We're home! We just arrived home today. I am wide awake; Dae has just retreated for the evening at 6:45pm. Christian is playing with his food in his high chair and smiling lots :) It's nice to be home!
Beijing was fantastic. Although the heat gave us a beating, it is really an interesting city and quite different than what I remember 16 years ago (less chaos, less bikes, more orderly, cleaner, fewer bad smells!). I remember being a grumbling, sweating 16 year old and wishing we had chosen Europe instead of Asia, so I'd like to think this time around I am old enough to appreciate the wonders of Beijing!
First, the more superficial observations:
1) Beijing folks talk loud. Their norm is kind of a shout. We joked that Leelee fit right in!
2) When asking for directions from a local, the most helpful response we ever got was "it's that way" with a dismissive wave of the hand. Not the best directions...
3) As a pedestrian you most certainly do not have right of way! In fact, most cars turning have the right of way, so you really have to watch out at all times.
4) Taxis are so cheap we went against my frugal, subway-taking ways and took taxis everywhere. Our average trip was only around $3. (The metro, meanwhile, was super cheap at about 30 cents per ride)
We toured the Great Wall at Badaling (the most touristy area). I thought it was gorgeous. I wanted to explore a more rugged portion of the wall but with Leelee on our backs we thought it would be easier to go to the closest portion, which was Badaling. It was super touristy, to the point where you could barely walk along the wall, but it was great and I thought we got some cute photos. We decided to be a little more adventurous and ditched a tour for the local 919 bus that cost $1.90 per person for the 50 kilometer trip. We were seriously packed in there like little sardines. We were sitting, fortunately, but I would not say comfortably! Nonetheless, it was a good deal and it was the 'express' local bus that got us there in about an hour. Score! While we were there, we bargained with a local T-shirt seller for 2 shirts. It went a little something like this.
Me: How much are the T-shirts?
Her: 180 Yuan per shirt because they are good quality (yeah right, you can get them as low as 15 Yuan at some locations per our guide book).
Me: No way! (we walk out)
Her: (following us out the door) OK, 150 Yuan (no)...OK, 100 Yuan (no)...Ok, 50 Yuan.
Literally in a matter of 10 seconds she went down by like a thousand percent. Well, maybe not a thousand but we ended up getting 2 shirts for 80 Yuan. That was my one and only successful bargain. Every other location we ended up getting a measly few dollars shaved off here and there.
I was very excited about going to see the Forbidden City. I remember being awestruck the last time I went. I couldn't believe the size of the walled city and the history within the walls. I was afraid my memory would be more glorious than reality, but the Forbidden City failed to disappoint. It was still really an awesome sight. Meanwhile, Leelee napped nearly the entire time...
Quite possibly the real highlight of our trip revolved, of course, around food. We came across a recommendation in our Lonely Planet tour book for a well-known Taiwanese restaurant called Ding Tai Fung. And fun it was, as well as delicious!!! Its claim to fame are soup-filled thin-skinned dumplings (xiao long bao) and we went back 3 times to this restaurant in 5 days to inhale a basket of them each, as well as a delicious red bean shaved ice dessert concoction. By trip #3 we were seriously thinking about asking for a frequent diners' card (we felt that anyone who dines there 3 or more times in a week should receive, say, a 10% discount - hehe). Anyway, even without a discount we were sold!
Red Bean Dessert with Shaved ice
Making sure quality was up to par with the dumplings
Of course, the best part of the trip was seeing my grandma. We got to see her in her natural habitat! She looked great, as always, and brought us to Japanese buffet (yummy) the first day and made breakfast and dumplings for us the second day.
Leelee's vomiting was pretty well under control by the time we hit China but he was still suffering with quite a bit of diarrhea, poor guy. We are pretty sure it was due to the fact that he would barely eat anything but slurped down about a gallon of milk every day. Hopefully being back on his home turf will straighten things out.
Now all our other Beijing photos:
