Look..It's a white guy

Date: Tuesday July 21,2009
Party: Vu, Dan
Travel: Taxi
Lodging: Dorm
Photos: 20090721BeijingOlympicPark_BeHai_Random
Another day Dan & I were touring the city alone, while Kim is studying away. This day we decided to tour Olympic stadium. The olympics were just a year past, and this place was still a major attraction. As it was the case most of the trip, many of the locals had found an attraction with Dan, as they probably have never seen a white giant before. They probably even thought he could have been Michael Phelps. As we walked to the ticket booth, a couple of guys just could not stop giggling and looking at Dan, and it was apparent that they had wanted to take a picture of him. Dan agreed. Once we were inside the stadium, we thought it would have been funny that if someone had taken a picture with him, they would have to pay up. So after a guy asked to take a picture with Dan, he immediately started requesting for money, first starting at 10, and then working his way down. The Chinese guy was totally getting intimidated, but we just told him we were joking.
Soon after, we made our way to the water cube, where the swimming and diving events were taken place. There were thousands of empty seats around us as we sat down. However, there was a lady who sat right next to Dan, with all the empty seats around, and it was obvious she was posing for a camera from far away. Dan noticed and just moved in closer to her and smiled so that she could have her picture with the white monster.
The olympic park was enormous, as everything else was in Beijing, and we didn't want to venture out to see all of it. We decided to leave and visited Be Hai, which is another lake/park attraction. Dan was feeling ill, so we went back early. Before stopping in, we stopped at that local eatery, and used the power of pointing. We ended up getting 10 piping hot steam buns and 10 potstickers for all about 1 USD. Can't complain about the prices and no need to bargain here.
In the evening, we went out with a bunch of Kim's friends to go shopping at a tourist market place. There were a lot of bargains to be had, and we even built strategies. Kim and I used our Vietnamese to beat the market. I really wish I could have gone back and had more time to pick up some snowboarding pants, as this turned out to be my only chance to shop in Beijing.

Great Wall of Mutianyu

Date: Monday, July 20
Party: Vu, Dan
Travel: Bus; Mini Bus
Lodging: Dorm
Photos: 20090720BeijingMutianyuGreatWall
The problem with a weekday is that there are fewer modes of transportation for tourist around. I'm sure we could have called a tour, or have just taken some private taxi to the great wall, but Dan & I decided we wanted it to feel like we were hardcore. There are a couple of locations in which you can visit the great wall, 2 of which are Badaling and Mutianyu. Badaling is a bit touristy, and usually full of people, but it's easily accessible by train. Mutianyu is a little more difficult to reach, but it has a Toboggan ride down the mountain. Need I say more on which one we decided to go on. There is a tour bus on the weekend, that could have taken us straight to a town called Huairou, but this was Monday.

View Larger Map
It was supposed to be pretty easy according to websites and books we read, take the local bus to Huairou, take a mini bus the rest of the way to Mutianyu. So we took the local bus up to Huairou, and tried to communicate to the bus attendant. She was probably one of the more attractive people I saw in Beijing, as everybody in the street we encountered we generally unattractive. Anyways, as we started to arrive the outskirts of Huairou, the attendant mentions that this is Huairou. We exited the bus, and immediately, there was a guy soliciting us for a ride. Everybody solicits here, but this feels shady. We are supposed to find a mini bus, not this random guy on the street in a gray van. We stand there a bit and feel like idiots not knowing where we are at, or what we are supposed to do. This was just a fairly small town we were at. We just stand there, and one person who knew English, asked what we were doing, but he didnt know the area, so he could not help. The only thing he told us was, "be careful." Wonderful... So now we start walking into town and the sun is shining strong, which fuels the need to even be on the wall even more, since it would be a beautiful clear day. The original solicitor starts following us, and keeps yelling prices at us, which I think he started at 300 yuan, and started coming down until about 100. We just keep walking and walking away, and decided to take another bus, because we were actually looking for a particular stop, the convention center, but we don't know how to say this, and we don't even know what its supposed to look like. We just need to look for the mini bus. So driving around for a while, we still have no idea what to look for, and no mini buses in sight. How can it be this hard, all these publishings just list these simple, general instructions. But I think the words "be careful" was still dug into the back of our minds. We gave up on the bus, time to take a taxi, but we only knew of the Beijing taxi cabs, which were blue or green, and had a distinctive look. We could not find any around, but we thought, hey maybe the hospital would have some. There should be taxis line up there. As we walked towards the hospital we get many other solicitors in gray vans to drive us to "Mutianyu." We kept walking, and there was this particular guy, (I'll call him Chuck), who started following us, and he was saying 60, then 50, then 40. We completely ignore Chuck, we didn't even say no. Just kept walking away looking for the hospital. There were none. Being distraught, we got lucky, finally found 1 Beijing taxi driving our way, and as we approached the driver, I point to Mutianyu on the map and he shook his head no, and just drove off. Damn it! That was supposed to be our savior. We were about to just give up, and take the bus back to Beijing. Again Chuck followed us around. As we reached the bus stop and people started to exit, we had found our pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It wasn't quite gold, but her hair was. This young blonde lady walks around, and Chuck, among others, start soliciting her, and she could actually communicate back with them. We walk up to her asking for her help, and she says, well Chuck is offering to drive you for 40, and she pulls out her travel book and we conversed.

