Red China

-by Micah-

INTRO

It may have been 3 months ago, but China is still fresh in our minds. The sixty year old communist state piggy backing on a multi-millennia old culture is bound to be memorable, but add to it a few logistical nightmares, the Great Wall, and surprisingly good food, and memorable becomes unforgettable.

GETTING THERE

The adventure started right off with a “delayed” flight out of Incheon. A scheduled 10:30am flight was re-scheduled to 2pm. An espresso, croissant, and nap later, we were sitting at our gate only to hear the plane was delayed an additional 30 mins. Thank God for good books.

Approximately halfway into the flight, the pilot informed us of “bad weather” in Beijing and that we were to land at a nearby airport. Taxiing along after landing we were greeted by rows of napping planes, all apparently waiting for clearance into Beijing. Fun.

A few hours later our feet finally hit the ground at China’s capital city. A 2.5hr trip had turned into a 12+hr haul.

But the next few days more than made up for such a hellish arrival. That first night was an 11pm, overpriced, but tasty dinner at the hotel’s restaurant, and a crash in a surprisingly posh, but inexpensive suit. We were soon to find that much could be had for relatively little (if you knew where to look).

THE GREAT WALL

The first item on the must-see list was the Great Wall. As it turns out, the grounding of the previous day’s plane due to bad weather was legitimate, and not some communist scheme to keep red-blooded Americans away. In turn the rains had temporarily washed the polluted sky to blue and our pictures were much happier for it. Check out some here. We were genuinely impressed, even a jaded Micah, at the sheer stature and length of this World Wonder. Apparently so was everyone else, cuz the Wall was just littered with people, as far as the eye (and lens) could see.

Mention must be made of that night. After a strenuous hike along the Wall, in the beating sun (note the umbrellas were not used for rain) we were famished. And much to our surprise, the downtown area of Beijing is NOT littered with eateries of every shape, size, and type. It's not even sparsely populated with a few back-alley dives with the local cuisine. What gives???

And two hours of wandering the downtown streets with guidebooks in hand did nothing to change the situation; our stomachs pleading only that much more. Even the taxi drivers would out-right deny us a ride as we shoved our guide books under their stuck-up noses. This is Beijing! This is the tourist center of Beijing! What gives???

Feeling very much defeated, but still unwilling to give in to the call of McDonald's, we turned to our hotel concierge. Brief directions and a cab ride later, we found ourselves in a hopping (and I do mean hopping) area of Beijing; we had just been looking in all the wrong places. After tossing our guide books in the nearest trash-bin, we found ourselves sitting in a dimly lit, but colorfully decorated dive-bar. In Asia you soon become comfortable with ordering food based on pictures alone. We just started pointing, and they just started bringing. This was the real deal, the real McCoy. It was greasy, it was rich, it was dense, it was hot, it was oh so good, and it just kept coming. Think American Chinese food...and then you will have no idea what I am talking about.

The night was far from over, even if the liter of Tsingtao beer was lulling us to sleep. There were things to see, and places to go. The night life was beckoning us to follow, and follow we did, along a lake-side walk way lined with bars, eateries and coffee shops. After some time of wandering, and a relaxing lake-side espresso to keep the engine running, it was time to call it a night. But being past 11pm the subway was bared and locked (My continued frustration in Asian subway early-closures is another blog post.), but we only discovered this after a 2k+ hike north to locate said subway. 2k north of what was a comfortably populated pedestrian mall turned into East Harlem on a Friday night at 2am. So naturally we turned to a cab, but apparently their noses were still sky-high, "Look bud, just cuz we're Americans, and are free from the lethal grip of communism, does not justify your animosity towards us. And even if it did, don't you want our money!? What gives???"

THE FORBIDDEN CITY

The one must-see item that might have competed with the Great Wall was the infamous Forbidden City. Cartoons based on movies, and movies based on history, and history based on folklore, and folklore based on…well, whatever folklore is based on…have been written and told for millennia, all based on events that took place right here. It’s all very sobering and mystical…until you stand in a sun-baked, hour-long line for tickets, only to be herded bovine-like through another hour-long line as it funneled down into three single-file entrance lines, at which point the frenzied crowd mentality was intense enough to have one more than a little concerned for physical well-being.

But once inside the sheer enormousness of the grounds was staggering. I'll admit I was not initially impressed, "This is just like every palace I've seen in Seoul..." And that was mostly true, yet with the size being multiplied by a factor of ten, some times over. Impressive.

One seemingly oxymoronic state-of-being: within what is essentially the shining crown of a communistic society stands proudly a Starbucks Coffee shop; one of the greatest symbols of capitalistic power. The irony was far from lost on me.

THE SUMMER PALACE
With numerous temples, palaces, and shrines surrounding the largest man-made reservoir on royal property, the Summer Palace was epic-ly beautiful.

From the Forbidden City it required a hike to a taxi to a subway to another taxi, and then once there: nothing but walking and walking. But the sights were scenic in nature and authentically ancient. So much so that some movie producer decided it was the perfect setting for his next blockbuster, and decided to film a royal procession for our benefit. Cameras rolling, extras standing in, the royalty up on litters, and us trying to sneak as close up as we could to get a view...look for us as extras in that new movie, "China! The big country over there in Asia!"

But before the day was over, and before our legs gave out on us. We got in some hiking up to a few shrines and a big temple, for a breathtaking view of Beijing and the surrounding palace grounds. China may not be known for their mountains, but they are some of the most rugged and majestic of any I have seen.

THE TEMPLE OF HEAVEN

Sounds lovely does it not? Well names can and are deceiving. This was our last day in the Red City, and