Beijing - Day 1 (Forbidden City + Tianamen Square)

I'm so sorry for not having posted in so long.

Our old owner, James, sold our school to a man who had purchased another kindergarten in the area. This week was week one of the merger and it was CRAZY! It'll all settle in the next couple of weeks I'm sure, but this week made me really tired!

Back to Beijing. Liz Teacher and I flew to Harbin, China on Thursday, May 20, 2010 for an overnight stay and then an early flight to Beijing in the morning. We thought the hotel we booked was 2 km from the airport, and it ended up being a 40 minute taxi ride. In China, that cab ride only costs about $20 total, so it wasn't the end of the world... but it wasn't what we expected. We were both really looking forward to some hot showers, but when we got to our room, there was no running water.

We called the front desk to let them know. There was a knock at the door about 5 minutes later with a woman and a bowl full of water.

We called the front desk again to clarify. They said they understood and that there was no running water in the building. We asked if there would be running water in the morning. They said, "perhaps."

We curled up in our smokey room for the evening and then made our way back to the airport the next morning with no hiccups. The flight to Beijing was a breeze and the directions that our Beijing hostel, Happy Dragon Hostel, provided us were perfect.

Here's a picture of the front of the hostel:



We had reserved a twin room with a private bath, but they were all booked up at the hostel so they upgraded us to their "sister hotel" a few blocks away for the evening. The price was the same for us - around $30/night for the room and we were happy campers.



We showered up and then decided we would walk to the Forbidden City and Tianeman Square.

The first thing I noticed about Beijing was all of the bikes! Every street had a huge bike lane and it seemed that they were more bikes than cars in China.

On our walk, we were stopped by a Chinese university student who asked us if we knew where we were going. She pointed us in the right direction and then offered us a look at her art studio. We had read about this happening, but entertained her anyway. Then, naturally, she suckered us into buying two paintings. But, I love mine, so it's okay!

She told us that the Forbidden City closed at 4, and it was 3:45 so we hurried, hoping to at least catch a glimpse. It turned out that the ticket offices closed at 4, but the actual city was open until 5. We grabbed tickets and made our way in. The entire palace-city was surrounded by red walls like this:

I borrowed the following information from wikipedia:

The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. For almost 500 years, it served as the home of emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political centre of the Chinese government.

Built in 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 surviving buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms and covers 7,800,000 sq ft. It's HUGEEEEEEE!

There were about 6 rows of thrones this size:

After the palace closed, we walked through the walls and onto Tianamen Square. Tianamen in Mandarin means "The Gate of Heavenly Peace" which is the name of the gate that sits just north of the square. The gate was first built in 1417:

The square itself is massive and was a slow process in being created. A process that I haven't really found time to understand yet, but here it is:

After Tianamen, we walked to Wangfujing Street, a street known for its shopping in Beijing. There were high end stores, small shops and many side streets housing open air markets. We walked through one of the open air markets and were salavating at the street food. It was hot, about 85 F, and this frozen fruit on a stick looked phenomenol:

There was also an opportunity to buy meat on a stick that was grilled right in front of you. We didn't do, but found it very interesting.

After a walk through of Wangfujing and some souvenir purchases, we made our way back to our hostel for their *free* Chinese dumpling party. Liz Teacher and I made our pork and onion or tofu and cabbage dumblings and then the cook boiled them and we ate... and ate... and ate... They were delicious!

After we finished the dumplings we went back to our room and crashed early. We had to be up early for our trip to the Great Wall the next day!

More to come...

I stand corrected...

Apparently the Starbucks in Insadong is NOT the only place in the world where Starbucks is written in another language. Here it is in Mandarin in Beijing at Huo Hai!

More on Beijing to come this weekend when I can think straight...

DMZ!

On Saturday, May 8, we went north to the border. We took a bus to Hannamdong and then a taxi to USO's Camp Kim.

From Camp Kim, we boarded a charter bus to Camp Bonifas, just south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), where we were transferred to a military vehicle. The military bus took us to Balinger Hall where we were briefed on the history of the DMZ by a US military Specialist.

Here's Mom and Dad after signing their "in case of death" waivers at the briefing:

Mom with the commemoration outside of Balinger Hall.

After the briefing, we rode a bus to the Panmunjeon (Joint Security Area). Behind my mom and dad in this picture is a large North Korean building, and in front of that are blue buildings that line the border. The blue buildings are joint security buildings, where once inside, one can cross over the border into the North Korean side of the DMZ.

North Korean guard staring us down.

Mom and Dad with South Korean (ROK) soldier on the North Korean side of the blue building.

Mom and Dad's feet in the north, mine safe in the south.

After leaving the Joint Security Area, we proceeded to Checkpoint 2, which is an area of the DMZ in which you are surrounded on 3 sides by North Korea. Here's Dad - no matter where he looks (except behind him), it's the north!

Mom and Dad all smiles surrounded by dangerous communist land.