Pot of gold: "40 is a good deal, the travel book expects it to be around 50."
Idiots: "Yeah, but is it safe? can we trust them?"
Pot of gold: "Sure, I use them all the time"

After that reassuring tip, we take Chuck up on the offer, and after 3 hours of stumbling around, we get our chance to go to Mutianyu. I look at Dan and tell him, "Man, we are such pussies. Here is this girl going alone all by herself with no problems or fears, and here we are just standing around not knowing what to do, in fear we would probably lose our organs." Dan was not scared though, he had his GPS on him and told me,

"It's ok, if the driver does not take us on the correct path, we can jump out of the car."

On the drive up, I noticed a bunch of gray vans on the streets, and parking lots full of them. And then after thinking about it, only the drivers of the gray vans really solicited us about driving to Mutianyu. I started to wonder what the heck a "mini bus" was in the first place. It dawned on me that those gray vans ARE the mini buses. Whatever, it makes for another good story to tell. As we get to Mutianyu, Chuck parks his car, and walks us all the way to the entrance. He then tried to tell us that he will be waiting for us. Wow, that would be good, I thought the least thing we could do was to tell him what time we would be done.
Before entering the wall, we go out to the street vendors to buy some water. The vendor asked for 10 yuan. But it only cost 1 at our local market. So we ended up bargaining with the vendor, and threatened to walk away and we end up geting 4 half frozen bottles for 6 yuan. As we gulp down our ice cold water, other tourist buying water paid the full 10 yuan. Aye, no wonder why they raise the prices, tourist will still pay. I can't ever help but feel like I'm getting ripped off in China.
So we finally get to take the ski lift up to the wall, and it was a beautiful clear day. The wall was empty of visitors, and you could freely walk the amazing wall beyond the eye could see. After a few hours of trekking on the wall, the best part was to go down the mountain, as it featured a toboggan slide down, which you had the ability to control the speed. It was soooo fun, and we probably should have gone back up the lift just to go back down. There was staff along the toboggan ride often reminding us to slow down. The rowdy boys in front of us even crashed into each other.
As we completed the wall, as promised, Chuck was waiting for us at the bottom, ready to take us back. To think we actually were ignoring him the whole time, when he's really probably just trying to feed his family. We compensated him nicely for sticking around, and he was quite grateful. I think we had enough excitement for the day, but we did have a spicy hotpot for dinner, and that probably finished Dan off for the night.

Beijing & Crazy Rickshaw

Date: Sunday, July 19
Party: Vu, Dan, Kim
Travel: Subway; Taxi
Lodging: Dorm
Photos: 20090719BeijingHeaven_JingShan_HoHai
That morning, Dan and I had ventured out by ourselves as the rest of the group had already seen where we have been. We started out with the Temple of Heaven. It was cloudier that day, but it was still humid out. After visiting this temple, we realized that most of the temples decoration through out Beijing would likely be decorated the same. This temple is unique for it being round. After spending the morning walking the entire park, we decided to walk to a nearby park, one which would not be as crowded, and would be more serene. It was a small park which we thought was Longtan, but its actually next to it. It was a pretty little place. On our way back, we decided to just take taxis's instead, as the subways had gotten way too crowded. Depending on the times, it got more crowded than we ever saw in Japan. We actually had to use Dan to part the sea of people. You really had to push people just to get off the train. Anyways, we visited Jingshan Park, where we get to climb up to a tower overlooking the complete forbidden city. It would have been great if we did it the day before, as the visibility was not that great. As we make our way down, we get a little flavor of the Chinese in the park. We get to see them have fun, dancing and singing. It's nice to see them use these parks and actually smile some.

