New Years Weekend in Beijing

To add a little excitement back into my life...i decided to make the trip to Beijing for New Years to meet up with Richard and the Dongying gang, as well as Alejandro and his cousin Javier who flew over from Spain to visit Richard (and me Alejandro quickly and jokingly added when we met the overly nice american family at the Temple of Heaven). Beijing was a blast, a nice break and diversion from the piles of papers I have to grade before the end of the term next week...and a reminder that the night doesn't always end at 8pm when all the restaurants in Qufu close :)

Day 1: Bret (a Canadian teacher at another University in Qufu and a friend of mine) and I arrived in Beijing, after spending the night on the overnight train sleeping next to the loudest snoring Chinese person in THE WORLD, at about 5:30ish am. We managed to buy our return tickets without too much trouble and make our way to the subway station en route to Tian'anmen Square. We were all meeting up at the hostel which was located right by Tian'anmen. However...when Bret and I arrived at Tian'anmen and I took another look at the directions I had printed...I found that I had neglected to print the map that would lead us to the hostel! So we pulled out the cell phones and began calling the hostel for directions. After being directed by the hostel workers to "Go through the big space"....whatever that meant...we found the correct road, but then managed to walk WAY TOO FAR and miss the "big" road on our right we were supposed to take. So...cold, tired, Amanda and Bret called the hostel guy one last time and this time he decided to come find us at the intersection of two random roads. After he found us, and we began walking to the hostel...we decided that we would NEVER have found it without him...his insisting that we were SOOOOO close and couldn't possibly take a taxi was a little exaggerated! :)
At the hostel, we unloaded our stuff, got some breakfast, then walked around the surrounding area for a while doing some shopping until we met up with Richard and Greg around noon.
Alejandro and Javier called shortly after noon and we met up with them in Tian'anmen. The rest of the day we scouted good places to eat...walked around...and then began the night "a bit" early around 5pm when we decided to head down to the area with lots of western bars for happy hour. We found a great place called "The Tree", that had Belgian beer and amazing pizza, and another bar called "Shooters" that had awesome 2 for 1 happy hour deals and half off shots in the first 10mins of the hour from 9pm-11. All in all, the first night was a good time...we met some fun girls from California, ended up dancing in 2 different clubs (one which let us in free for being foreigners, oh ya!) and then made it safely back to our hostel....some of us faster than others cause we paid more attention in the taxi and didn't let them drive us all over the place ;oP

Day2: This was the first day we tried unsuccesfully to wake up in time to go see Mao's body. Our plan to wake up at 9am, get ready and go...ended in me waking up around 9:30, unsuccessfully waking Richard and Greg up enough to go anywhere, and finding that Alejandro and Javier were ready to go without us! They went off to enjoy a "delicious" Chinese breakfast...mmmm....while the rest of us got ready. Then it was off to site-see. We all went over to the Forbidden City. Bret and Greg had already been before and decided to go off shopping while Richard, Alejandro, Javier and I enjoyed our "english" tour. Our tour guide was very nice...but lets just say ALL my students (even the freshmen) have better English than the poor kid. Javier, while speaking great English, had no idea what he was saying about 95% of the time. The guide would explain something, if Alejandro could understand him he'd tell Javier in Spanish, or Richard would explain...or I would explain to Alejandro who would then explain to Javier...it was like Forbidden City telephone! :)

Here we are in front of a lion (left-right: Javier, me, Richard, Alejandro)...I think he said that the lion represented the king and maybe the small lion the Chinese people...but i could be wrong :)

In Feng shui touching this dragon means good luck...

Forbidden City

Giant pot that held water in case of fire. It is supposed to be gold, but the gold has been scraped off...now i'm not sure if it was the Eunuchs who did it or "people from your country" is what I thought the guy said...but no one else heard that, so who knows! :)

Alejandro having "double happiness"...touching this gives you good luck in marraige (marriage in Chinese translates "double happiness")

Probably the only time this "river" around the Forbidden City looks so beautiful...frozen and snowy you can't see the pollution

To end Day 2 we did some more walking, found another place to eat dinner....and headed out to a different area with fun bars. We found "Black Sun" which was a great bar with a pool table and foosball! Richard, Greg, and Alejandro believing themselves to be the best foosball players in China were quickly put in their place by "the shark"...the name given to the woman who worked at the bar and was unbelievably good at foosball! She destroyed them all...twice! :) The night ended back on the street of our hostel at a little bouzi restaurant....bouzi=great after bar food!!

