Beijing April 17

We met the guide 'Jason' (his real name is something like Ying Ki) and the driver Mr. Cheng at 12 and went off to Tiananenmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was a perfect day for such an excursion - very pleasant tempreatures and not too many people, in contrast to our previous tour of the same area which was hot and extremely crowded. The Forbidden City
again impressed us with its very elegant buildings and courtyards and very non-interesting interiors.

Lunch was not part of the plan (the whole day was very different from the planned itinerary, but the changes were excellent) so we bought some ice cream at the North Gate to the Forbidden City (the Stabucks is at the Eastern Gate which we did not go to so we missed this great cultual improvement), and continued to the Hutong tour. Hutong are the old alleyways and courtyards which were typical of Beijing. Most of them have been torn down and replaced with hi-rises, but a small section has been declared a preserved area. For some reason, tourists are transported around there on a tricycle, under the guidance of a local guide - a very nice young woman with very limited English knowledge called 'Wendy'.

The first stop was the Drum Tower to which we ascended on 69 very steep steps. The view was very smoggy and Wendy got very worried when Judes disappeared around a corner for a few minutes. Every 30 minutes they hit a bunch of large drums there - seems this old tradition was renewed and the tower refurbished very recently.

After that we started cycling through the narrow roads and Avi rebelled and insisted we are better off on foot, so we can get a better glimpse of the going-ons inside the courtyards. This caused Wendy a lot of anguish as she did not understand what he wanted, but after about 10 minutes it suddenly dawned on her and we all continued happily on foot with the tricycle drivers being sent on to a further point of the tour. This was a great walk -
narrow streets with all kinds of stores, street vendors and very cool looking cafes and bars. Part of the walk was along the Lake of 10 Temples - there were lots of peddle and row boats on the water and lots of people out having fun. At this point we were sorry we cannot just sit there rather than go to the Chinese family, which we were afraid will be a very silly and embarassing experience. We could not have been more wrong - it was a great experience too. The house had the most kitschy stuff we ever saw, but we immediately discovered its first good point - a clean bathroom. The food was great - about 15 different dishes and all of them excellent. Quite a few were vegeterian so we all ate a lot and still hardly made a dent in the mounds of food on the table. After that the host showed us his hobby - fighting crickets. He was very amusing and pantomimed lots of jokes, and Avi and he went into a long negotiation about the price of one of the crickets.

Finally we were cycled out and driven to the new theater where we bought tickets to a Shaolin Warriors show. Jason had insisted it will be wonderful, even though we had seen such a show in Princeton which was very silly. This was an amazing Broadway-like production - still with an incredibly stupid plot, but lots of jumps and kicks and quite enjoyable (I managed to sleep thorugh parts of it though).

The final event was catching the train. We were a bit worried about navigating the crowds in the station with our luggage, finding our berths etc., but Jason stayed with us and got us on the train. We got a 4-bunk compartment which we shared with a lawyer who went to Datong for a court appearance. His English is very limited but we he tries very hard. The night was pleasant although we did not get too much sleep and now we are close to Datong where we will get off. The big question is if we'll get rooms so early in the morning - a shower would be nice...