SEA NOTES

We’re all exhausted from our foray into China, trading stories and experiences, since over 400 of us traveled to Beijing and all have unique impressions and perceptions.  But, we can’t dwell on China very long, since we’ll be docking in Kobe, Japan on Friday. 

Our logistical and cultural pre-ports are done together since we have so little time in between and we try to prepare mentally and physically for another port. 

This is our last day in Beijing and we check out of our hotel early since we will be touring various places and our plane is leaving at 4 pm. 

First thing this morning, we go to the Temple of Heaven.  The most interesting part of this site is the park which surrounds it.  This is where the "older" Chinese people come everyday to do Tai Chi, sing karaoke, play cards, and get together with friends.  Our guide told us that the government allows workers to retire fairly early - some as early as 45 - because the work slots are needed for younger workers.  With a population that's exploding as fast as China is, too many young people would be out of work if they didn't retire the older ones.  They then live on a small government stipend or take part time jobs if they can find them.  For many of them, hanging out in this park is what they do now. 

Later that morning we visit the Lama Temple - another series of temples in a walled complex.  Since this is still a Buddhist holiday, many pilgrims are visiting the temple.  Religion seems to be tolerated, as long as it doesn't interfere with communist policy or actions and seems to be seen more as a social activity to be quietly accepted.  Many people are coming to the temple today to burn incense and pay homage or devotion to the Buddha.  The entire street around the temple is a series of shops selling bundles, boxes and bags of incense sticks.  Inside the temple complex walls, but outside the actual temples, are large metal fire cauldrons where people light their incense sticks, either one at a time or in large bunches and then go to a concrete stoop where they bow and kneel with their incense.  When done, they throw their incense into a metal can to be burned up. 

They then go to pray or venerate the Buddha in the individual temples, all of which have a different image of the Buddha.  In some places, they bring offerings of food or flowers, in others they throw coins into a fountain, in yet others, they bring incense sticks to put into incense holders in front of the Buddha.  The beauty of the temples is amazing and every surface has intricate paintings, goldwork and carvings. 

After the temple, we have another lunch...... enough already said about that.  After lunch, we drive to one of the small villages or hutongs that are found all over the city.  These are the alleys and shanty towns of every large city and are where the urban and poor Chinese people have lived for hundreds of years.  The hutong dwellings range from metal shacks to concrete quadrangle homes of about 600 square feet each and usually housing many extended family members in each quadrangle.  The following is my opinion of what the Chinese government is doing with the hutongs - because no one will or is allowed to talk about what's happening if it's not flattering to the government.  Basically, most of the hutongs are populated by the poorest people in the city - and look like shanty towns; very poor, very dirty, and very unflattering to the cultural revolution. 

New walls with painted designs and nice brickwork to hide the poverty have already been constructed on the public sides of most of the hutong areas.  But, they're still visible and although the Chinese government is on a campaign to raze all of the hutongs, and relocate the residents to high rises, they'll not have that accomplished by the time of the Olympics.  So, now, going with the theory of hiding something in plain sight, they've taken one large hutong area and spruced it up to look very quaint, nicely painted, and all the eyesores repaired --- AND they're now giving tours of that particular hutong - as part of the Chinese heritage to be valued even though no longer efficient.  We took a trishaw ride through this hutong which is now being offered as a tourist attraction and there are at least a hundred trishaws and drivers ready to take tourists through the area at any time.  They also have tours of various houses lined up - with people of course getting paid to show their homes.  The one we saw was probably one of the nicer ones, but would be considered little more than shanty housing in the US.   When I asked the guide how the people were feeling about giving up the homes that their families had lived in for hundreds of years, and where their whole extended family lived, even though poor ----- she said that they all loved relocating to highrises because the apartments there were bigger.  To me, that's government-speak for "of course they'll all all like being jammed into highrises, because we've told them they will"

As our last stop of the day, we drive by some of the Olympic venues, including the Birds Nest - which will be the site of opening and closing ceremonies.  It's shell is done but not much else, the aquatic arena is still under construction also, and the highway leading to this area is also only about half done.  Several large hotel complexes near the Olympic site are also in various stages of construction, some just being started.  Again, it'll be interesting to watch how this all comes together by August.  Another thing that will be interesting at Olympic time is their restroom facilities, even in most modern restaurants, hotels, etc.  Most of these still have the "squatter" toilets; so beloved by all of us and the source of some of the most hilarious stories on the trip.  How western tourists will take to that remains to be seen. 

