Friday, June 26, 2009
And no... its not what you think.
This time Beijing is HOT!! I arrived on a Tuesday evening on an Air Canada flight direct from Toronto. What a difference being up in the air for only 12 hours makes. The time almost flies. It was an excellent flight, and very comfortable, and the food was actually quite good! It says a lot about me when I can call airline food good. However, the movies were still the same, and I decided to spend my time watching 'A Night at the Museum' - pretty funny movie.
It was a typical evening. I got to the hotel thankfully missing all the rush-hour traffic. Change, a quick shower, and I was ready to go have some food on the Club Lounge. I took my laptop up with me, and while munching on some food, and a cold glass of Bailey’s Eric appeared. He’d been on vacation, the lucky so-and-so and was all tanned and his hair even looked lighter!
The past few weeks had been a stressful one for me; unfortunately I decided to take it out on Eric. No, I did not yell at him, because Eric makes it very hard for anyone to yell at him. But I did get my point across and he understood my angst pretty well. The next two days went by in typical Beijing fashion.
However, on Saturday, after a late lunch, we decided to head to the Electronics Market. We’d passed the place quite often on our way to the office – never realizing that this was THE Electronics market. I was going to browse and pick up something for my nephew, so was Eric. We walked into the usual cacophony of vendors wanting to sell us everything from cameras, computers, flash drives, lenses, PS3s, you name it – if it’s electronic – you can find it there. But how much of it was real and how much... fake? We didn’t know. After going up and down the escalators to every floor, we decided that Eric needed a camera. A Chinese girl in broken English offered to show us some more stuff. Now this building is 17 stories high and we had only seen about 7 of them. The rest of the floors were not accessible by escalator. At the top floor we had noticed a restaurant and people coming out of it with packages in their arms. ‘There must be something there’ Eric said. I just dismissed it as people having lunch and heading down. But now this Chinese girl beckoned us into an elevator tucked into the back of the floor.
We followed her onto it and were whisked away to a higher floor. The floor plan was open with tables set around the floor. There were groups of people at some of the tables, and this we discovered, was the bargaining area. The serious bargaining area. We were looking for a DSLR camera for Eric. I thought he should get a Cannon Rebel EOS. A Chinese gentleman sat down across from us and the bargaining began. Now Eric quite fancies himself as the bargainer. The man quoted us 36,000 RMB for the camera body. I wanted a different one. We scribbled on paper to decide on the model. Then came the price. Eric wrote 250. The man looked at it and went – 250 Dollar? No, said Eric, RMB. He looked so affronted it was hilarious. Then he got up and pointed at the door. ‘You go, now! You are joking.’ And that was my first experience of getting thrown out of a store. We left in hysterics. This was too funny. We finally left the store after buying a small WII steering wheel.
That night I got a call I had been waiting for. My best friend, since sixth grade was married to Titu. Titu incidentally was in China, and was supposed to be in Beijing over that week. He called me on Saturday evening. We planned to meet up the next morning at 10 after breakfast.
The next day, I asked Eric and Allan – another of our colleagues - if they wanted to go to the Temple of Heaven with Titu and I. We met up at 10 in the lobby. Having Allan along was a huge plus. He is Chinese, from north of Beijing, though he lives in Canada now. But he speaks Mandarin. No more pointing to the menu and little cards for cabs. Allan told the driver where we wanted to go (though the night before I found out that the Temple of Heaven is called Tien Tan in Chinese – so I could have said ‘chyow tien tan’ to go there!)
