beijing

I have a couple friends who have to leave Thailand every 90 days for their visa. They used to spend a day driving to the Cambodian border and back, but after they had 3 kids (one had them in three years and another in 18 months), they started making their trips a little longer and a little more exotic. They recruited Amy and I for this trip. I've been dying to go to mainland China, so I was a pretty easy recruit--especially with Rocky pushing me out the door. Suspicious?

Beijing is a lot cleaner and bigger and has a lot better infrastructure than Bangkok. We were there during their three day holiday (they worked a straight seven day work week the week before to earn an extra two days off) so the skys were clear and the pollution and traffic weren't too bad. 

While Chinese food is a lot better in China than in Bangkok, it's still not up to par with American Chinese food. I kept asking people where the nearest Panda Express was and getting no helpful response.

Our first stop was, at my request, an antique market. My guidebook suggested most of the items were not actual antiques but they were still really neat. 

I considered bring home this wolf for Rocky, but then I remembered our no taxidermy rule. 

I had this man write out our family name in Chinese characters. I asked some passing tourists for the Chinese name for 'smart.' After some back and forth between them and the calligraphist, I believe we are now the "Clever" family. I'm okay with that. 

Tienamen Square is the largest public city square in the world. It played host to a lot of important events. During Imperial China is was the gate to the Forbidden City, in 1919 it housed a students protest and in 1949, it was where Mao Zedong announced the founding of the Peoples Republic of China. And that was all our guide would tell us. Most of the people here don't know what happened in 1989.

This screen was built for the Olympics in 2008, so the people could come down and watch the events. It is so big.

There are a lot of cameras. 

Also, not a lot of light haired people. I enjoyed my five minutes of fame, taking pictures with all the people who came up to ask me for photos. I also casually mentioned that I am a huge star in America and may have asked to autograph their camera bags. 

 There are a lot of people in China. A lot.

This is the girl lion--it is holding a lion cub under its left paw. 

But not a lot of diapers. The babies wear these pants with slits in the bum (yes, I do have a lot of baby  bum pictures now). When the baby needed to go to the bathroom they would either throw on a diaper or hold them over a trash can or a near by tree. 

This of course solves the diaper rash problem, but I'm not nearly an intuitive enough parent and I'm sure I would either be cleaning poop off myself or my floors. 

 You can rub these door knobs for good luck...or bird flu. I passed. 

From our visits to the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven and Summer Palace we learned a lot. First, Pogs are not dead. They live on in in the alleyways of the Hutongs. 

We also learned the Emperor had a lot of power and a lot of money. Enough to build a city for only he and his 3,000 concubines with floors 15 layers thick so that no enemy could tunnel in. He could build and maintain a temple complex, bigger than his palace complex, only he was allowed to enter, and only twice a year. He could also commission a summer palace with a gigantic man made lake, all designed to look like a town he once saw in the south of China. 

Though Imperial China created many beautiful things,  I went ahead and added it to one of the time periods I am glad I wasn't born in to. After seeing so much excess, I can better understand why communism sounded so great. 

Eliot requested I bring her back a Mulan dress and a Mulan sword. The sword lasted less than twenty four hours. Luckily it was $2 and looked awesome on the flight home in my carryon.

(Even though the temperature in the 70's I am incapable of imagining a climate that is less than 100 degrees right now. So I only packed shorts. Also, after realizing I live in the hottest city in the world, I cut off all my pants into shorts--which might have influenced my packing decisions. At least I still own one sweater.)

She told me she missed me only a little because she was busy having so much fun.