The Decompression of a Boomer

David and I just returned from a 2-week trip to China. How could I not blog about it? We flew from Idaho Falls to Seattle to Beijing, leaving Monday, April 9, returning this past Monday, April 23. We traveled with my sister Stephanie and husband Victor, and my brother Eric. We didn’t go as part of a tour, we planned our trip itinerary with Victor, who is Chinese. Victor was born in mainland China but his family moved to Taiwan when he was a young child (fleeing the mainland during the 1949 revolution when Mao Zedong came to power). Victor grew up in Taiwan, and then Hong Kong for 3 years before immigrating to the United States to attend college when he was 18 years old. He has lived in America ever since, becoming a US citizen.

What to see of China in two weeks? Beijing, of course. From there …. how about we hop on a bullet train to Hangzhou? Then a flight to Guilin. From Guilin, over to Hong Kong by bullet train and subway. Three nights in each city! Here is a map of China from the Fodor’s China travel book:

And a map of the eastern half of China, to show you the destination cities on our itinerary – starting in Beijing in the north, traveling south to Hangzhou (near Shanghai), then Guilin, then Hong Kong, a total distance of nearly 2000 miles.

You want to come along? (!!) I’ve taken hundreds of photos (?? – maybe. I stopped counting) Don’t really know how these blogs will shake out – just thought I’d start at the beginning of our trip and see where the photos take us! Are you ready? Fasten your seatbelt!

Monday, Jan 9 – 3pm: Fly from Idaho Falls, to Salt Lake City, to Seattle, Washington.

4:23 pm – We have landed in Salt Lake. Navigating through the terminal now to our next gate – to board our flight to Seattle:

I have never seen the airport this busy!

5:18 pm – flying over the Great Salt Lake:

At 6:47 we fly past Mount Rainier, the highest mountain in the Cascades and in the state of Washington. It is located 54 miles (87 km) south-southeast of Seattle:

6:55 pm – Descending for a landing in Seattle:

We (David, Eric and I and Steph and Victor) spend the night in a motel near the airport in Seattle. Steph and Vic arrive in Seattle close to midnight from Boston. Get a good night’s sleep! We all fly to Beijing tomorrow!

Tuesday, April 10: Our flight from Seattle to Bejing leaves about 4pm. Arrives in Bejing on Wednesday, 6:25 pm. 26 hours later! Okay, but it’s 15 hours later in Bejing so… the flight is only about 11 hours. We arrive at the Seattle airport in plenty of time. With carry-on bags only! (We decided we never wanted to be separated from our bags, especially on the flights in China…) Hey, grab a newspaper before we board!:

You suppose I could learn to read Chinese during our 11-hour flight? (Never mind. Victor has informed me that the newspaper is actually Korean…) Mostly we passengers ate, read a bit, and then tried to sleep. I was cranky at the end of the flight from all the times I looked over at everyone around me, seemingly snoozing away, as I lay there bright-eyed, counting sheep. It’s best to lay there and at least pretend you’re sleeping, because you just might drift off, but you have to at least avert your mind from thinking about how many hours of the flight you still have ahead of you…

Wednesday April 11- 6:30pm: Alas, we’ve landed in Beijing! Victor has a driver waiting for us at the airport, (Yay!) who finds us immediately and delivers us to our motel near the city center, the Grand Hyatt Beijing. Very nice. Hard to capture in a photo – here’s my attempt:

The best thing about the Grand Hyatt is its location – it lies within walking distance of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. They also serve a wonderful breakfast buffet, so large, in fact, that on our first morning Steph, Victor, David and I pass on it and order breakfast a la carte. And then proceed to watch Eric eat the breakfast buffet. “Think you have enough to eat, Eric?”

I recognized a lot of the food on his plate. But what were those white blobs with with black polka dots?

‘Dragon fruit’ says Eric. Okay, so the next two mornings we all spring for the breakfast buffet.

Thursday, April 12 – 10am – After Eric’s huge breakfast, we head out on foot toward the Forbidden City. Bejing is surprisingly clean, modern, new, and safe.

Although, you should carry your passport with you where ever you go, particularly if you need to purchase tickets – admittance to a landmark or museum or transportation… We had to show our passports to get into the Forbidden City. I took a lot of photos of the Forbidden City in the center of Beijing, but honestly, they all look similar. The Forbidden City was constructed from 1406-1420 (600 years ago!) by 100,000 skilled artisans and up to a million laborers as the palace of the Ming Emperors of China. The complex consists of 980 buildings over 180 acres, the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world. The complex served as the Imperial Palace for 500 years, home to 23 Ming and Qing Emperors, until the dynastic system crumbled in 1911. (See the Oscar-winning movie “The Last Emperor” for the story of the last Emperor of China – with fantastic footage of the Forbidden City and the history of the last Emperor’s overthrow in 1911 and the rise of the New Republic of China till the Last Emperor’s death in 1967.)

Fodor’s China travel book has a great photo of the Forbidden City. (Okay, so I took a photo of their photo, thank you, Fodors) It gives you an idea what a huge complex it is:

Another travel book (which I had cut apart) has a nice photo of the layout of Forbidden City – which I’m including, just so you can understand how large it is. See all the entrances and exits? Our plan was to enter the complex from the back and come out the front that overlooks Tiananmen Square.

We are entering now…

Since 2012 the Forbidden City has seen an average of 15 million visitors annually.

Pairs of lions guard the entrances of halls.

The public was not allowed to enter any of the buildings. Mostly we moved with the crowds, had to wait in the hoards just to get a peek inside the palaces.

At some point we exited, with the movement of the crowd, thinking we’d be facing Tiananmen Square.

But, hey! Where were we? We had come out one of the side exits, but darned if we knew which one. Hey there’s a moat! Does that help orient us?

Luckily Victor speaks Chinese and could ask a guard where we were and how to get to Tiananmen Square. Oh! So it’s a long walk … Dang! Suddenly, out of nowhere two drivers pull up beside us. Now I don’t know what you call the rigs they were driving. David, Eric and I piled into the back of one and Steph and Vic in the other. We soared off into the traffic, back onto the sidewalk then swerved back into the street, weaving in and out of traffic, down alleyways, alongside buses; the ride was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time, luckily we were going too fast to process it. I captured photos along the way … Mostly of Eric, because he was facing us in the rig.

Our driver was whizzing faster than Steph and Vic’s and at some point we lost them. Imagine our relief when they finally pulled up behind us!

Sure enough, we were dropped off a block from Tiananmen Square. We are walking to it now and I just happened to capture this video.

We are so exhausted by the time we get to Tiananmen Square we look at it from across the street and pose for photos. In this photo of us you see the main front entrance to the Forbidden City in the background, the entrance we thought we were coming out of.

As I said, we were across the street from Tiananmen Square. Hard to believe this is the best photo I have of Tiananmen Square:

– there was so much traffic it looked too exhausting at this point to actually cross the street to get on the square. So this is the closest we, dear reader, will get to it.

I took a couple more photos of Beijing on our walk back to the hotel.

There. I bet at this point, you’re a little exhausted too! Our first full day in Beijing. Yeah, well, get a good night’s sleep, because tomorrow we visit the Great Wall.

Tags: Beijing, Dragon Fruit, Forbidden City, Great Salt Lke, Mount Rainier, Salt Lake City Airport, Seattle, Tiananmen Square, travel to China

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