Spring Festival in Beijing, China

Being in Seoul sometimes cramps my style. In winter, my neighbourhood is ugly and grey. I was excited about going ANYWHERE for Lunar New Year. I was getting depressed by the drudgery of work and my apartment's frosted windows so I can't see anything outside. Cramped in a little box in an organized world. *cue the sad violin music*All that changed when I arrived in Beijing Feb 6. Not only was it a break from all things Korea for a bit, but also I was immersed in a beautiful and exotic culture and city, complete with tasty things to eat and fun things to buy! The one big drawback was that it was colder in my vacation destination than it was back in Seoul. For those who were following, the huge snowstorms in China were much further south than Beijing. Unless you were trying to get through the country on the trains, no one was affected in the city by the power or travel problems a lot of the people in the south were facing.

I went with Aaron. We were on a tour, which made me feel like such a canned tourist. That feeling dissolved quickly when our tour mates and tour guide turned out to be really awesome people. Especially Lina, our tour guide. She was so friendly and helpful, she really made my trip a truly memorable experience. If anyone is planning on being a canned tourist in Beijing at any time, I recommend her. A bonus was a couple people in the tour were Canadian, and I ate them up. Most of the people I work with are American and it was nice to just say a city or give a cultural reference and not have to explain myself for a change.

After the group had assembled, we went for a quick but tasty bite to eat, and off Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City. (Check out my picture blog for more extensive pics of my trip.) I also had a little face time with the beloved Chairman M.

I was struggling with my new camera, and so a number of my shots were not so great. (I overall feel that although my fancy new camera has the capacity to be awesome, currently we aren't jiving yet and the whole trip’s photos look and feel overly touristy.

But I’m just being hard on myself. )

After more awesome food, the group went to an amazing acrobatics show. The leaping and flipping on stilts, the feats of strength and agility, all the craziness with contortionism… I was a happy little clam.

After the day’s activities, Aaron and I were having some coffee at the shop in the hotel, and lo and behold, our coworker, George, knocks on the window! He had the same tour as us, and even the same floor of the hotel, he just had a different guide. We ended up running into him several times throughout our tours.

That night was Chun Jie, or Spring Festival, the Chinese New Year. The Chinese Spring Festival is the most important holiday of the year. Traditionally, it's supposed to be rung in with a LOT of noise. Combine this obligation with Chinese people's love of fireworks and you get a CITY-WIDE FIREWORKS DISPLAY! It made my roman candle games in Seoul for solar New Year look like child’s play! The fireworks went on well into the night, and for several days after, there would be bursts of exploding colours into the sky in all parts of the city.

Our second day brought us to the most anticipated part of the trip – The Great Wall of China! We were dangled the carrot a little longer though, as we first went to check out the Ming Tombs. I really like the Asian architecture. Both Korean and Chinese are quite similar. The biggest differences in the imperial architecture that I am aware of is the colour of the roofs – in Korea, the imperial colour is blue, but in China, it’s yellow. Lunchtime we went to a cloisonné store, and we were informed, via ever-knowledgeable Lina, of the dedicated process of making the lovely decorated copper vases.

Then finally, the Great Wall!

I have tromped upon one of the seven wonders of the world. Only six left to go… The Great Wall used to be an opposing point of protection for the northern Chinese boarder, covering about 6500 km, but now, only about a third of it is still standing. There are many parts that are dangerous and fragile, but a fair amount of it has been restored and is open for tourists.

The section we went to must be one of the main touristy places, as it was pretty packed. There are seven gates on the way to the top of this one section of the wall, and if you make it to the top, you are a “hero.” Some of the people on the tour did it in about 30 minutes, but I took my time to snap pictures and lolly-gag. BTW, I am a *hero*! I made it to the top and gaped at the gorgeous mountains.

I only wish it wasn’t -15 with the wind chill so I could have enjoyed them more.

For dinner we tried Peking duck. Wow! It was so delicious that we ate it almost faster than we could have it served to us. The ducks take about 2 days to prepare. The skin is pumped with air and then filled with juice. Then the bird is let up to dry for a day. It was once an imperial court dish, but then the cook retired and brought it to the common people. What a generous guy!

The duck became a point of desire for most of the group. Any time anyone mentioned duck, others would groan that they had cravings. We ended up having (read: needing) it a second night, to our delight.

In the evening, a small group of us went to an exciting kung-fu show, where we saw incredible feats of strength and power. Imagine what it would take to be able to push two spears into your neck to the point of bending and not hurt yourself.

After the show, I got a massage! Happy Alana… :D Ninety minutes for about $20, if only I could get that kind of deal here.

Our last adventure day was to the Temple of Heaven, The Summer Palace, and a bonus rickshaw trip to the Hutong. God, it was bloody cold. The Temple of Heaven was probably my favourite place that we went to. I really loved that all the buildings were circle-shaped. Chinese mythology has the earth as represented as a square, and heaven as a circle. Also, they thought that echoes were mystical, and thus incorporated it into the temple in many places. The central temple, Imperial Vault of Heaven, has a wall built around it called the Echo Wall, where the sound carries nearly perfectly around the wall so that you could talk to someone on the far end as if they were beside you. The most impressive temple was the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests.

The Summer Palace and the Hutong were quite fun. I liked seeing the Dragon Lady's gardens and then later contrasted with the dilapidated, lacking indoor plumbing, but cozy streets of the Hutong. The Hutong are the old style courtyard dwellings of the past that are rapidly disappearing from Beijing at a rate of 50,000 homes a year. Property development I suppose. Though there is an effort to retain some of the old homes as cultural relics.

I learned many interesting points of culture, I snapped many photos, and I spent much yuan. Speaking of money, the yuan is only worth about like $0.44 Cdn, but it can be broken down into tinier amounts called mao. Mao is so cheap that it’s nicknamed toilet money, because you used to have to pay to use the toilet. Now, you use it to buy toilet paper sometimes. Hee hee, toilet money!

Overall, I was utterly exhausted each night. Before I could say goodbye to the city, I DID get in one last event, some Peking Opera. Aaron posed opera-style for the camera, to the delight of some of the girls from the trip.

I peeled myself away on Saturday, destination Seoul and back to work on Monday. Ah well. It was nice to have met Lina, and I even got to practice a bit of Chinese while I was there (though I have lost more than I care to admit). I know I will see China again. Until next time, zaijain!