April 2, 2016

April 2    fly to Beijing / rickshaw tour in hutongs

    Today in China is day one of the Shing Ming Festival (Tomb Sweeping Day) long weekend, when people go to the family burial tombs in the mountains to clean the graves and picnic.  Cities do not have cemeteries in them. The official holiday is Monday, April 4th.

    The luggage had to be out in the hall by 6:30 a.m. in order to be transferred to the airport for our morning flight.  We ate a breakfast of western and Chinese foods.  The temperature was about 17 C with part cloud and a light haze in the distance.  Our group was on the bus travelling to the airport by 8:30.  The roads were jammed with cars, but we arrived at the airport by 9:45 for an Air China flight.  Gao returned everyone’s passport and handed out boxed lunches in lovely boxes with a Chinese traditional scene on it. The Boeing 737 plane boarded at 10:20 and took off at 11:05 for Beijing.  There was a snack on the plane, which included a packet of 6 rice crackers wrapped in seaweed, which had a salty taste and a bun with a ham filling and a juice or soft drink. We preferred the Viking boxed lunch consisting of half of an egg salad sandwich and half of a chicken sandwich, a few potato chips, a small bun, an apple, a Chinese pear, two small shortbread cookies and a small KitKat bar.  We caught up on the news by reading today’s China Daily.  We landed in Beijing at 12:35 p.m. Temperature was 18 C with a thin cloud, but no haze visible at the airport – clearer than Xi’an this morning. Since the plane was early, there was a ten minute wait for the bus to take us to the Ritz-Carleton hotel.

   We were travelling along a ring road that was on the site of a former city wall and was torn down when the subway system was laid. The trees are beginning to blossom, we even saw a magnolia tree in bloom.  It is in bloom for less than a week. Just before we stopped in a century old part of Beijing, we passed the Llama Hutong guard house on a brick wall.  Our first event was to see a hackeysack champion demonstrate his skill with the Chinese version of a hackeysack – a flat looney sized disc with coloured feathers attached to it. Next, we were ushered a few meters to awaiting chauffeured rickshaws, which were attached to a bicycle frame, for a bicycle rickshaw ride through a 100 year old hutong area.  Hutong is the word for the narrow alley neighbourhoods common in Chinese cities prior to the 1960s. Many of those in Beijing have been torn down and replaced by high rise apartment buildings. Our group formed a cavalcade of 15 rickshaws pulled by drivers pedalling their two passenger vehicles, with a braking system where the brake cable runs parallel and above the bicycle chain, which the driver stomped with his foot to slow or stop the rickshaw.  We twisted and turned through the hutong for about 1 km. Then we stopped in front of a small house where the resident explained that she lives in her small 400 square foot unit, which was, before 1949 was part of her grandparents much larger traditional Chinese court style house, but was confiscated from the family. We were served jasmine tea and shown the painted glass bottles made by her niece who is apprenticing in the family business.  Next we wound our way back in the rickshaws to where the bus was which was at the Drum Tower and Bell Tower. These kinds of structures were used for telling time during the Han Dynasty  (206 - 220 BC), there was a morning bell and a dusk drum. It was the people’s way of keeping time.  They were in built 1272, and rebuilt twice after two fires. At one period in history they were the time-telling center of the capital city during the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties (1271-1911).

   We were escorted to a tea room in the Bell Tower. In a tea ceremony five different types of tea were made for us in the traditional manner. Jasmine; Ginseng Oolong; a blend of Lychee tea and dried rose petals; Puner which is medicinal and a dessert tea blend including palm and hibiscus.  We were told to drink our small 50 ml samples of tea in three sips for Happiness, Long Life and Good Fortune. After the tasting we visited the gift shop and browsed the selection of teas, tea sets, and mugs.  After items were purchased, passengers returned to the bus for a short ride to the Ritz-Carleton Beijing Financial District hotel.  The room cards were distributed and we arrived in our room to see the luggage had already arrived just after 4:30. 

   Here in Beijing, the cars are as new and the same carmakers as in Shanghai. We saw a large SUV called Alphard in the hotel parking lot today.  There are also bicycles, but fewer than in Shanghai and lots of motorbikes. Here too the streets are clean, while wandering we have seen several street cleaning vehicles.

   We freshened up and returned to the lobby for 5:30.  On the route to the restaurant we drove past many buildings built in the last 25 years, including the oddly shaped trio of glass enclosed oval topped buildings that housed a train station, a bus station and offices. The bus ride was about 15 minutes to Hotel Nikko for a Chinese set 12 course dinner including kao pun chicken, rice with vegetables, snow peas & bacon, broccoli & beef, hot & sour soup ending with a lemon square.  The beverages were either soft drinks or a local Beijing beer.  We returned to the hotel by 7:30. Gao reminded us that we need to be ready to leave at 6:30 a.m. for the trip to the Ba Da Ling Hills portion of the Great Wall.

  We did not meet the walking goal today as we only managed to walk about 4 miles.