Do you want to see my pictures from China?

Sunday, September 11, 2005

So I've been in Japan for more than a year and a half and I only just visited another country in Asia this past weekend. Of course, it's a country I've already lived in for a while. Regardless, it was still a good trip. We left and arrived late on Friday night and eventually found our way to the Hyatt, which is out on the fourth ring. Location could have been better, but cheap taxis made rather unimportant. On Saturday we toured the Ming Tombs (pointless), a jade shop (tourist trap) and the Great Wall (always hilarious). The Ming Tomb number 13? contained nothing but a hole in the floor and a bunch of red boxes. The highlight was watching Mark dealing with a middle aged women trying to sell him her 16 year old daughter. Our tour guide took (hijacked) us to a nearby jade shop that charged international prices. I got the sales women to cut the price of Reiko's omiyage in half, but I know that I still paid at least 4 times what I should have. The wall was, the wall. We got out to one of the non-restored sections, but found that it was walled off. Apparently the government doesn't want people on it anymore. Every ten feet we were bombarded with hawkers pushing junk. Mark got a Chinese Rolex for about 11 dollars and we all bought little red books for about 3 bucks. The woman selling them was hilarious and insisted on having me repeat her favorite sections back to her in Chinese. On our way back down she demanded that I recall them from memory. I failed. I had a great time with the language. First thing is that my Chinese vocabulary sucks. I seriously doubt it was ever any good, but a lot of words did come back to me. During conversations I recognized/rememberd a lot of words as people used them. Even more strangely I naturally and correctly used words that I didn't remember until after I had used them. One very annoying thing was mixing Japanese up with Chinese. I couldn't ever fully switch out of Japanese. Every time I spoke to someone Japanese words would be interspersed with the Chinese. People didn't seem to mind or notice too much. That probably means that they simply didn't understand me at all. Anyway, when I got back to Tokyo on Monday I found myself a lot more confident with Japanese. It still isn't as natural as my crappy Chinese, but I'm making progress. I've got to stop working in English. On Sunday we ditched the tour guide and went to the Forbidden City. I didn't get a chance to visit the City my first time in Beijing because of a discontented stomach. I didn't much. If you've seen one temple you really have seen them all and the Forbidden City just feels like one enormous temple. Afterwards we walked around a bit and eventually had Beijing Duck for dinner. Louis and Mark continued on to Tienanmen, but went back to the hotel and eventually got a little bit of sleep before we took off on Monday morning for the airport. It was a quick visit, but well worth the time and money. And oh yeah, a lot of Beijing really has changed. Lots more nice cars and fewer bicycles. You can still find a lot of streets that appear to be perpetually under construction, but they seem few and far between. Anyway, here are my pictures from China: Ming Tombs - http://www.flickr.com/photos/87871204@N00/sets/892930/ Jade Workshop - http://www.flickr.com/photos/87871204@N00/sets/892922/ The Great Wall - http://www.flickr.com/photos/87871204@N00/sets/892910/ The Forbidden City - http://www.flickr.com/photos/87871204@N00/sets/892864/ Beijing Buildings - http://www.flickr.com/photos/87871204@N00/sets/892839/ Random Shots - http://www.flickr.com/photos/87871204@N00/sets/892944/ -----