Beijing - Days 8 and 9

Day 8 (Sunday) - Beijing

Our plan was to go to the Forbidden City by way of Jin Shan Park, but like any good plan it only gets better with alteration. The taxi dropped us off at the park and from the start the butterfly theme smacked you in the face. Usually I'm not a fan of butterfly houses (too many bugs flying too close to my head), but this one wasn't so much a butterfly house as a big net with a few butterflies flying around. I even took a photo as a butterfly princess. Proof I may be over my phobia soon enough, which would mean I could quote things like "just when the caterpillar thought it's life was over, it turned into a beautiful butterfly" without concern. In addition to the butterflies were temples, and nicely landscaped greenery. One of the temple's was tall enough to provide a view of the yellow rooftops of the Forbidden City's. Before even going inside, it was obvious this would be one more thing in China that would be classified as too big.

By the time we pushed our way through to a good photo spot and then down a less traveled path that I almost slipped down, we made it to the gate about an hour before they let the last people in. But, they changed the entry gate from the north to south in the beginning of July which meant we really wouldn't have had time to get through after walking around the moated city. Instead, we went to Bei Hai Park. Bei Hai Park is one of the largest Chinese gardens with grand structures, pathways and scenery. It was built in the 10th century. Even though there were still a lot of people there, it seemed quieter and a little more peaceful (I give credit to the lake). And we didn't just look at the water, we eventually rented a pedal boat. That was after climbing to the White Dagoba through a few other temples where there was ghost food and ghost accommodations for the afterlife and prayer placards outside on trees that I imagine are like lighting a candle in the catholic church. After coming down from the highest point in the park (the Dagoba) and taking a rest looking out onto the lake we decided to rent a pedal boat. I was like a princess being pedaled around by Anna and Lei Ti.

My pedalers

We spotted jumping fish, joked about the other "lazy" foreigners in a motor boat who seemed to be always catching us, and closed in on a couple obviously trying to make out. There were also lotus boats we could have gotten if we only walked down the way a little more before opting for the pedal boat. The lotus might have looked cool, but ours was just as good, and wasn't as pretentious.

Other foreigners in the Lotus Boats. Fancy pants.

For dinner Lei Ti made another solid choice. We had food from the northern region. Square noodles that could have been put together like ravioli, tomato sauce and peppers. The veggies were potatoes and peppers that were like a Chinese breakfast potato and there was flat bread. Fresh bread with pizza-like herbs with a spicy kick. It was worth the wait for a fresh loaf. After dinner we walked down passed turtles in a suitcase and checked out the WuMart, which we're pretty sure is Wal-Mart in China. If it wasn't Wal-Mart, it was a great copy, and if China does anything well, it's make copies of brand name items for less. We walked back through a Hutong (a Chinese neighborhood down an alley) that I would have turned back out of if I was alone, but carried on with the senses hightened until we made it back to the main street on the way to our hotel.

Day 9 (Monday) - Beijing
We got up early with hopes of making it to two sites in one day. First, the Forbidden City. Like all of the tickets and talking, Lei Ti was nice enough to stand in line for us and buy our entry tickets. While we were waiting a Chinese girl asked to take our picture, and as we posed a group of about ten 12-year-olds gathered round with the cameras. If only we could have capitalized on this short bought of "fame" we could have made our money back for the tickets. We walked through the gate with what seemed like thousands of other people and began to look around. The Forbidden City is where the emperor, his wife and concubines used to live. A sprawling city inside a city. They had few small museums of paintings and jade, and a building displaying typical ceremonial wedding attire and items. Then buildings all had air conditioning, so we sought out each one. The history there is quite amazing, but with so many people and it being so hot, it's hard to get excited over temples and buildings that start to look the same after a while, even if they are beautiful and took great feats to build hundreds or thousands of years ago. It's the kind of place that would be awesome to get lost in after closing when you could pretend to be emperor and sit in his big chair. Then you could look over his kingdom from the highest point in the Forbidden city in the temple with the turtle dragons, cranes and iron vats out front. Anna and I did have a fun mini photo shoot with the yellow roofs of the city as the backdrop. I think I have like three poses and I'm spent, but it's always fun. We took a few breaks in the city to hide from the sun, but the best spot we found was by an "ancient garbage can" or a pagoda-covered hole in the ground people started throwing bottles into. I hope they have a special tool to get all the trash out, because it is going to get real gross real fast if they don't. From the Forbidden City we went to the Bejing Zoo. I love going to the zoo. The number one animal on my list to see was the panda, and it was the first exhibit we saw. Their houses aren't the best zoo cages I've ever seen, but the pandas didn't seem to mind too much. The first one, an adult, was just lounging around in the heat, but the second two were cubs and were playing with eachother. It was adorable. One took a tumble out of the short tree, but bounced back quick and climbed back up to bat at his playmate again real quick. We walked through and saw more animals, all laying around because of the heat, probably all thinking we were crazy for walking around that day. We saw a very regal looking eagle, and a bird with feathers that looked like he was wearing tiger animal print. He was Pulling. It. Off. There was a baby nursery with small monkeys and a chimp. The chimp was curled up napping close to the glass. The tigers, a ways away, were up and pacing though, I think it was close to dinner time by the time we found them. We got to hear one let out a growl, probably to get all the people to quiet down so it could rest in the heat. People weren't satisfied with hearing just one growl, and were trying to get him to do it again with their ridiculous attempts at animal noises, it didn't work. One kid even through a water bottle into the cage to try to get a response, and the only one he upset was me. Jerk kid throwing stuff into the animals cage! We took a rest after the tigers and called it a day at the zoo. We found the MRT, transferred and were back in our neighborhood in time for dinner. It was another good eastern food experience. Jasmine scrambled egg, Chinese brocolli, and sweet brown rice with bits of pineapple served in a pineapple.

Jasmine eggs.

Even though the broccoli really was more like bok choy, it was good, especially with the egg. And the pineapple rice was sweet enough it could have been called dessert. Beijing was definitely beating Shanghai for food at this point.