I met Titu in the lobby and we hit it off really well. I hadn’t really conversed with him before. And I could see why Sam would have liked him so much. He is a complete hoot to be with. We set off for the Temple of Heaven, bought our tickets and started walking into the complex. It’s a huge park-like place. The emperor would come here to offer prayers. The whole complex would be closed off and the emperor would pray to the Gods for the rains or harvest or whatever. Sacrifices of animals would be offered and huge firewood burning stoves would be used to burn all wood and everything used in the sacrifices. Somehow I never thought of the Chinese of being pantheistic; or as having any other gods than Buddha. But it seems that they did pray to different gods! But there are no pictures or deities of the gods; just the intricately carved, richly painted interiors of the temples and the five vessels in front of each of the altars signifying the five elements: earth, water, fire, air, and space. The whole complex is surrounded by lush gardens, and we realized that this was a place that people often came for picnics. And the flowers – Beijing in summer is a city of flowers. There were flowerbeds completely covered in flowers of all colors. Just gorgeous. It was a gorgeous day, hot, clear skies with a hint of smog only. Lovely!
As we walked through the tree lined paths, the cupola of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest was visible between the two lines of trees. The North Celestial gate towered over us. A group of Chinese musicians were singing some song and playing some really strange instrument. I took a video of it, and I have not uploaded it yet. But the rest of the pictures are here
http://picasaweb.google.co
We walked through the gates and I realized that while the Forbidden City was all about squares, the temple of Heaven is all about circles. There were terraces that led up to each of the temples. All of them were built along a central meridian. Each of the temples are circular, the terraces are circular. All the roofs are a dark blue (religious significance?) and gold – signifying royal. Inside the temple all the pillars are painted rich red background with glittering gold paint. There is richness here, and a sense of pomp and grandeur. Maybe this place is just better maintained. We walked to the next temple – The Imperial Vault of Heaven. Surrounding this one is a wall. If you stand on the meridian facing the altar and clap – it echoes. The wall is quite appropriately called the Echo Wall. The strange thing is if you stand on the first stone – it echoes once, on the second stone, it echoes twice. I went up to three… because there were people all standing around trying to get on those stones and clap.
A woman caught my eye. She was dressed in the colourful traditional costume of her South East or west Province. I followed her around taking a few shots. She stopped and gave me a pose – quite without realizing it.
Following our nose Southward, we came to the Circular Mound Altar. This is a flat terraced circular mound! And in the center was a little mound. We all stood on it and took pics – but of course. We are such tourists!
Leaving the temples behind, we started walking towards the gardens hoping to reach the gates. The shady trees making walking easy, but I realized we’d probably walked a couple of miles easily if not more. We sat for a while in a little area to rest my back that was uneasily painful by now. Then we walked on and on, until we came to a gate and finally outside. We hailed a cab, and came back to the hotel.
Eric and Allan decided they wanted to go for full body massages. I wanted to download my pictures and just spend some time with Titu – actually getting to know him a little. So we went up to my room, and spent a pleasant few hours chatting. Around 6 we went up to the club floor. There over drinks, Eric proceeded to explain what body massage is in China. I will leave that explanation for my next note. I promise you its R-rated!
Dinner was going to be at the Hot pot restaurant that Eric and I had found. We walked over to the restaurant. Having Allan around is fun, because he can speak the language, and takes away the pain of pointing to items on restaurant menus when we want food. Eric and he consulted over the menu. Eric wanted snake. UGH!!! I wanted fried rice. Everything else was optional. When we ordered the snake, they said they would bring the snake out for us to see. And so they did. A big, fat snake coiled in a translucent bag. Ewwww… At which point Eric said, “And I shall name my snake, Harvey”. The double-meaning on that one cracked me up. Stupid snake jokes followed – like why Harvey? Why name your SNAKE Harvey? Does he feel like a HARVEY? And so on and so forth. So dinner came, and we tucked in. Hot, Hot Hunan cuisine. Lovely! The donkey’s meat was so spicy; we kept pulling tissues out of the little dispenser placed conveniently on the table. We’d finished eating all the other food before they brought the snake out. It was a big platter – on the edge of which were the chunks of meat pieces. In the center was a mound of dried red chillies. I could not even look at it. In my head I could see the split vertebrae of the snake’s skeleton. But the guys tucked in licking their chops and wiping their faces.
Dinner over, I had to call it a day. I needed to provide Eric some information, and so while he and Allan and Titu took off to the Olympic park, I went back to the hotel to work!
