Beijing? Peking? Peaking? Pee King?
No one in the group could get over how amazing Beijing was. While it was the most fun city out of the three we visited (Xi’an, Beijing and Shanghai,) it was definitely the coldest. Those who know me know my mood is unfortunately easily affected by the weather, and combined with the fact that I managed to misplace my camera twice during the five-day stay, I suppose I had an interesting week.
Let me start by saying we began out arrival to Beijing by losing a student group member after picking up our checked baggage in the airport. Apparently, he told someone he’d be using the bathroom, that other someone said okay and just left him. The bus took off for a bit before anyone realized our little friend never made it back. Fortunately, the other bus stopped and waited for him, but ours took off haha. I’ll continue this by saying we also had the coolest tour guide ever, Joshua. He was adorable, hilarious, and added R’s to almost every word that ends with A’s. And he told jokes. Win.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a trip to Beijing without visiting Tian’namen Square. Everyone’s initial thought of the weather was “Hey, this isn’t so bad!” but after walking through the enormous Forbidden City, even crossing the street to look for our bus made people want to cry (by people, I mean me).
Joshua ran for his life with his blue tour flag to get entry tickets by 3:30 pm. Apparently we were a few minutes off and they’d close the credit card machine but Josh convinced them to let us in after running to get cash. I’m actually pretty glad we just made it, could you imagine how packed this place would be during peak hours?
The Forbidden City was full of stories, each section we walked into requires a new tale of what has happened in the rooms. My favorite was the evil lady who poisons her own sons to advance in power. Chinese bitches be crazy.
Unfortunate for me (again) my feet were starting to die on me. One, we were not given enough time to unpack so I couldn’t change out of my heeled boots which I had to wear onto the plane since it didn’t fit into my luggage. Second, I was wearing a thin, sleepwear pants that did my legs no justice to fashion or the icy wind. The Forbidden City felt endless, I couldn’t imagine being an Emperor (or an Empress) and calling this my home. At the same time, I did hope he was adequately dressed and allowed to snuggle back into his somewhat warmer bed when he’s starting to lose sensitivity in his toes.
I wish I had my camera to capture in photos the magnificent garden of the Forbidden City. It felt so peaceful. When it comes to nature, I’m a bit of a hippie, and I could have stayed there for hours (given a blanket, of course). The stone structures with its carvings, the twisted branches of each trees. Simply put, I felt like Mulan back in her home at the end of the movie.
After hours of striding through the ancient city, we were sent back to the hotel for an hour of rest before going out for traditional Peking Duck dinner. For the record, I have no idea how to pronounce “Peking” and feel quite terrible. I’ve heard so many people say it in so many ways, so I’m just going to pretend they know what I mean when I say “Pecking Duck”.
We were hyped up about this dinner a lot, but I’ve had peking duck before so I was pretty indifferent. However, I didn’t have a clue about the art of cutting peking duck. There are actual cooking schools that teach you the proper way to slice the meat into even and exact amounts of pieces alloted in a single duck. The waitress showed me how to assemble my little peking duck roll, but doing it on my own failed a lot more so I ended up just stuffing each component into my mouth and just chewed. Worked just as effectively.
The dinner show was actually where all the boys left their hearts. While everyone sat around chit-chatting, two Chinese gymnasts make their way to the stage and begin to perform mind blowing contortions.
There’s an ongoing joke here within our group about how people of certain ethnicities or races are just naturally good at something. As a Thai native, people just assume I give kickass massages (which I do,) and that I must know Muay Thai. Well, we all just generalized that Chinese people are awesome at gymnastics and ice skating. I mean, it’s kind of not nice (or politically correct?) but they are! The boys’ favorite gymnast’s pose, was of course …
Imagine this, not only was she holding herself up by inserting a thick bar into her mouth, she used all four limbs to spin some weird circle rugs. Also, that flower bush beneath her started to spin 360 degrees. I had to try to keep the guy sitting next to me down, or he might have lost his pants.
The rest of the show was also quite entertaining. We saw an adorable puppet love story, jingju (Beijing Opera) and a guy in a duck mascot running around. Can you say awesome? By this time, I don’t think anyone gave a shit about peking duck anymore and just waited for more performances. When the show ended, I can safely assume everyone had a great first day in Beijing coming out of smoky city into a bigger city. Only more excitement awaited …
(Photos in this entry by Millie Fung, Annie Yung and Shirley Wong)
