Submitted by simonsc on Wed, 2007-03-21 17:43.
By Judith Klinger
Our last day in Beijing was spent at the Temple of Heaven which is this 200+ hectare park with a temple in it and some other cool buildings. But the most amazing part is that many retired people go there every day to exercise and play cards and sing and do Tai Ji and ballroom dancing and a myriad of other things. It was incredible to walk around and watch. After that, we had a wonderful lunch at a hostel that our guide owns and then we had a personal performance of martial arts and some music by a local couple. It was really sweet.
Some of us wanted to mail postcards and I was designated to walk to a nearby post office with one of the people who worked at the hostel to get stamps. Well unfortunately he did not speak English and neither did anybody at the post office. So it was another comical experience. I'm trying to relay what I want by showing one of my postcards. The postal worker is trying to have me give her my postcards to put them through the meter. Would have worked for me, but not for the other folks... So then she gets out this phrase book and is trying to look up how to communicate with me. Finally she gets on the phone and is talking to someone. So I pick up the phrase book to look at it. Molly - you would have loved it - it was a post office book on how to communicate in English and it was really, really cute! Meanwhile a whole group of people gather around to watch and laugh at the exchange. Anyway, finally the bus showed up to get me because we needed to get to the airport and our guide came in who does speak English and we muddled through it. And off the Xi'an we went!
Beijing was way cool, but Xi'an is amazing! For those of you who don't know, it is south of Beijing, has about 7 million people and was the original capital of China. We are staying in the foreign students dorm at one of the 50 (yes 50) universities in town. It is run like a hotel and is very, very nice! Today was our first full day here and it was great! I woke up at 4AM and finally got up at 6AM and took a walk around the campus. There were not many people out, just a few people sweeping the streets by hand with these huge brooms that seem to be made out of some plants, but I found a wonderful little pond that I sat by and meditated for awhile and just enjoyed the early morning hours. The weather is delightful. Much warmer than Beijing - probably in the 60's today and the trees are starting to bloom and the birds are singing. When I got back, we had breakfast and then headed to the National Museum w here we basically got the history of China in 2 hours. Our guide is a delightful young woman who speaks great English, has great energy and is really sweet! The museum was quite well done and the tour was very interesting.
After lunch (which once again was excellent - Debbie and Scott I would love to bring you takeout, but I think I would eat it long before we got home :), we went to this fabulous Buddhist Temple with a really cool Pagoda and spent about an hour there. Then we went to a Daoist Temple in an old part of town. On the way out of the Temple, there was a little market where some of us shopped. We are really starting to get the bargaining thing down and are paying much lower prices. A few of us women have learned how to double up when bargaining and it really is quite fun. And we always seem to gather quite a crowd to watch us in the process.
One note about the Chinese people. They are sooooo sweet and polite and happy and just a delight to be around. Everywhere is very, very crowded (it's just amazing how many people there are), but I have never felt uncomfortable and really enjoy the interactions that we are having.
