind it. Also in the square are museums to the history of the PRC and famous, influential people, as well as an enormous mausoleum that dominates the center. My mom ignored mine and Jack´s insistence that taking pictures with the soldiers staffed all around the plaza was illegal.

Jack lives close to the square, so he took us to one of his favorite restaurants. We were the only westerners in their. We sat at a round table with a large, glass wheel in the center upon which the food was served. Jack ordered us a bucket (literally a bucket) of fried rice, fried noodles, pork and chicken dishes, spicy shrimp and other delicious stuff that we gladly snarfed down. We watched the place fill up and I had an eyeshot to the tanks where people picked out their lunch. We ate for about $5 a head with a drink. I was still clumsy with chopsticks at this point, even after several days in China.

I had been most keen on seeing the hutongs, traditional alleys that have survived amidst China´s massive growth. These neighborhood are dreary and sandwiched between skyscrapers and shopping malls. Jack showed us around one that was listed in my dad´s book as very up and coming. It was hip, crowded and dilapidated. Bars and boutiques stood next to traditional homes. Bikes crossed with cars and trams. I saw a man selling sweet potatoes on the street to people as their cars passed his little stand, which consisted of a grill on wheels. There were fabric shops next to tea houses, luxury hotels next to shacks. It was an interesting juxtaposition, mirroring that of China´s uneven expansion. Thankfully, the government has taken steps to ensure that these neighborhoods be saved to preserve some of the cultural impact they´ve had.
After a tea ceremony demonstration that had me so desperate to peepee that I used a squatty potty (aka a hole in the ground), we headed back to the hotel to pack before meeting the Berkowitzes, the parents of one of Margaret´s roommates, for dinner. We went to the same restaurant as lunch, which greatly excited Jack. The whole day got us wiped out, and we needed to be at the airport at 5:30 am for the flight to Harbin the next day.

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Beijing 3: The Great Wall at Badaling and The Ming Tombs

February 28, 2009 by · 1 Comment

Mr. Xian picked us up early to take us to the Ming Tombs, a necropolis where 13 of the 16 emporers from the dynasty are buried. My father talked about these huge animal statues and how elaborate all the temples were…which led to my extreme disappointment. Jack told us there were two tombs – one was bigger and more interesting, he said. We were still technically in Beijing because the city buses were running to the periphery parts of the city. we were in the middle of a big valley and all of the sudden pulled into a parking lot. It had snowed again, so we were once more greeted by the sweepers and a snowy park. The park was dominated by an enormous red tower and flanked by trees. Yeah, that was about it. we had to descend About 150 feet into the tombs where we were pushed like cattle through five rooms. We saw replicas of the small red coffins and thrones, which were littered with money. Like many cultures, Chinese believe that ancestors must be given things like food and money to take with them to the next life. We left in about 25 minutes.
From there, Jack took us to a jade factory. Once again we were told, don´t buy here! But that didn´t stop Nancy and Linder for bargaining the shit out of it. Jack bought us lunch in the dining hall of the store – spicy chicken with peanuts, vegetables, fried pork, egg drop soup. By now, it was starting to warm up so the weather was getting hazy. As we drove on the outskirts of town to Badaling, the touristy part of the Great Wall, we could barely see the tops of the mountains and the remains of the wall looked just like the wall between two farms, despite the Wall rising to 25 feet in some sections. Originally built over centuries to keep out the Mongols from the north, the wall has been reduced in some areas to mere feet because of erosion, sandstorms and vandalism. Badaling is among one of the preserved spots, bringing in a lot of tourists and jsut as many people seeling postcards, stamps and other souvenirs.

There were stalls and ropes like an amusement park leading to the main gate. The wall has been around for eons, so many of the steps were slick and the snow added an extra danger. The kilometer or so we walked was full of people, and even though the views of the surrounding mountains were pretty, the fog or contamination made taking good pictures of the landscape nearly impossible. Square watchtowers rise every couple hundred yards. My dad and I climbed to a high watchtower, slipping a few times and me taking a spill halfway up. It was impressive to imagine the sheer manpower that it took to build something 4,000 miles long with limited technology.