After leaving the park, we tried to flag down this 1 taxi driver, but I think he was on break and didn't want our money. But as we were turned away, a tricycle rider (kind of like a rickshaw but with a biker) stopped in front of us and was able to solicit a ride from us. He seemed really nice at first, and we asked to be taken to the nearest train. We asked how much and he said only 3 yuan. Sounds good, so we get on, and then he says, oh its 3 per minute. Hmmmm, ok whatever, this should be a fun ride. But then he starts making a U-turn in the middle of the road with traffic coming back and forth. He was running red lights, and then he started taking us in a different path. I was like, no the train is to the left, but he wanted to take the scenic route and go the long way, and we threatened to get off. Instead he quickly turns around, and I mean quickly as traffic was still moving around us. All of a sudden, there are cars driving towards us, and we are in between cars and buses. An SUV almost ran us over. I think Dan was scared for his life, I was pretty amused. After we get on a straight away, we asked to get off, as the ride was taking a bit too long. A taxi fare would have only costed us around 15 yuan at most which would take us home, but this tricycle ride was hitting 10 minutes. So the driver said, ok 240.... We were like, 240?? are you kidding me, it was only 10 minutes. Thats only 30. And he points to each of us, "no no, 30 minutes, 30 minutes," implying that each of us owe him for 30 minutes. "No...it was only 10 minutes.. 3 per minute, 30!" Then he starts yelling at us, "NO, 120, 120 each!" "How do you even figure 120? Even it was 30 minutes, its 90, 90." "I WORK SO HARD!" (you have to do the accent and imagine him wiping the sweat off his head. We were like, no, look the most we'll give you is 60, 30 for the 2 of us. And that is more than generous considering a taxi would have only been a quarter of the price, so hes making out like a bandit. Nevertheless, he starts making a scene, and over and over he keeps saying "I WORK SO HARD." I was thinking a police officer would come by since he's making such a ruckus. He eventually just turns around and rides away, spitting like every other local does.

For the more uneventful evening, we enjoyed the lakes at Ho Hai, which is a nice hangout spot with a ton of restaurants around.

Beijing sites & scorpions

Date: Saturday, July 18
Party: Vu, Dan T, Kim L, Kim's classmates
Travel: Bus;
Lodging: Dorm
Photos: 20090718BeijingSummerPalace_ForbiddenCity_Tienanmen
Outside our dorm, there is a local convenient mart, a small eatery, and a pancake like shop where we can enjoy a very cheap meal and supplies. These places were the basis of our future bargaining decisions, because here, we have to bargain about everything.
Kim was scheduled to tour with her class, and Dan and I were lucky enough to hop on the same van, so we didn't have to worry about transport, but of course, we had to pay for our own entrance fee, which at times were an adventure itself. The first stop was the summer palace. There are rails to help form a line outside the ticket booth, but it did not seem to really matter. Dan was standing in front of the line, but then there were 4 others from his side and behind who tried to sneak the money past him, and the teller accepted it. We just dazed at each other and was like wtf... but even that gave the 4 others around us to sneak their admission fees past us. You just have to slap others around and squeeze your way through, thats just the way.
Dan and I bought the full admission, allowing us to travel all parts of the palace, meaning we get to exert more sweat climbing more stairs and exploring more paths. It was only mid morning, but it was already starting be unbearable.
The palace was huge, and we ended going up to multiple towers. Ice cream never had tasted so good. After exploring around the big lake with the millions of Lotus plants in bloom, the van takes us to the forbidden city. Forbidden my ass, it was incredibly crowded. That's what you get for going on a Saturday in the summer. Many of the places were just packed, and walkways were elbow to elbow. We didn't really get a good chance to explore around much and enjoy what the Forbidden city had to offer.
Crossing the street, we get to walk through Tienanmen Square, where we eventually had to crawl through a bunch of vendors selling Mao memorabilia. I was thinking what a scene it would cause if you bought a Mao keychain, threw it down on Tienanmen Square, and stepped on it. It would probably not be a good idea, especially after the recent riots in Urumqi. Due to those events, logging on to facebook (and apparently twitter) were blocked.
With no real point on hanging around the internet, we made our way that evening to Wangfujing market, where you can find exotic creatures ready to be eaten. Starfish, scorpions, beetles, sea horses, and probably some others weird things. They just hang on a skewer and the worst part was that you can actually see the scorpion legs move!