Before we go to the airport -- we go to dinner.  Same food, same service, same gnawing hunger pains.  Thankfully we're off to the airport and can almost taste our much complained-about cafeteria food aboard ship.

One additional note on the new Beijing airport.  Again, not totally finished, but a building that's actually 2 miles long. For a country where people don't travel much by plane, it's a pretty empty place, but was built as a showplace for the Olympics and is very modern, and beautiful although even with moving walkways, it takes forever and a good deal of physical energy to get from one end to the other.  

This morning we're going to Tiananmen Square, the largest square in the middle of a city anywhere in the world. It is indeed massive, with the tomb of Mao Tse Tung at one end.  Basically, this is one huge concrete area and the famous standoff that supposedly took place in the square, actually happened on the wide boulevard that runs along one side of it between the square and Mao's tomb.  The square is crowed again today with lots of Chinese tour groups as it is still a holiday for them. 

We walk through the square, past the tomb which is a large square building with a huge picture of Mao on the front.  After walking a ways, trying to follow our tour guide's flag in the mob of people, we come to the Forbidden City, a huge complex of building covering several square miles and built in either the Ming or Qing dynasties.  For this tour we're given head sets with electronic gps type units so that wherever you walk, the voice is supposed to tell you about that particular place.  But, seeing that I heard about the temple of enlightenment in the restroom, maybe their tracking device is not as accurate as they think, or maybe in Chinese thinking, it is.

The Forbidden City is a series of courtyards, temples and living spaces (about a thousand for concubines alone), and we have an hour to wander wherever we want.  Many of the large temples are closed however for major renovations - again, all of Beijing "under construction".   At the end of the series of temples is the garden area, which is very beautiful, and has many paths and rock formations  and flowering trees. 

After the Forbidden City, we go to another restaurant for our now not very anticipated meals and this one again doesn't disappoint.  Same lazy susan, same plain rice, and unidentifiable meat.  As has been the case in every restaurant, each table of 8 gets only one plate of any one dish.  When we find something that we like, that plate, if we're lucky, feeds about four of us (depending on whether we have guys at the table and who gets to the dish first), and there are no refills.  So, we find that when there's a soup with flavor to it, we can pour it over rice and still have enough to eat.  The food situation is getting so critical for some people that they take a taxi to a McDonalds.  The tour leaders are horrified - when in China, one should be eating Chinese food and I usually agree, but really, by the end of my stay in China, I'm ready to bolt to McDonalds also. 

We have some free time in the afternoon, so I take a walk around the neighborhood of the hotel.  I go into a market called the "Merry Mart", which looks like a poor relative to a Sams Club store.  They have everything from food to electronics to appliances to clothes and various sundries.  As the only Caucasian in the store, I'm stared at as though an alien has just dropped into their midst.  In the checkout line, a little girl steals glances at me and I smile and wave.  Her mother notices and apparently tells her I'm ok, because she gives me the most beautiful smile and a shy little wave - the only smile I saw anywhere in the store. 

I also found an internet cafe, and pay about a dollar for an hour of internet time.  Access is very controlled and if you don't have a membership card, you either have to get one or show them your passport, from which they copy a bunch of information.  Anyway, there are about 50 computers in a long narrow room, which is filthy because everyone's drinking something and just throwing their empties on the floor and everyone is also chain smoking and there isn't an ashtray anywhere, so everything goes on the floor.  The place is full of mostly young men playing internet computer games.

That night, after another replay of the Chinese mystery dinner, we go to see a Chinese acrobatic show.  We sit in the second row with a fantastic view and feast on chocolate Dove bars, brought around by a young girl and very cheap.  When we finish our SECOND Dove bar (yup, they say Chinese food leaves you hungry, and when eating in China, they're right!), we ask if they have any popcorn.  She says yes, and she'll bring it to us after the lights go down.  Sure enough, when the lights dim, the girl comes back with a bag of popped microwave popcorn.  Not great, but then again, filling is what we're looking for. 

The acrobatic show is absolutely phenomenal.  The costumes are incredible, the acrobatic feats amazing and we thoroughly love the performance.  It is something that must be seen -  the human body was not made to bend in such amazing ways!! We get back to our hotel and hang out in the bar for awhile, trying to put off our excruciating sleeping accomodations as long as possible. 