Nancy wanted to see how silk was made, so we spent the rest of the afternoon trying to find her some silk stores. At each, we learned the life cycle of the silk worm, how silk is stretched and dried and how a silk duvet is made before the sales pith came. I would have liked to buy one. I was getting really sick of shopping by that point, so I sat near the escalator and waited while contemplating buying Kike a silk robe.

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Beijing 2: Summer Palace and the Silk Market

February 28, 2009 by · Leave a Comment

Day Three: The Summer Palace and endless shopping


The ever-so-talked-about fog finally hazed over the city, making it impossible to see past a few blocks from our 10th-floor rooms. The city had received it´s first dose of snow for the year, and there were seemingly thousands of road-cleaners brushing the dust off of sidewalks and streets. They had all donned bright orange reflective gear and facemasks (used for the pollution, NOT bird flu!) and had brooms made from straw.We met our guide and driver for the next three days, Jack and Mr. Xian. Because of the difficulty with the Chinese language, which is heavily inflected (English has hardly any), many Chinese people working in tourism choose Western names. You get the basics like John and Karen, but we also met Sunshine, River and Leon! Jack is from the southern part of China and moved to Beijing three years ago and work in tourism. Linder has friends from Canada who used him as a guide last year, so my dad hired him and a driver for about 20$/person per day. He´s one of those tall, lanky Chinese with really sharp features, the kinds you see at public places. He introduced us to our driver, short and stout, and assured us he was a good driver.We started out at 8am for the Summer Palace, located at the northwest edge of the city. We hit rush hour traffic, making the trip long (then again, Beijing is about 100 km north to south and about the size of the entire country of Belgium!). We passed more traditional areas of Beijing that haven´t been bulldozed due to rapid growth and saw the Drum and Bell Towers through dirty windows. The whole city looked dreary through the sludge that had accumulated in the early morning commute.Because of that, the tranquility and beauty of the Summer Palace stood out. Upon entering an ornate, two-tiered gate, you encounter and enormous, man-made lake spreads out in front of you. this is the second summer palace, as the first now lays in ruins, and was established for royalty to escape the city´s summer heat. It was also a birthday gift built over three years with the help of tens of thousands of laborers for an empress´s 60th birthday. Kunming Lake is ringed with temples and pavilions, long, covered corridors and bridges. The 17-Arch bridge, immediately opposite Longevity Hill and the tiered temple above it, is stunning. It leads to a small island with a temple and is protected by stone lions at each crest.

Jack walked us around the southeast edge of the lake, which was half-frozen, and through various pavilions. The corridor at the bottom of Longevity Hill is connected by a series of wooden corridors, all decorated with paintings and imperial designs. even the stones next to the lake have designs in them, like flowers and ying yangs. We climbed the steep stairs from one temple to the next, until we had finally reached a octoganal temple with a giant golden buddha. From here, we could see that the front side of the hill was full of small temples, whose pagoda style roofs barely poked out of the trees, as well as the bridges across the lake.

Jack herded us into a pearl factory next store, telling us not to buy anything. A woman explained to us how the pearls are harvested and how to tell a real from a fake pearl before leading us into a showroom (freshwater pearls can come in pearl, coral, pink, lavender or even amber depending on their exposure to certain chemicals in the sea). There were five of us and two dozen attendants, all pulling out strand after strand to show us. we were followed around and poked at until we finally gave in to buying something – me a pair of purplish stud earrings and Linder a gorgeous single pearl on a chain. We bargained our way down, feeling more comfortable with asking for discounts. I read several times that you shouldn´t touch a Chinese person, because their culture dictates that strangers should have distance, but these people had no problems touching our arms and wrists to pull us to another table. Jack led us to a buffet of foreigners next door, where we ate fried potatoes, fried noodles with vegetables, chicken wings, pork and vegetables and pizza. Everything is fried and served with endless amounts of tea!

