The One Before the Last One

This entry, written on the return flight from pre-Olympics-frenzied Beijing back to our home in Hong Kong, already has a strong retro flavor for me. You see, we're now in SF, experiencing reverse culture-shock. But our last Asia travel fling (for now, anyway) deserves to be blogged for posterity -- or at least for the Bean, the one member of our traveling party who probably won't remember it. So here it is, the penultimate episode:

We’re not hooked on traveling on Asia. We can quit any time. In fact, we’ll give it up tomorrow, I swear. But first, just one more little trip to Beijing for the weekend. We want to feel the Olympic Fever. Come on, just a taste. Then, that’s it. Tomorrow, we kick.

We were supposed to fly up from Hong Kong Thursday night, but, cocky and jaded traveler that I am, I neglected to check my Mainland visa. I knew it was good. Um, it wasn’t. When I finally bothered to glance at it, I freaked. It had expired last week, and we had a flight that night. After an afternoon of stress, I secured a renewal – for the next day. My incredibly gracious and forgiving wife refrained from skewering me, and we left Friday. Let that be a lesson to you.

Our goal was to see some of the places we didn’t have time for last year on our first Beijing trip, when we were focused on running the Great Wall Marathon. We set out on Saturday morning to explore the Summer Palace, and we definitely weren’t the only ones.(BTW, this link, and all the links this time around, are photos, not videos. We're in transit, and not all our computing power is available.) The place was mobbed, even by local standards, on a mild, hazy day (the sun is only an obscure rumor on Beijing). Still we bravely plunged ahead to see this famous lakeside getaway for the Emperors. We entered the East Gate and found there was a live performance going on at Grand Theater, which was Dowager Empress Cixi’s favorite.

Cixi, btw, is my favorite Dowager Empress ever. She was a real piece of work – sort of a cross between Stalin and Madonna, she ran China however she damn well wanted to, and in her spare time she sometimes appeared on this very stage as the Goddess of Mercy, whenever she felt like it.

Anyway… when we came in the acrobats were performing, but by the time I got the video going, the vaudeville acts had switched over to dancing, and then a funky Chinese music jam-session.

Next we strolled along the Great Hallway to Kunming Lake, with the 17-Arch Bridge visible in the distance through the chunky atmosphere, and past the towering Fragrant Buddha Pavilion, until we came to the enormous Marble Boat. Cixi had this made for herself with money she was supposed to use to build the Chinese Navy. The Marble Boat doesn’t actually go anywhere since, um, it’s marble. Too bad about that war with Japan. But, um, really nice boat.

Heading to the North Gate, through gardens and under kites, we fled the crowds and had a great lunch at a little joint that had one of our favorite signs ever in its bathroom – “Piss only please.” Then we did a little shopping (OK, a lot) and bargaining at the semi-flea-market called the Hongqiao Department Store ("In Decoration, Still Open").

In the afternoon we visited the beautiful Temple of Heaven, really a vast park where the Emperor used to come once a year to perform rites that were supposed to ensure good crops and all-around good times for China. Any slip-up in the elaborate procession and rites was said to mean major trouble for the country, and commoners weren’t even allowed to peek at the action (they had to stay home with the windows closed, or else). These days the commoners are making up for lost time – huge groups were singing together in a wonderfully odd assemblage of musical jamborees in the park. We saw the Imperial Vault of Heaven and the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, before wandering through gardens filled with flowering trees that smelled great.

That night we had dinner with our friends Craig and Anne at a lovely Vietnamese place along Bei Hai Lake (which I once fell into while trying to snag a floating lens cap – I’m sure some of the locals still recall that special day when a crazy Westerner hopped into the muck for an impromptu swim). Then we wandered through a swanky, upscale hutong area, and talked into the night about Chinese politics, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Olympic Fever – Beijing is currently bursting with an extremely virulent form of it, even if the stadiums aren't quite ready yet. Anne told a great story about going to the semi-finished Birdhouse (this will be the main Olympic venue) for its opening event, a race-walking competition, but -- whoops, it was actually held outside the jammed stadium, so the crowd watched it on TV. Then the athletes came inside the stadium – oh boy, will they circle the track for a lap, for a big finish? Nope, they just came in, crossed the finish line, and the crowd went – huh? Cool building, though.

The next day, Sunday, was a sloshy and rainy one, but hey, we didn’t let that stop us, did we? No way, Ho-Sei! Maybe we should have, but we were already signed up for the hutong tour, you see… we were some of the few, the proud, the loonies out there on a bicycle rickshaw, hiding behind our umbrellas. At least we did have the sense to focus on the indoor parts. We had a nice visit with a local hutong resident; hutongs, by the way, are narrow alleyways with little courtyard houses that most people in Beijing used to live in, back in the day. They’ve nearly disappeared now in the long onslaught of new construction, and all the more so with Beijing 2008 just around the corner. But we hung out with one of the diehards, and saw her little courtyard. She still pays 50 RMB a month for rent, about 6 or 7 bucks – hey, I’d stay too.

Then we sat down to a traditional Chinese tea ceremony (we’d been meaning to do this forever) at Prince Gong’s residence. The ceremony, and the tea, were both excellent. But after that, we skipped Prince Gong’s rainy garden and bailed out on the tour.

That afternoon, still clutching umbrellas, we spent a couple of hours wandering around the super-chic art district called 798, as much of it inside as we could. 798 is a cluster of studios and cafes where Beijing’s version of the Fabulous People can hang out in lofts and be Fabulous. We saw some fun, playful, bizarre, thought-provoking, and head-scratching artwork. 798, though, like so much of almost-ready!-just-a-few-more nails-to-go! Beijing, is currently under construction. Some of its streets were giant mud puddles, and it got a little squishy at times.

Before heading home, we taxied to the Beijing Friendship Store to stock up on Olympic T-shirts. The name aside, customer service isn’t really their thing at the Friendship Store – but on the plus side, roughly nine people will gladly get involved in counting your purchases several times for you, and each one will write you out a receipt, (slowly, by, hand, in Chinese of course). This can take some time, but when you have Olympic Fever, it’s worth it. I guess.

Speaking of Olympic Fever, one event that they should have, but won’t, is Hailing a Taxi in Beijing in the Rain to Get to the Airport. Man, it’s an ultra-competitive event, along the lines of WWF Smackdown (and like Smackdown, I suspect it’s fixed). We didn’t medal, but we did eventually make it to the (you guessed it) enormous, new, and practically finished Terminal 3 at the airport, and thence home to Hong Kong.

We really are going to stop traveling now, and go back to SF, and have the baby, and settle down.

I swear. Starting tomorrow.

... and now, the TEASER FOR THE NEXT EPISODE:

I'll give a brief update on the present, in San Francisco, and attempt to prognosticate the ever-mysterious future, as we go from bump to baby, in the next, and final, episode of ... The Hong Kong Chronicles.