Me and Dad and North Korea.

This is a proganda village situated in the North Korean side of the DMZ. The flag rarely flies as it's so big it weighs nearly 600 pounds. No one lives in the village, but their used to be broadcast anouncements in Korean, singing of the North Korean promised land.

Mom and me - surrounded.

A monument dedicating the enormous tree that was cut down at this very spot to improve visibility. It's girth was the size of that round platform at the bottom. Apparently, nearly every army personal in the area was involved in making sure it was a safe and successful tree chopping.

This is what is know as "The Bridge of No Return." After the armistice was signed, both sides returned POWs at this very spot, leaving the men the option to choose which side to be on, but once they decided, that's where they must stay.

After leaving the DMZ, we went to the 3rd of 4 infiltration tunnels that the south has found from the north. No cameras allowed, and it's quite the workout to get back up from it. The trek down requires a hard hat and involves a lot of ducking of the head. The walls inside the tunnel are painted black with coal, as North Korea tried to pretend like they were coal mining tunnels. All 4 tunnels point directly at Seoul - awesome. They guess there's around 30 in total.

Mom and Dad after our climb out of the tunnel.

Weezer and I working with a team to reunify the Korean peninsula.

After the tunnel, we went to Dora Observatory to get a good look into North Korea.

Here's Weezer at the binoculars.

There was also a very strict photo policy here. You can only take photos behind this large yellow line, which really doesn't get you anywhere.

Dad and I camouflaged.

Mom and Dad discussing lunch, surround by North Korea.

After a delicious lunch of bulgogi and bibimbap somewhere near Dora Observatory and a very long bus ride back to Camp Kim, we walked to the Korean War Memorial which was right on the way to Itaewon.

Mom with a transport vehicle.

The memorial hoists flags from each of the countries who have allied with Korea in a multitude of conflicts, the view of the flags also offered an impressive view of Seoul Tower.

Weezer making friends with a statue.

This is the monument outside the museum. I'm sure it has a meaning, we were too tired to figure out what it was.

Mom and Dad on the steps of the Korean War Memorial Museum.

We then proceeded to walk through Itaewon, made our way to the bus back to Dongbaek, managed up the stairs to my apartment, and packed up their belongings.

On Sunday, we had a pretty uneventful morning, got them to the airport bus just in time for the 9:40 AM bus to Incheon Airport. My mom had her longest Mother's Day yet - 37 hours of Mother's Day time!

It was so fabulous to have my parents here and see them amongst the Asians. I'm pretty sure they had a great time.

At this point, their trip seems like forever ago as I've gotten right back into the swing of things. I'll get you updated with pictures and a post from my camping trip, plus details of my trip to Beijing this weekend!

Stay tuned...

2nd Friday of the Parental Visitation

On Friday, May 7, my parents got up the nerve to leave Dongbaek by themselves!

They got in a taxi and went to the Korean Folk Village in Yongin. The Folk Village is a HUGE outdoor museum, stocked with 243 different Korean-style homes from different eras and different parts of the country. Most are models, but some of the homes were brought to the village from other provinces, just to show them off.

The village is packed with Korean history.

Dad with the pots traditionally used to store kimchi when it was buried in the ground to ferment (nowadays there are kimchi refridgerators).

They got see the insanely old man on the tight rope, too! Look how much more crowded it was for them:

The village is very popular for school field trips, as its exhibits are very interactive. Children love the place, so did Weezer.

They found an off-limits brewery.

They saw the ribbon dancers, which I'm so jealous of because we just missed them when we went. Look at all those children watching!

They made friends with a Canadian/Korean immediately upon entrance to the museum. He helped the find a taxi back, and offered lots of tips for the day at the village.

After they made their way back from the village (so proud!), they stopped at the hand-painted pottery story in Dongbaek (you know, the one that was on Weezer's Personal-Asian-Missions list). Here are the ladies hard at work!

The mission was successful. Mom purchased two items and took them home. Turns out, customers were supposed to order each product from the available samples, and then the turn around time was two weeks. It's amazing what you can get done with body language.

Here's Dad (carrying the pottery, of course) in front of my apartment!

They met me after school and we made our way to Gangnam, the major part of Seoul south of the river. We boarded a super crowded subway for 3 stops to Samseong, where we walked to an undergound shopping center, COEX. I like the plaza when you first walk in because you are below ground, but there is no roof. It's hard to tell in this picture, but it's true!

We ate some Mexican food in COEX, and then got back on the subway to go to Olympic Park - the site of the 1988 Summer Olympics. When you come out of the subway station, this is your first view and it is very impressive (and not nearly as cockeyed as this picture makes it out to be).

Inside the Peace Gate, is the torch that has been burning since the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in 1988.

The park is absolutely beautiful, and it was so nice to spend time in it instead of just passing through like I did for Bob Dylan. I've put returning here during the day time on my list of things to do before I'm out of here.