On the way back into the city through supposedly slower midday traffic, we entered a series of roundabouts and switchbacks before finally parking near the Olympic Greens. The Birds Nest dominates the complex, but all I really noticed was the smog from the nearby factories. From the outside, the colossal stadium doesn’t look so big. But inside, after a frisking, the stadium opens up and round red lanterns hang from the overhang. It’s like being in a different building! We walked onto the artificial grass and I got flashbacks to marching in the RCA Dome in Indy in high school. Two of the five inflated mascots stood in the center, but they later joined us, their bouncing bodies announced by obnoxious music and all of the Japanese tourists running over to take pictures. I got that weird feeling I used to get before competing, a kind of weepy, engulfing feeling. Amazing to actually see the place in person, as it’s much more impressive than other stadiums I’ve seen.My mom asked Jack to take us to another pearl factory, where my mom picked out to beautiful strands of pearls for my sister and me. Because of a breakdown in communications, Jack took us to a silk market, which wasn´t a silk factory. Instead, it was a multi-level maze of fake bags, shoes and scarves where shop attendants bombarded you with shouts of, “LADY you want bag/shoes/sunglasses/jewelry/etc? Good price! Name of knockoff brand!” Jack told us to bargain as best we could, as the price for foreigners can be up to 15 times more than for Chinese, though not many natives shop there. Not only did we find the foreigners, but I walked away with a pair of sunglasses, a bag and two pairs of shoes for about 60$. I felt exasperated from all of the people and my bargaining (I got a pair of puma sneakers that I hunted in the States all summer down from 500RMB to 120, just under 20$!). I found my dad near the souvenirs and we took the escalator to the top floor. From the balcony, we could see the Temple of Heaven and surrounding parks, lit up in the twilight.We were exhausted from all the walking, so my dad and I found a fast food takeout down the street from our hotel. We ordered spicy noodles with pork and curry chicken with rice, and while we waited I noticed a big sandwich board in the doorway that gave the restaurant a B sanitation level. From that point on, I saw a similar poster in every restaurant or shop, proclaiming the safety of the food.

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Beijing part 1: Ni hao, Asia!

February 26, 2009 by · 1 Comment
Day One: Travel and Wafujing Jie
I arrived to a snow-covered mountain framed Madrid after hoping a high-speed AVE train from sunny, 65+ degree Sevilla. I’d been anticipating going to China for six months – reading non-fiction memoirs and historical novels, mapping out Beijing and Harbin and mentally preparing myself for eating something with four legs and a tail that has the same name as my nickname for my boyfriend (puppy).Madrid was clear and about the same temperature as Sevilla, the sun glinting off of the agricultural ministry across from Atocha and a churros stand churning out fried rounds of dough. I stopped by an outdoor book fair, running my hands along the spines of dusty old volumes of comic books before picking up a 2 euro copy of Tales of the Alhambra. I hopped in a taxi to the airport, only to realize that the taxista’s meter wasn’t working when we arrived to the front gate. He probably over-charged me, but whatever. After meeting La Cris and Alfonso, I boarded my plane bound for Paris. A few hours, a mad dash to get through security and to another terminal to hop my flight to Air France, and a nine-hour trip to Beijing.After using gestures and grunts and caveman language to speak to the Chinese man sitting next to me for the entire flight, I expected to have a lot of difficulty communicating in Beijing. I’d been warned that English outside big tourist hotels was hard to come by. When I arrived to the airport, everything was subtitled in English (thanks to the 2008 Olympics!) and there were not big crowds. My dad met me in the terminal and we hitched a ride to the center of town. I expected to not see the sky the whole time I was in Beijing, but the day was clear and bright and traffic wasn´t horrible.

My mom and one of Margaret´s teammates´moms, Linda slash Linder, and I fought off jetlag and our extreme desires to nap to explore Wafujing Jie, the shopping drag on which our hotel was located. A beautiful western-style church stood on the east side of the street, across from an entire block of candy shops. My mother was continually hounded for money from the homeless, who tapped her on the shoulder and said Xié Xié (thank you) about a dozen times before giving up. We stopped by a huge department store and had ice cream before braving a bazaar-type shop – four floors of fake jades and pearls, tiny buddhas and painted combs. There were just as many employees in the shop, and shoving jewelry and stupid toys in my face trying to make a sale. I reasoned that the Communist government had to employee two employees for every customer to keep unemployment rates low and this was confirmed with every jade factory and silk store we went to.

