China Trip, Summer 2004

Beijing - 07/26/04

The plan for today was to go to Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, and Bei Hai Park. We only went to the first two due to a... certain incident. I've been to these places before, but it was years ago. Forbidden City was once a Chinese imperial palace, and the courts there were beautiful. I've always been a fan of traditional Chinese architecture.

At around 2PM, we realized that we were missing someone, my aunt. We spent 3 hours looking for her inside the place, even using the broadcast system to page her multiple times and asking the cops to help. This went on until closing time at 5PM. We eventually found her though. How? After the 3rd attemp to call her hotel room, we reached her. What do you know... she had walked outside of the Forbidden City and when she couldn't find us, she went back to the hotel thinking we had left without her. Smart... Freaking brilliant.

Beijing - 07/27/04

Quite amazing how traffic laws don't seem to exist in Beijing. People even drove in lanes meant for oncoming trafic... while there was actual oncoming traffic. Even more amazing is how we didn't see any accidents even with all of the bikers mixed in with car traffic.

We spent today at a couple places. One was the Great Wall. It's a beautiful view, but some places are surprisingly steep to climb. The next place was the Emperor's Tomb, one of thirteen, but the only one opened to the public. Before going there, we stopped by a jade factory, which also sells many high quality jade. Well... my family loves jade, so you can imagine that a lot of money was spent here. The sales people tried to get me to buy a jade necklace pendant, but I refused to replace my jade heart. Sure, it's not as high quality jade as theirs, but hell, I wore this thing for 14 years. It was originally all white. It's now half green. I plan to keep wearing it.

Beijing - 07/28/04

On the third and last day in Beijing, we went to Summer Palace and Tian Tan. It was very hot and humid, but Summer Palace's beauty made up for it. The lotus flowers were also in bloom and decorated its man-made lake. Before heading to Tian Tan, we did some more shopping. First at the Enamel factory and then at a store on the street side. Anyway, Tian Tan is a Buddist temple where the Emperor used to go to pray. It's made up of different courts and 4 gates, one for each direction. I love Buddist temples, but I was more attracted by its surrounding courts. Maybe it was because too many people were crowded around the buildings, leaving the courts empty, but my eyes wandered there.

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