In Greg's Own Words

China Travel Journal

Monday June 15th
WE took off from O’Hare to Beijing around 1:00 PM Chicago time and flew over Green Bay, into Canada, Hudson Bay, the polar ice cap, crossed the international date line, south through Siberia, and into China. We arrived around 3:30 PM local time, a 13 hour flight. On the ground, there were a plethora of checkpoints where travelers had temperatures checked searching for unfortunate souls with H1 N1 virus. We were all lucky!!!

Tuesday June 16th (Beijing Time)
After arrival at the hotel (REALLY NICE PLACE) we ate dinner at a Chinese buffet which did not resemble the China buffet in Danville at all. Following dinner, myself and two of my fellow traveler, Noah and Loren, headed out to Tiananmen Square for our first glimpse of Chinese culture (and Mao). We were amazed at the amount of construction going on at 9:00 in the evening and how so many workers were working on so little. Following some pictures, I headed back to try and get some sleep and combat jet lag.

Wednesday June 17th
Jet lag is not fun…After sleeping for about one hour on the plane, I was up at 4:00 am. My roommate Jerry was up as well so we decided to head to Tiananmen Square for the flag-raising ceremony. I got some pictures and video but, overall, the flag-raising experience was a bit overrated. Following the ceremony, we walked around a bit to get a feel for Beijing. We walked around the square and say Mao’s mausoleum and the Hall of the People.
We then returned to the hotel and met up with the rest of the group. After breakfast, we returned to Tiananmen Square and visited the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City was spectacular! It was the residence of all Chinese emperors during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The architecture was incredible and the gardens were quite impressive. I’ll try and post a few more pictures…
Following the Forbidden City, we visited the Temple of Heaven which was also built during the Ming Dynasty. Its purpose was for the emperor to make offerings to the gods in order to ensure a good harvest. We closed the day with a dinner of Beijing Duck which was interesting but good. It’s roasted duck served on Pita bread with sauce. It’s not back to the hotel where I’ll try and crash….

Thursday June 18th
Jet lag still has me!!! I woke up around 4:30 am and tossed and turned until 5:00 am. At that point, I decided to stop trying to fight sleep so I went for a morning run. I ran to Tiananmen Square, around the square, and back for a grand total of about 5 miles. I was amazed at the amount of work being done to the street and sidewalks. I have to laugh that out of 7 workers, only one is really doing any work…I am also amazed at the strong police and military presence around the square. Don’t piss and soldiers off!
After some eats, we headed for the Great Wall on an overcast, humid, rainy day. As we left Beijing and got closer to the wall, I was shocked at how hilly/mountainous the landscape became so quickly. As we near the wall, it starts to rain harder. Nice. We took a gondola to the top as it takes about 3 hours to hike to the wall (next time I’ll hike to it!) The gondola ride was quite impressive in spite of my desire to hike to the top. I spite of the rain, it was truly impressed by the wall and its grandeur. It is truly built on a mountain. How it could have been built using 12 century technology is beyond me. The rain put visibility at about 50 meters at most so I couldn’t see the entire scope of the wall (bummer!) The mist did give the experience an other-worldly ambiance however. I could almost see Mongols invading through the mist…
Following the great wall, we grabbed some lunch and headed out to the Ming tombs. The tombs were built as burial grounds for the Ming emperors, relatives, and concubines (bad to be a concubine as you were buried with the emperor alive!) The tombs had some elaborate statures and were an excellent example of Ming ere architecture. We closed the day with an Acrobatics Show in Beijing. It was a mix between Chinese Cirque de Sole and America’s Got Talent. Overall, quite entertaining.

