We arrived in China on Monday. We both can’t believe we’re really here. Our hotel, the Poly Plaza, is really nice. Our room is much like the hotel rooms in the States. There are a few differences though. Since we can’t drink water that is not boiled here, they have an electric kettle in the room for us. This has really come in handy for morning coffee and for brushing our teeth. They also offered us our choice of eleven pillow types including buckwheat (for clear vision), silkworm excrement (for improved hearing and relief of hypertension), and honeysuckle (to slim and retain complexion)…I chose that one!
That night our guide walked us to a grocery store a couple minutes away from the hotel. Along the way we saw all kinds of flowers and fruit for sale along the sidewalks and little family style outdoor “restaurants.” We also saw some familiar American places like McDonalds, which had a bicycle delivery service, and a Starbucks. The grocery store wasn’t that big but it had everything you could and couldn’t imagine including all kinds of seafood dead and alive. We decided that we weren’t ready for anything exotic just yet so we just bought some bottled water.
On Monday morning, we went to the hotel’s breakfast buffet and what a buffet it was. The room was really nice and the food was displayed impeccably. There was a western and eastern side to the buffet. The eastern side had traditional pork and vegetable buns, a variety of fresh salads with beans, mushrooms, cabbage, asparagus… there was egg salad, potato salad, six kinds of fruit, fried rice, fried spaghetti, congee, a deli meat platter, a cheese platter and on and on. On the western side there was bacon, sausage, pork meatloaf slices (they looked like really upscale spam), hard boiled eggs, pancakes, French toast, baked beans, mashed potatoes, Danish, donuts, a wide variety of breads and an egg/omelet bar. One interesting thing that we noticed was that some Chinese people like to pour soy sauce on their fried eggs. We didn’t try this.
We have been able to do some great touring so far. First, we took the subway to the Buddhist Lama Temple. The temple was beautiful and in it sits the largest Buddhist statue in all of China. Later we visited an old neighborhood and shopping district near Tiananmen Square. We needed something to eat so we caved in and went to Kentucky Fried Chicken because it was easy. They showed us a menu with pictures on it so we could just point to what we wanted. Afterward we walked around the neighborhood and went down some little alleyways. Along the sides of the streets were little family run restaurants and hot pots outside where they were cooking food.
There were a surprising number of pet dogs in the neighborhood including Pomeranians and some weird looking pug and Jack Russell mixes. We also saw a beautiful brown Bulldog. (Not as cute as our bulldog though) I kneeled down real low so he could come up to me, which to my great pleasure he did. He pushed his big head into my leg, like bulldogs do, and I kneeled there petting him for a while. For some reason this drew a little crowd of curious friendly people who circled around me and the Bulldog. Several of the people even took pictures. It was both a strange and really nice experience.
For dinner that night we ate at a Chinese restaurant where we were ready to try something new, so I had pear soup and an almond milk drink which was really good. Michael had meatball soup which had these clear, very slippery noodles in it. The noodles were so slippery that our server had to come in our little room and get the noodles out of the bowl for Michael which was pretty funny to her. Then, off to see an acrobat show which was pretty amazing despite the jet lag (men dressed as skeletons leaping and flipping through small hoops so high they seemed to be bouncing off a trampoline, about 12 women climbing all over each other onto a bike that one of them rode in a tight circle around the stage, etc.).
On our second day here we went with a guide to the Summer Palace, where the royalty (including the Dowager Princess and the son she imprisoned for 10 years) retired to beat the summer heat. Now the city has grown around it. The Palace is basically a big park with beautiful historic buildings set in a forest surrounding a lake; still a great place to get away from it all. , Afterword, we visited a Hutong - a traditional neighborhood of narrow, winding streets packed with homes and businesses - for a tour and lunch with a local family. When we got there they told us that we going to ride to the family’s house in a rickshaw, which was a nice surprise. We both agreed that lunch was probably the best Chinese meal that we had ever eaten.
Yesterday, Michael went with a guide to hike the Great Wall. The hike took off from Jiankou which is further north and less visited then the more southern portions of the wall. Michael says this is a place he literally read about in storybooks growing up and that he couldn’t believe he was actually there. He hopes someday he can share that feeling with his son.
We have had a great time so far. It’s hard to believe that in only two days we will pick up Christopher Wei Nan. We’re both so excited!
(See Pictures below) |