This morning we're up early and are missing nobody, since we're going to the Great Wall.  Because the Great Wall runs for so many hundreds of miles, there are a variety of access points and many sections which are closed down because they are in such disrepair.  We're going to one of the better sites we're told, which has the best views, the longest stretch for climbing and also a chair lift up and a toboggan run down.  It takes us about an hour to get there and again, the sky is overcast, the temperature is in the 60s and the visibility is very poor.  On a clear day the photos would have been so much more stunning, because the wall really does wind along the top of the mountains in an up and down and zigzag pattern as far as the eye can see.  But, the magnitude of the feat of moving all of those rocks to the top of the mountains (those who climbed it on foot took a half hour to get to the top) and building the hundreds of miles of structure along a treacherous mountain top leaves one totally in awe. 

Each section of the wall is a series of steps from one outpost building to another.  The tall peaks that can be seen in pictures along the wall are small fortresses that were manned by soldiers who protected that section of the wall.  The steps are pretty amazing - they're all different heights, depths and condition.  It's as if they just started the steps with one measurement or one size stone and then either ran out of that size or needed something to come out even, so they switched to another size.  Every group of steps various from 3 inches high to 2 feet high and from 6 inches deep to 2 feet deep.  So, climbing it is a process where you constantly have to watch where you're going.  Some are so tall, some people had to crawl up, some in such bad shape that you hope they won't crumble under your weight and many where you have to stop and catch your breath after about 10 because they're so steep and deep. 

We had a big discussion afterward that if this was an attraction in the US, there would have to be an AED every 6 feet, broken stones would have to be marked with yellow caution tape, you would have to sign a waiver before you could climb and every step would have to be marked as to height and depth. There would also probably be a voice every foot or so telling you to watch your step, or possibly there might just be an air conditioned viewing platform in front of it and nobody would be allowed to set foot on it.  All kidding aside, this is a possible heart attack inducing, fall producing, and medical emergency nightmare with no medical services or facilities to be seen anywhere.  How they would get somebody off any one of the mountains is unclear as there are no paths besides the climbing path, the rope line and the chair lift.  Anyway, it was an interesting exercise in comparisons with the kind of standards we're all used to.  Then again, as somebody said, you'd probably not be very successful suing the communist government. 

Anyway, we took the easy way out, went up the chair lift to the wall - figured we needed all our strength for the actual wall.  They had given us a bag lunch to eat on the wall, so I can say I lunched on the Great Wall.  We spent about 3 hours going up and down, climbing and resting, and trying to take pictures through the smog and the haze, but as you can see, to no avail.  We took the toboggan down, which consists of a piece of slick metal you sit on with a stick that controls (if you're lucky), how fast you're going.  It was great fun, but again, lawsuits waiting to happen anywhere else.  It will be interesting when thousands of foreign tourists per day descend on these sites and whether that changes anything.

On our way back, we had a free afternoon and most of the people had been asking for shopping opportunities - so they dropped us off at a 5 story shopping mecca called the Silk Market.  The size of the building was about as big as a big box department store, but with 5 floors of small stalls jammed next to each other and with about 4 foot aisles in between, so about 250 stalls per floor.  AND, every vendor is required to get you to buy in any way possible.  You cannot move more than 3 feet without being yelled at from all directions, "Lady, lady, look at this......"  They pull at your arms, block your path and yell at you if you just walk by.  There were also stories of them refusing to give back credit cards unless the person also bought other things, inflating the price on the charge slip, taking advantage of confusion over money conversion, and badgering so badly that people bought things they didn't want, just to be rid of them.

But, some of the deals were incredible and they told us even before we went in that our starting offer for anything in the store should be 25 - 30% of what they were asking.  With some of them the process worked well and we got good deals with efficient haggling, with others, they just got abusive --- but still tried to get you to buy.  How it makes sense to call the customer names (and when they know you're americans, the names are numerous), and then still expect to sell something says alot about their lack of customer awareness nor any kind of a service model.  Interestingly, in the lobby of the market, there's a sign of the 10 forbidden words for vendors.  Number 1 thing you should not say to your customer is: "you are stupid" -- but it's amazing how often we heard that and then much worse.  There's a picture of that sign in the Day 2 Beijing upload and you'll notice that the last 3 must be so heinous that they don't even have english translations. 

We spent a long time there, and then found a pizza restaurant for supper as we couldn't face another authentic chinese meal.  Loved it and took a taxi back to the hotel -- tired enough to again sleep on our concrete beds.