Gu Jin, Part II

Hi, guys. I'm not going to get to post details for a little bit, but I wanted to make sure I got pictures up first, since those are worth a thousand words each. You can probably tell, but the weather was AMAZING. Best day yet. We went to the Forbidden City and Beihai Park. Enjoy and I'll write more about the day's details and my own thoughts heading into Week 4. Sorry this has taken so long. Oh and one last thing -- make sure you see the entry before this one because that is also new and actually has more than one paragraph of writing along with some new pictures!

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OK, sorry about the delay. I think I might finally be getting my due share of Beijing stomach issues. As I am not hungry at all, I am using my lunch hour to catch up a little.

First thing that I forgot to mention in the last post was about Saturday night dinner. This tidbit is really not that earthshaking, just really touching. A big group of us decided to go to our favorite dumpling restaurant on the neighboring school's campus. There is a little waitress there. I cannot remember now if I have mentioned her before, but she more than makes up for the slightly reluctant service we have received in other restaurants near campus. This waitress' last name is Hu so we affectionately call her HuHu. Whenever we are ordering food, she pulls up a chair and laughs with us as we pick out dishes. Anyway, when we were on our way to this restaurant, I suddenly felt someone coming up from behind me. It was HuHu. She had recognized us and surprised me by grabbing my hand and holding it the rest of the way to the restaurant. It was such a great little moment. Also, telling you about it gives me the opportunity to point out that, here, it is very common for girls who are good friends to hold hands while walking. In general, Chinese girls' friendships with each other remarkably seem to retain this kind of children's innocence and warmth. Back home (and I realize that this observation could be unique to the places I went to school), girls shed such affection for each other for more complex and tangly friendships around middle school.

Anyway, that brings us to Sunday. I love Sundays because we get to go wherever we want, take as long as we want, and get some good outdoors walking in. Since we just missed the open hours of Gu Gong (Forbidden City), we decided to go there first. Before leaving, we ate at the Muslim restaurant. I have to mention that the reason we chose that restaurant was to accommodate the needs of people who are still experiencing diarrhea and can only manage to eat the Muslim restaurant's delicious bread. Unfortunately, some of our favorite people had to go visit their Chinese host families or meet up with their tutors, so they couldn’t join us.

And what a day they missed. As you can see from the pictures below, the sky was completely blue and the sun made the yellow of the roofs and the red in the walls stand out all the more. We started out at that Meridian Gate (the place that we reached last time before having to turn back because it was closed), and then made our way into the Outer Court.

There was something almost holy about being there. Knowing that the emperors and their entire courts – from servants and advisers to concubines and wet nurses – at one time stood where we stood, walked where we walked, and saw what we saw was breathtaking and humbling. I feel like I always read or heard about those powerful moments of connection with history and didn’t dismiss so much as underappreciate them. For this reason, and also because I was only 12 years old the last time I came to the Forbidden City, I found this go around so much more engaging.

The other thing about the Outer Court that struck us was that there were very few people there. Maybe it was because it was so hot and sunny outside such that most other tourists were taking cover under the shade. Or, maybe it was because the court was so large itself that the number of tourists was thinly distributed over what seemed like a plain of stone. In any case, not rubbing elbows with other tourists who were either taking pictures of us or of what we were trying to photograph was an unexpected gift.

I can't explain how hot it was. Before we even entered the city, we were already sweating. Once we were underneath the sun trying to admire the buildings around us, we sweat even more. A lot of Chinese people carry umbrellas with them at all times. Usually, they do not use them for rain, but rather to give them a little extra shade as they are walking around on such a day. We had no umbrellas, so we bought lots and lots of popsicles. They were peach flavored, less than 50 cents, and so incredibly delicious. Eating that first popsicle is undoubtedly one of the top five moments of this trip!

As we made our way to the northern gate, we took lots of pictures. Silly ones of each other, legitimate ones for our families, legitimate ones with each other as souvenirs, and ones of the beauty around us. I particularly loved the roofs. They all had that special oriental tiling, and some even had more elaborate designs along the ridges. The colors were all so lovely, too. Obviously lots of red and gold (red signifies good luck and prosperity while yellow is the Chinese color for royalty). But also, a lot of green and blue. You can see in my pictures below.

Our final stop was the Imperial Gardens. This place, more of a park now than anything else, was a little crowded. But, it was still very pleasant to walk through the shade. We were a little worn out by then, so we just sat down for a little while beneath of trees that don't grow at home. It was very relaxing and just what we needed after walking through the whole palace.

