Our Journey to the Middle Country

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Sunday 19 March 2000: Beijing

Early morning television

I woke up at 5:30am and turned on the TV to look through what all was on television. There were 59 channels on the TV. Many were in Chinese but I found CNN and C-SPAN quickly. Two of China's official networks, CCTV and CCTV-4 were there along with M-TV. There was another music channel labeled M/M that had an interview with Bono of U2. There were channels that looked to be from Thailand, Australia, India and even a fashion show listing a web address in France. We saw the BBC, CNBCand HBO in English with Chinese subtitles, the Cartoon Network and several channels with just textual information in Chinese. At least one of these was using Prestel, which gives you text, colors and simple graphic shapes. Back in Chillicothe in the early 1980s, the Phone Company set up a News and Information service called Vicom which used Prestel. I'd always heard that it was used a great deal in the UK.

Breakfast and City Tour

Today was the Beijing City tour. Tracy, our guide in Beijing took us out. David, our guide through out China, wasn't able to go with us. Diana, Steve and Jade took a taxi to see the Summer Palace. They would met us at the end of the Forbidden City.

Tiananmen Square

We were something of a site when we posed for a group picture. There was a crowd which formed in front of us. They watched us get our picture taken. There were lots of laughs and smiles as we took their picture while they took our picture. Also, we motioned for them to join us in the group photo, but no one did. You can have a lot of communication with a smile.

Forbidden City

This was long and it was a bit spookie when Tammy and I got separated from the rest of the group. We continued heading straight back and found the bus. We passed the group somewhere along the line, since we were at the bus when they arrived.

• bottled water
• map of Forbidden City

Beijing Friendship Store - Lunch and Shopping

For lunch we had some wonderfully good fried fish and then went shopping.

• jade Chinese Zodiac carvings for Brandon, Amy, Karen, Shawn and Dustin
• a cloisonné teapot and bracelets, 1 adult-size, 1 child-size
• two chops - Zheng Xing and Delainie Opal
• ink for chop
• 2 vases as a free gift
• a wood carved fan as a free gift

I'm uncertain of the cost of everything, but I found a shopping credit card that listed the amounts that we spent at various counters at the store showed 700 Yuan ($86.74 USD) and 355 Yuan ($43.99 USD). On the back it noted that if you spend over $100 USD, you would receive a free gift.

Great Wall

The section of the Great Wall that we visited was refered to as Ten Thousand Li Great Wall and was in Badaling, north of Beijing.

There is a saying that says

No one is a hero until they have climbed the Great Wall.

I was completely unprepared for the haggling at the shops. Plus, it was un-nerving when you'd walk up the paths, go through a doorway and find someone holding postcards right in front of your face saying "Buy? Buy?" and "Cheaper! Cheaper!" We did get a nice book on the Great Wall in three languages. I do wish that I'd also bought the postcards.

We looked several outfits for Delainie here. Hannah bought a rice paddy hat. I wish I'd done that too. It was a little touristy, but it makes a great souvenir. One other good buy here were the baseball caps with Great Wall in large Chinese letters above much smaller English letters in white.

• blue cloisonné bracelet
• green dress
• two GWC hats for Bill and Sidney ($2 USD)
• Book $5 USD
• Great Wall t-shirt
• grey sweat shirt
• 2 Great Wall certificates signed by Tracy

We looked for a pin with crossed US and Chinese flags to replace my lost pin, but couldn't find one. The certificates signify both Tammy and me as heros who have climbed the Great Wall.

Pearl Factory

We watched a video on how the factory harvests the pearls and shopped a bit. I don't believe that we bought anything.

Dinner

In the evening we went for dinner at the restaurant in the hotel. We sat with several other families around on of the large tables. Tammy didn't feel well and we had just received our food when we had to get it to go up to the room. She was sick from all of the Teriyaki Chicken from on the flight over from Detroit.