Thus it ended, an absolutely wonderful weekend with a little touch of home. Tomorrow was another day. Kevin was due back in town this week. It would be his last trip to China as he wrapped up on the project. We had some fun planned.
It was a typical evening. I got to the hotel thankfully missing all the rush-hour traffic. Change, a quick shower, and I was ready to go have some food on the Club Lounge. I took my laptop up with me, and while munching on some food, and a cold glass of Bailey’s Eric appeared. He’d been on vacation, the lucky so-and-so and was all tanned and his hair even looked lighter!
The past few weeks had been a stressful one for me; unfortunately I decided to take it out on Eric. No, I did not yell at him, because Eric makes it very hard for anyone to yell at him. But I did get my point across and he understood my angst pretty well. The next two days went by in typical Beijing fashion.
However, on Saturday, after a late lunch, we decided to head to the Electronics Market. We’d passed the place quite often on our way to the office – never realizing that this was THE Electronics market. I was going to browse and pick up something for my nephew, so was Eric. We walked into the usual cacophony of vendors wanting to sell us everything from cameras, computers, flash drives, lenses, PS3s, you name it – if it’s electronic – you can find it there. But how much of it was real and how much... fake? We didn’t know. After going up and down the escalators to every floor, we decided that Eric needed a camera. A Chinese girl in broken English offered to show us some more stuff. Now this building is 17 stories high and we had only seen about 7 of them. The rest of the floors were not accessible by escalator. At the top floor we had noticed a restaurant and people coming out of it with packages in their arms. ‘There must be something there’ Eric said. I just dismissed it as people having lunch and heading down. But now this Chinese girl beckoned us into an elevator tucked into the back of the floor.
We followed her onto it and were whisked away to a higher floor. The floor plan was open with tables set around the floor. There were groups of people at some of the tables, and this we discovered, was the bargaining area. The serious bargaining area. We were looking for a DSLR camera for Eric. I thought he should get a Cannon Rebel EOS. A Chinese gentleman sat down across from us and the bargaining began. Now Eric quite fancies himself as the bargainer. The man quoted us 36,000 RMB for the camera body. I wanted a different one. We scribbled on paper to decide on the model. Then came the price. Eric wrote 250. The man looked at it and went – 250 Dollar? No, said Eric, RMB. He looked so affronted it was hilarious. Then he got up and pointed at the door. ‘You go, now! You are joking.’ And that was my first experience of getting thrown out of a store. We left in hysterics. This was too funny. We finally left the store after buying a small WII steering wheel.
That night I got a call I had been waiting for. My best friend, since sixth grade was married to Titu. Titu incidentally was in China, and was supposed to be in Beijing over that week. He called me on Saturday evening. We planned to meet up the next morning at 10 after breakfast.
The next day, I asked Eric and Allan – another of our colleagues - if they wanted to go to the Temple of Heaven with Titu and I. We met up at 10 in the lobby. Having Allan along was a huge plus. He is Chinese, from north of Beijing, though he lives in Canada now. But he speaks Mandarin. No more pointing to the menu and little cards for cabs. Allan told the driver where we wanted to go (though the night before I found out that the Temple of Heaven is called Tien Tan in Chinese – so I could have said ‘chyow tien tan’ to go there!)
I met Titu in the lobby and we hit it off really well. I hadn’t really conversed with him before. And I could see why Sam would have liked him so much. He is a complete hoot to be with. We set off for the Temple of Heaven, bought our tickets and started walking into the complex. It’s a huge park-like place. The emperor would come here to offer prayers. The whole complex would be closed off and the emperor would pray to the Gods for the rains or harvest or whatever. Sacrifices of animals would be offered and huge firewood burning stoves would be used to burn all wood and everything used in the sacrifices. Somehow I never thought of the Chinese of being pantheistic; or as having any other gods than Buddha. But it seems that they did pray to different gods! But there are no pictures or deities of the gods; just the intricately carved, richly painted interiors of the temples and the five vessels in front of each of the altars signifying the five elements: earth, water, fire, air, and space. The whole complex is surrounded by lush gardens, and we realized that this was a place that people often came for picnics. And the flowers – Beijing in summer is a city of flowers. There were flowerbeds completely covered in flowers of all colors. Just gorgeous. It was a gorgeous day, hot, clear skies with a hint of smog only. Lovely!