One of the things I was really looking forward to was the Snack Street, a big tourist trap that I had seen on numerous travel specials during the Olympics. I remember the Travel Channel´s samantha Brown eating a fried starfish and resolved to eat as many weird things as my stomach could handle (considering the water is poison and health standards aren´t really that great). The snack street is a city blocked lined on the northern end with lantern-lit food stalls. everything from insects to baby birds to dumplings were sold for prices between 5 to 50 RMBs (0.75-7 USD). My dad and I, being the adventurous eaters, tried snake, cabbage dumplings, beef kebabs, grasshopper and scorpion, while mom and Linder blamed their tiredness for lack of appetite. The shopkeepers screamed the names of the fare at us, trying to make a sale: BACK CHOYYYYYYYYYY! GINGER ROOOOOOOT! SHEEP KIDNEYSSSSS! Giant pots of miso and boiled corn warmed our hands and the sugared fruit kebabs looked good enough (oops, probably not sanitary!). Dad and I opted for a giant bean-curd donut before heading to bed at about 8:30 pm.

Day Two: The Forbidden City
My parents’ two bags never arrived to Beijing, thanks to a glitch in LAX´s gate changes. They ended up being at the wrong gate after a delay from Chicago and only made their plane thanks to Linder refusing to board until they arrived. While my parents sorted things out with Air China, I watched English-language news and movies (something I greatly miss in Spain) and ate granola bars.

We had the Forbidden city on the agenda for the day, but got a late start. Skipping breakfast and heading straight towards the massive palace complex, we got our first lesson in Chinese traffic: cars always have the right of way. Even when the little green man for pedestrians comes up, a car or taxi or bus can slam into you without remorse. I always had to be on alert, like a life-sized frogger, so my guts didn´t get splattered all over the street. That said, driving can be scary, too, even when you´re in the back seat of a seatbelt-less taxi.

Located at the northern edge of Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City was once the Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties, two of the more famous and important ruling families in Chinese history. Made up of nearly 1000 wooden temples and buildings, this complex held the Imperial families in the prohibited heart, encased by several gates and the Imperial city. The first gate, the Gate of Heavenly Peace, is protected by scores of cameras and green-clad guards. All of them have uniforms on that were used under Mao´s three or four-decade dictatorship that look two sizes too big. It´s technically illegal to take pictures of them, but I did. An enormous portrait of Mao hangs directly over the main gate, marking the place from which he watched military parades in the largest public square in the world.

The gate of Heavenly Peace is of particular interest to my family because one of my grandma´s ancestors, Jim reilley (the man for which her little brother is named), was killed during the Boxer Rebellion in August 1900, trying to enter the city. Legend says that the Dragon Empress fled from the Forbidden City from the rear gates, which is interesting because the Chinese emperors believed attacks would come from the Mongols in the north (which is why the Great Wall is built north of the capital). We were able to climb the tower and see the massive expanse of Tiananmen Square before passing through another series of gates before entering the palace.

The themes of red, yellow and the number nine are repeated all throughout the palaces and temples. The ceramic roofs bear intricate carvings and each building is rated on its importance. On the edges of many buildings throughout China, you see there is a man riding a creature with up to ten dragons behind him. the mroe dragons, the more important the building. The colors of the temples shone in the sun in reds and green and blues. Small paintings on the undersides of the roofs were all different, depicting different patterns of dragons and flowers. Once past all the temples, there are several smaller living quarters for different royalty and purposes, as well as a garden with small pagodas. Surprisingly, we hardly saw any Westerners.

By the time we finished exploring, it was already 4:30 and we hadn´t really had a meal. Our hotel suggested a place on Wafujing Jie called Quanjude for Peking Duck. This place is famous throughout the city, as it is a former palace and four floors of dining rooms and kitchens. Ducks hand by their webbed little feet in the windows of the kitchen, waiting to be lacquered and roasted! We ordered enormous beers and watched a chef sliced practically every part of the duck and threw it on plates – the feet, served with spicy sauce, the sweet, crispy skin, thin slices of meat, sliced liver and the heart. Eaten with thin pancakes and sweet molasses sauce, all rolled up into the pancake, it´s actually quite nice. We were also served briney vegetables and cabbage. I don´t think Linder and mom were really keen on all of the different parts, but it was interesting. At the end of the meal, we received a card with the history of the establishment and a certified number of the duck. This place has served over 150 billion ducks since it started counted in the 1860s!!!

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