China | The New Grand Tour

We booked out trip with a Diamond Bar, CA (local for us) company called Intertrips. We got such a great deal, I sometimes wonder if the Chinese government subsidizes tourism.

We started our China vacation on the Metrolink train from Rancho Cucamonga in to Union Station in Los Angeles.
From Union Station to LAX, we had to get on a BUS. The “Fly Away bus isn’t too bad, but there really should be trains that go to all of the airports. I’ve heard that the reason trains like Metrolink don’t go to the airports is that the taxi unions opposed them for obvious reasons. Well, their business is becoming history anyway — for other obvious reasons — so bring on the linking trains folks! (This beats the freeways as it is anyway.)

The flight to China is so long.
We first few to Seattle and from Seattle took a 12 hour flight to Beijing. For hours, the plane flew over Siberia…and, yup, this is what Siberia looks like….just the way you imagined it when your learned about Russian rebels and dissidents being sent there.

This is a color photo and it was taken during the day. But, as you can see, the smog was thick and hid the beautiful socialist architecture of one of the terminals.

The view of the control tower.

At the Beijing Airport, I was introduced to the floor-based female urinals (at least I think that’s all they’re for?) Anyway, in these stalls, there’s no toilet paper. Luckily I had read this ahead of time and had little pocket packages of tissues with me. At first it was a little awkward, but by the end of a week, I was a pro.

Customs wasn’t too bad and it was nice to get the first foreign stamp in my new passport!

There was one (or two) of these in each of our hotel closets. I’m not sure if it’s for the smog or a gas attack, but, it’s nice to know we’re covered either way.

Our first night, we walked around near our hotel looking for an ATM. But, sadly, we hadn’t called our bank before we left the United State. They thought our debit and credit cards had been stolen and had them locked the first time we tried using them. The second time I tried to withdraw money, an ATM actually kept my card. We were flat out of luck that night.

Fortunately, I had thrown in some granola bars, apples, oranges and one package of freeze-dried backpacking stew into my luggage (just in case). So we eneded up eating stew that night and just laughed it off. Everything got straightened up with some phone calls in the middle of the night (when I could get someone on the phone in person in the US).

Lesson learned: Call your bank and credit card companies BEFORE your overseas trip!

Summer Palace, Beijing

Our Beijing adventures began with a visit to the Summer Palace. Opened in 1750, it has a lake, gardens and beautiful art and architecture. This is where the Dragon Lady lived in the summer. She at her meals from over 100 tiny little plates to avoid getting poisoned. Her opulent lifestyle contributed to the people getting ticked off at the monarchy and kicking them out of the power.

Just some sweet old windows

These ladies doing tai chi and dancing kind of made our morning. I

After the Summer Palace, we went to the Hutong (old town) and took a ride on a rickshaw-like, pedicab. This was a little dream come true!

We enjoyed lunch at a home in the Hutong and the sweet young mother, after cooking and serving us a delicious lunch, played a traditional Chinese tune on what they called her ancient zither. (I’ve seen zithers before and this isn’t much like the ones my elementary school teachers in Utah played in the classrooms.)

TiananmenSquare and the Forbidden City

Our tour guide tell us that the Chinese people revere Chairman Mao almost like a God. Anyway, he also told us that the Chinese people liked President Obama so much for what they saw as his socialistic ideals that they call him “Obamao”….as a compliment.