As we walked through the tree lined paths, the cupola of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest was visible between the two lines of trees. The North Celestial gate towered over us. A group of Chinese musicians were singing some song and playing some really strange instrument. I took a video of it, and I have not uploaded it yet. But the rest of the pictures are here
http://picasaweb.google.co
We walked through the gates and I realized that while the Forbidden City was all about squares, the temple of Heaven is all about circles. There were terraces that led up to each of the temples. All of them were built along a central meridian. Each of the temples are circular, the terraces are circular. All the roofs are a dark blue (religious significance?) and gold – signifying royal. Inside the temple all the pillars are painted rich red background with glittering gold paint. There is richness here, and a sense of pomp and grandeur. Maybe this place is just better maintained. We walked to the next temple – The Imperial Vault of Heaven. Surrounding this one is a wall. If you stand on the meridian facing the altar and clap – it echoes. The wall is quite appropriately called the Echo Wall. The strange thing is if you stand on the first stone – it echoes once, on the second stone, it echoes twice. I went up to three… because there were people all standing around trying to get on those stones and clap.
A woman caught my eye. She was dressed in the colourful traditional costume of her South East or west Province. I followed her around taking a few shots. She stopped and gave me a pose – quite without realizing it.
Following our nose Southward, we came to the Circular Mound Altar. This is a flat terraced circular mound! And in the center was a little mound. We all stood on it and took pics – but of course. We are such tourists!
Leaving the temples behind, we started walking towards the gardens hoping to reach the gates. The shady trees making walking easy, but I realized we’d probably walked a couple of miles easily if not more. We sat for a while in a little area to rest my back that was uneasily painful by now. Then we walked on and on, until we came to a gate and finally outside. We hailed a cab, and came back to the hotel.
Eric and Allan decided they wanted to go for full body massages. I wanted to download my pictures and just spend some time with Titu – actually getting to know him a little. So we went up to my room, and spent a pleasant few hours chatting. Around 6 we went up to the club floor. There over drinks, Eric proceeded to explain what body massage is in China. I will leave that explanation for my next note. I promise you its R-rated!
Dinner was going to be at the Hot pot restaurant that Eric and I had found. We walked over to the restaurant. Having Allan around is fun, because he can speak the language, and takes away the pain of pointing to items on restaurant menus when we want food. Eric and he consulted over the menu. Eric wanted snake. UGH!!! I wanted fried rice. Everything else was optional. When we ordered the snake, they said they would bring the snake out for us to see. And so they did. A big, fat snake coiled in a translucent bag. Ewwww… At which point Eric said, “And I shall name my snake, Harvey”. The double-meaning on that one cracked me up. Stupid snake jokes followed – like why Harvey? Why name your SNAKE Harvey? Does he feel like a HARVEY? And so on and so forth. So dinner came, and we tucked in. Hot, Hot Hunan cuisine. Lovely! The donkey’s meat was so spicy; we kept pulling tissues out of the little dispenser placed conveniently on the table. We’d finished eating all the other food before they brought the snake out. It was a big platter – on the edge of which were the chunks of meat pieces. In the center was a mound of dried red chillies. I could not even look at it. In my head I could see the split vertebrae of the snake’s skeleton. But the guys tucked in licking their chops and wiping their faces.
Dinner over, I had to call it a day. I needed to provide Eric some information, and so while he and Allan and Titu took off to the Olympic park, I went back to the hotel to work!
Thus it ended, an absolutely wonderful weekend with a little touch of home. Tomorrow was another day. Kevin was due back in town this week. It would be his last trip to China as he wrapped up on the project. We had some fun planned.
In the Temple of Heaven
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