Day 3: Second day we failed to wake up and get ready in time to see Mao...but we made a good effort and were up and dressed by around 11ish...in time for brunch at a little hole in the wall down the street from the hostel. There we found some pretty sweet locals...one guy had a giant locus/cricket thing that he named Guo (or something like that) and was feeding lettus (it even had a cute little box it lived in...Alejandro LOVED it...i should have taken pictures :( We also met some cute little old men that talked to us in Chinese (yes...i had to wow them with my Chinese skills...which are actually better than I thought when push comes to shove). Then we were off to find the "Temple of Heaven"....or as Greg told me, and I stupidly believed "the Magical Temple of Heaven"....lets just say the lady on the bus didn't think that was as funny as everyone else!
The Temple of Heaven was really pretty in the snow...the stairs were a death trap, as the Chinese had put down some burlap sheets that were not attached to anything and were not tight to the stairs!)

If you look closely...Richard is making the best grumpy old man face EVER in the picture...

1 in a series of many pictures of me and Greg standing in front of the Temple of Heave...that's what happens when you give Richard your camera...you get a hundred of the same shot :)

The CREEPY snowman we found in the temple...yeah, that's real hair she has!!!! creeeeepy!

Snowy temples are pretty!

"Magical" Temple of Heaven

SNOW!

Oh, Greg...

Gate minus Greg's big head!


Take 1 of Richard, Javier and Alejandro at the "European" style cafe with their awesome straws! heheh so manly!

Take 2

The rest of the day we spent shopping at the Silk Market. If you're into cheap name brand knockoffs...this is your place! Alejandro, Greg, Javier and I hit it up while Richard went back to the hostel for a nap. We scouted it...bargained like professionals, and bought a few things bu mostly planned to go back the next day. What I found most amazing at the Silk Market was: #1 if you speak Chinese to begin with they will drastically lower the price and #2 The sellers speak English AND Spanish! When I was with Alejandro and Javier the women would try speaking spanish to me...but i'd respond "Ting bu dong" (I don't understand in Chinese) which would totally confuse them! :)
Then it was New Years Eve....afraid to bring my camera because Alejandro and Javier had already lost theirs...i have no pictures of the New Years Shenanigans. But...New Years Eve was a Blast! We started at our favorite restaurant down the street, then went off to our first destination (the street of bars we scouted out the first night). Most of us met up in "Shooters" but we soon lost Richard and Carrie. After many a text message to find them...the resurfaced at BarBlu 5 minutes before Midnight! So we all danced into 2007! Then it was back to Shooters for more dancing and shenanigans, and we finished the night off at "The Tree" for some amazing pizza. Then taxi rides back to Tian'anmen.

Day 4: Last day with everyone, as Bret and I only had the 1st off and had to get back to Qufu. We all slept in much later, but were up by lunch time or so...had a good lunch at the hostel, and then were back off to the Silk Market. Much bargaining ensued....people bought sweat shirts, pants, shoes, belts, scarves, hats, dvds, mao perifenalia, and much much more! Then it was back to the hostel to gather up our things and leave. I was super sad to leave everyone as it had been a GREAT weekend! But now i'm even more excited for the coming vacation! So all in all....eventhough the Chinese don't really celebrate Jan 1st New Years...we rocked it hard Western-style in the Capital!

I had to include a picture of "the big space" that he instructed us to walk through...too bad it was closed at 5:30am :)

Tian'anmen Square

Bret eating the awesome Beijing street food...yes they are little birds, fried on the street and spiced...generically called rou chuar...while we all loved it, i think Alejandro was the most excited by it!! :)

Snowy Communists