China Travel 2.0

Monday was a beautiful day.  The sun was out, the temperature had dropped into the pleasant range and the humidity was gone.  The weather remained that way for the rest of the trip, including the Korean part.  We met our guide in the hotel lobby at 10:00 AM sharp.  She introduced herself as Patsy  and off we went.

At our request Patsy first took us to the Hutong.  This is a section of Beijing consisting of old style, traditional Chinese housing.  Instead of actually being a house these are small buildings consisting of one or two rooms apiece surrounding a small courtyard.  One or more rooms serve as bedrooms, another a kitchen, a third as an office, etc.  To get from one room to another you must cross the courtyard.  We did get to visit one.  I don’t know if this is typical but the one we visited had a trellis serving as a kind of roof over the courtyard.  Our host in that one was growing pumpkins on that trellis while the leaves made the courtyard pleasantly shady and cool.  I didn’t think to ask what they did in the rain.  Lest you think that the residents of this area have their feet planted firmly in the 19th Century I noticed that many of the Hutong were air conditioned. 

We also went up a drum tower which served the same kind of purpose as a bell tower.  In fact, there was also a bell tower nearby which was used together with the drum tower in the days of the dynasties.  The only way up was a long staircase which rapidly taught me how much of a couch potato I have become.  Since returning I have been much more disciplined about exercising than I was.  I hope I can keep it up.  The tower included a walk on the outside from which we could see much of Beijing.  We were also treated to a demonstration of the drums.  There was, of course, a gift shop in the tower where I spotted copies of Mao Zhedong’s  infamous little red book from the Great Cultural Revolution.  Figuring I wouldn’t find that at home I bought it and added it to my library at home.  Since then I found that you can easily buy it online from Barnes & Noble.  No I haven’t read it yet.

We then went to the northern part of Beijing and saw the construction for the Olympic Games well underway.  I was somewhat surprised that it was the only place in Beijing that I saw an unusual amount of construction.  The news we get at home gives the impression that china is one big construction site these days but Beijing seems to have been there and moved on.

Our next stop was the Dongwu Silk Museum.  Here we saw the entire process of creating materials made from silk beginning with the silkworm.  We even participated at one point in stretching the silk into a sheet.  Of course there was a gift shop from which I bought a comforter as a gift for Linda.  I couldn’t fit it in my suitcase and it later cost me almost as much to ship it home as it had cost in the first place.  However, Linda seems very pleased with the comforter.

Patsy then, at my request, drove through the business district of Beijing.  As you may imagine there wasn’t really much to see there.  It was located on the east side of Beijing and looked like any other business district.

We wound up that day’s tour at one of the small lakes just west of the Forbidden City.  Cindy had made a reservation for a massage at the hotel so we went back there.

I told you we weren’t quite through with the story of Grace.  What happened next was a little strange.  I was still feeling a little badly about the way that had turned out with Grace and her painting so I told Cindy that while she was having her massage I was going to walk back to Tian’anmen Square and see if I could find Grace.

Tags: bell tower, China Beijing travel, China travel, drum tower, Forbidden City, Hutong Tour, Tiananmen Square