Cleanest Skies in All of Dynasties / Welcome to China Air, pt. 2 (01/05/11)

Dear readers,

I never. Ever. Ever. Want to ride over the mountains that separate Xian from Beijing ever, ever, again. Do you read me, captain? Ever!! It was the bumpiest, scariest thing I have ever experienced. And I don't know how many of you know about my fear of flying, but...mayday mayday, my flight related hypertension was in full swing. There was no salvaging my sanity on this one, but, somehow, poor Tremaine's knee lived to tell the tale of it. I told Dr. Kung when we landed that I never wanted to fly China Air again, and he responded with, "I guess you don't want to come to China again, then." But I'm telling you, here and now, dear reader, that I will be coming back to China, but I will be taking the long and arduous route by bus...or moped...or motorized bicycle....or even maybe by canoe. I don't care,  just as long as I don't feel like I'm going to fall out of the sky every 20 minutes and know that my pilot does indeed plan on stopping my airplane.

All right! All of that aside, here is our new tour guide, Kevin:

What a great sport. :)

He was so much fun to be around right from the very beginning. He was a great tour guide, full of information, but not so much that he was boring. He had a fun-loving atmosphere about him that made him really personable and he knew Dr. Kung from previous trips, so he kind of knew what to expect (in some ways) with the group. It wasn't long after we got on the bus that we were on our way to do what we do best (besides shop and take group photos... ;) lol): EAT! Beijing food is the closest thing to American Chinese food that we've hit on so far, not to say that I haven't been loving what we've been eating (I think I made it very clear that I love the food here.) Rather, this is more of what we are familiar with at home. Kevin explained that it was a mixture of a lot of different foods from all over China and so it had the most "melting pot effect" conceptually. I didn't care, I just wanted to eat as much as I could, even though they had already fed us on the plane... (yeah, stick me in a wheelbarrow and roll me away, why don'chya?) Funny story involved with lunch: Street peddlers are so hard out after the tourists in Beijing (or maybe just in the part of the city that we were in) that this guy selling panda hats waited outside the restaurant for us to finish eating so that he could prod with his wares. Kind of ridiculous... really entertaining.

The Forbidden city was the first stop on our agenda for the day, and let me tell you, it was cold. However, it made seeing everything so much easier, because a) it wasn't unbearably hot b) it wasn't unbearably crowded, which then leads to... c) we could spend as much time in each area as we wanted to. It was hard to keep the battery in my camera charged, since it was so cold, but I think I got enough photos to show you the gist of it (note that we toured the whole property.) For more information on the actual rooms and items housed there, check online. Until then, here are photos:

Entrance

They say rubbing the knobs lets you make a wish. I rubbed and then leaned...that gives me even more luck, right?

Rock formation

Where the emperor rode his bike through the streets

This dragon held a ball that hung over the throne of the emperor. It's said that if anyone but the emperor sits in the chair below the ball, it will fall and crush them. Someone claimed to be emperor for a few months after the real one went into hiding around WWI, but he made sure to scoot his chair back just a few feet from underneath the ball. Guess he was superstitious after all....

Kevin being silly

View from atop the stairs. The wind would cut you like ice up there. We were like..."Yeah, ok, Kevin! We've seen it. Very nice! Let's go!"

With that said, we warmed up for a brief minute in a tea shop not usually available for tourists, but open to us because Kevin knew the owner. We sipped tea and talked until we could feel our toes (even though it wasn't a planned stop), but then realized that we were running late to see Tiananmen Square. We didn't make it before it closed, but I took a picture from afar and we left to get ready for dinner (always with thi ridiculous obsession with food! **Name the movie reference and you get cookieeeees!! :D )

Tiananmen Square from across the street. You wanna push the armed guards into letting take a look after hours? I. Didn't. Think. So...

So...we ate. What's new? Then went to see The Legend of Kung Fu show, which sounds kind of cheesy, but it was actually like watching acrobats perform. The story line was about this kid who is scared to leave his mother to go off into Kung Fu training, ends up being the best fighter around, gets seduced to the dark side by this vixen of a dancer, and then eventually realizes he can't do everything alone, reunites with all of his friends and becomes the next Kung Fu master...telling his story to all the new kids who are afraid to leave their homes and mothers... Awwwwww. Sweet story, little bit of drama, little bit of romance, LOTS OF BUTT KICKING KUNG FU ACTION! Oh sorry...should I have mentioned a spoiler alert there? Well, you'll still have to see it in person since we couldn't take photography or video of the performance--I would know, I almost got mine snatched (sorry security!) Also, you get to take a picture with the stud-muffin main character (or any other one you want) after the curtain falls and they come back out on stage...you know....if that was every a fantasy of yours... ;)

Beijing, you are already my fave. Keep the good times coming.

Whitney