Here are the pictures (which I'm sure you've already seen at this point):

Entering the city. We all decided that we also want moats around our houses too.

I tried to capture how tall and majestic these red doors, which are on every building in the Forbidden City.

I'm obsessed with the detail on these ancient Chinese buildings. Each one has such ornate and colorful painting like this on the ceilings, the walls, and right beneath the roofs.

Me in the middle of the Outer Court.

The Outer Court. The way the bricks are aligned makes it seems like it stretches a lot farther than it does. But, that isn't to say that it isn't unbelievably huge.

They didn't have fire trucks back then, so instead they had these huge bronze pots every couple of feet around the perimeter of the courtyards and buildings. Back in the day, these were filled with water in case a fire needed to be put out.

Eli, Me, Lily (Yale classmate of ours), Chelsea, and Zane.

We loved this view because you can see all the new buildings over the ridges of those ancient yellow-tiled roofs.

More old-new.

I really loved this little building. It was off to the side, but it was so beautiful.

This tablet is the Forbidden City's crown jewel. It weighs 250 tons and was dragged by 20,000 laborers over man-made ice to the inner court.

These lion statues are at almost every site in China. They always come in pairs, but I didn't get the other lion in this picture. The female one (above) is always shown with her paw over a cub to symbolize fertility. The male has his paw over a ball to symbolize power and strength.

Not a great picture because I didn't want to be a paparazza, but you can kind of see a group of Chinese girls here wearing these flower headbands. We have seen girls everywhere wearing these headbands. They are really funny and I think some of us are going to go get some and bring them back to the US, start a trend.

The ridges on these roofs were particularly elaborate because they had these little strings of dragons from the main roof ridge down to each corner. Very fancy!

We didn't see any perilous hills, but took their word for it.

More roofs. These are from the Imperial Gardens.

Looking back to the Forbidden City as we left and began the next part of our day.

After the Forbidden City, we walked to Beihai Park, which is a little farther than just across the street. It used to be part of the Forbidden City, but is not just a place where couples and families come to walk around outside on nice days like ours. We didn't have a lot of time before it closed, so we started climbing the hill in the center of the park right away to get to the White Pagoda at the top. Along the way, we passed through several other Buddhist shrines. When we finally got to the top, it was the most amazing view of the whole city. Here are some pictures:

At the entrance of the park. You also can see the White Pagoda.

These rainbow balls that can shrink and expand are so popular among Chinese children. Here are some playing catch with two.

Me in the smallest door I have ever seen at one of the Buddhist shrines. This picture is Take 2. During Take 1, right before Eli got the camera set up, I heard some noise behind me and then the door opened. It scared me so much that I screamed and ran away faster than I knew I could after a day of sight seeing. We laughed later, but it was still very scary!

LEE! That top character is my last name! Shouldn't have been that exciting because Lee is a pretty common last name here, but I still thought it was cool.

Almost at the White Pagoda, looking down at what we climbed.

Me and Eli at the top.

A little tower on the way up to the top.

Detail inside the tower.

Alec, me, Eli, and Zane inside the little tower.

There was a little cup in the center of the bottom of this pot that Chinese people were trying to drop their coins in. Alec and I both made wishes, but didn't come close to the little cup.

From the top of the White Pagoda. That mass of yellow in the middle is the Forbidden City!

This little man was the boss.

And this was the smarter (and, with the sideways hat, cooler) little man who didn't want to sit on a cannon.

There is a traditional restaurant at the bottom of the hill. I actually went last time I was in Beijing with my family. All of the waitresses are dressed in clothes and shoes from hundreds of years ago. Here is one, but she is walking away to check on something, so you unfortunately can't see her hair, which is really really decorated.

After we had descended, we took a boat back to the entrance of the park. Most of the other boats were boats that couples would take and that you could peddle to move through the water.

Near ... far ... wherever you are ...

View from the boat.

As we were leaving, we saw a man using what looked like a cane, but what was actually a large brush to do calligraphy with water on the ground.

He also was drawing. Here, a little boy helped him fill in the scales of a snake.

When the man saw us, he immediately drew Eli, whose collar was popped and wrote, "Very cool."

The second Chinese baby with wings I've seen in Beijing!

That's pretty much it! I'm racing to catch up ... should have everything from the last two weeks up very soon.