Friday, June 19th
Today turned out to be a simply amazing day. This was our first free day so it was our first day of the trip where we were truly on our own. We started the day with a trip to Tiananmen Square to visit Mao’s who has been embalmed for 33 years inside his mausoleum. Overall, the old man looks pretty good…I was surprised at the amount of reverence the Chinese still show towards Mao as there were thousands of flowers laid by his tomb. I actually got to go through the tomb twice. I didn’t know that to see the museum inside you had to get a ticket outside the tomb. The tickets were free but I had to go through the process a second time anyway. Go Communism!!!
Following Mao, our little group of Americans in China split up as some of us headed to the Lama Temple while others went to other destinations. The Lama Temple is the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery outside of Tibet. Walking in, you could tell the place had an incredibly spiritual vibe. Too cool. There were a number of monks inside and a plethora of Chinese burring incense and praying to a variety of Tibetan Buddhist gods. I wasn’t supposed to take pictures inside but I snuck a bunch. What a rebel! The highlight is the largest wooden Buddha in the world that stands about 40 meters tall. How I wanted to rub its belly….
We searched for a restaurant and went to a little place outside of the monastery. It’s always a fun experience to point to something in the menu and have no idea what you are ordering. Luckily, all of the food was excellent. We ate some time of beef stew, an egg and chicken dish, and a chicken stew/soup that was crazy hot but really good. We stupid tourists didn’t know that everything was served family style so we had WAY too much food! Nonetheless, we spent around $7 a piece. I love a good exchange rate!!!!
After lunch my group got a bit lost trying to find the Confucius Temple and Imperial college (not my fault; I told my group the right way to go but they insisted on going the opposite. Women….) Ultimately, getting momentarily lost was the best thing that could have happened as a number of serendipitous experiences began to occur. We reconnected with a number of people in our tour group including Richard Bohr (he is professor of Chinese studies at St. John’s University in St. Paul. The guy is fluent in Chinese and absolutely brilliant. He is the master, I am the grasshopper….) On our way to the temple, we ran into a bunch of middle school Chinese students. Let me tell you, in China, Americans are rock stars. The students wanted to talk our pictures and talk to us constantly. When they found out we were teachers, they were blown away. I must have answered 576 questions about American culture, schools, basketball, you name it, in 15 minutes. Cool experience….
When we finally arrived at the Confucian Temple, I was amazed at the vibe that permeated from the place. I can’t way I have ever bought into Feng Shui but the entire temple simply had this aura about it that I can’t put into words. You could almost feel the spirit of the thousands of past Confucian scholars who studies there. The architecture was fabulous as were the ancient Confucian artifacts and texts present there.
The day concluded with a final run in with serendipity. As we were leaving the temple, the aforementioned Richard Bohr struck up a conversation with a street vendor who was selling “authentic Confucian calligraphy”. Richard then told us that the old man wanted us to accompany him to his home. Me, always the skeptic, saw red flags waving everywhere as I was expecting to get ripped-off, mugged, or get my kidneys sold on the Chinese black market. I reluctantly accompanied my group to this man’s residence, a small room 10 ft by 10 ft in a Hutong or small Chinese residential street. Basically, the street and his room looked like a dive. We enter the small, cramped, humid room and he instructs us to sit on his bed or wherever we can find room. As Richard begins talking to him, some amazing revelations are revealed. This man was once a Profession of Calligraphy at Beijing University. Our guess was that during the Cultural Revolution, he was persecuted and banished to the countryside. He simply had the look of a weathered man who took all that life can throw at you and then some. He also revealed that he was currently teaching at a middle school in spite of the fact that he is 77 years old. We sat, talked, laughed, and ate watermelon that his neighbor brought in for us for around two hours as the old man made beautiful calligraphy works for us. I had him write “Olivia” and he explained the Chinese meaning to me. I even got the entire event recorded. Overall, a simply excellent day.

Saturday June 20
Today we checked out of our hotel in Beijing and will leave for Xian on an overnight train tonight. After checkout, we went to the summer palace, yet another playground for Chinese emperors. This was build during the Qing dynasty (the last one before overthrow by the republic of Sun Yat Sen) and is very similar to Ming architecture. We went on a boat ride around Lake Kunming and got a good vantage point of the palace. Following the boat ride, we went on a tour of the Olympic Venues including the Bird’s Nest and Water Cube where Michael Phelps won 837 gold medals. We ended the day at the Wang-fu-jing business district where I bought my girls, Apryl and Olivia, pearl necklaces. The girls should be happy! At 9:00 PM we boarded an overnight train to Xian, home of the Terre Cotta warriors…