The Epic tale of Mum & Dads' Trip to China (Pt 1)

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This entry should properly be called "Michelle's Ultimate Tour of Beijing and Xi'An" because Mum and Dad came all the way to Beijing to see me and I showed them the best China has to offer! I was so crazy happy to see them, it was so great (but strange) to have them here, in my town. We did so much, I really think they really have seen more of Beijing than a lot of people who've lived here awhile. And my god did we eat, we ate nearly every cuisine Beijing has to offer and I thought I was kidding when I told them we were going to eat our way around Beijing. As it turned out, I wasn't! I actually lost the desire to eat in their last few days which is unprecedented. But, aside from their first night (we had very limited options) the food was all amazing and varied and it was great to be able to try out new places with someone who could read the menu.

I used mum mercilessly for her superb Putonghua language skills, constantly asking her what a word meant, or how to say something. In return though, I taught them a few things about Beijing. Well, warned them about a few things to be more accurate. The look of horror on their faces when I told them that you can't flush toilet paper down the loo because the sewage systems can't handle it was very cute. I told them the general rule is, if there is a rubbish bin next to the toilet that's what it's for. The horror, if possible, increased. "But there's one in the hotel bathroom!" my poor mum exclaimed. "Yeah, well..." I shrugged apologetically. "But there's no lid on it or anything, it can't be. It's an international hotel!" Again, I shrugged but they found it hard to believe. "Ok, well please don't do it in my toilet!" I begged, as I know of plenty of stories of toilets backing up for that reason and I didn't want to have to clean that mess up (incidentally, and mum and dad will hate me for saying this, but their toilet did stop working after a week...)

So, on their first day I had to take them to Grandma's for brunch of course! Dad had been duly warned about the lack of decent coffee in Beijing and the exorbitant prices of even the nasty stuff, but I had to ease him on the caffeine slowly so Grandma's bottomless cup awaited us. Food out of the way, we had a very good shopping effort that first day, all finding something to purchase. Mum wanted to see the Silk Markets as a few people had told her how famous it was, and I agreed that you have to go see them as a tourist but it personally my least favourite place to shop. And as it happens, in Mum's only other visit to Beijing many years ago, she went to the Government building that is at the end of my Hutong! In a city so large it's a pretty cool coincidence. The next day I took them to my office to meet my work colleagues who were all really excited to meet them, and I was very proud to show mum and dad off. And then the tour really started in earnest! I had avoided going to the main tourist attractions during my four months here because I knew I'd go with mum and dad. We were hellishly efficient and went to the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Lamma Temple (Beijing's biggest and best temple), the Houhai Lakes area, and the PanJiaYuan Sunday Markets. And that was only in the first week!

So first we spent an afternoon of glorious weather at the Forbidden City, so named because no commoners were allowed to enter for over 500 years. Unfortunately, despite my warning that we would be doing a lot of walking while they were here none of us were quite prepared for the Forbidden City which has a circumference of 16kms and covers an area of 720,000 sq metres. It's so big it has a permanent restoration squad doing renovations. It takes about 10 years to restore the whole complex by which time they have to start again! It was an amazing historical site, and I'm so glad that Starbucks had been forced to close it's branch inside the Forbidden city.

Lamma Temple is Beijing's largest and most spectacular temple, and was beautiful and so peaceful. I had my second "celebrity/freak" moment where a man wanted a photo with me (I'm immortalised in someone's album somewhere mum said). The weather was behaving and showing it's best side for my visitors which I was really pleased about as Beijing is a really beautiful city when the weather is good. We shopped our way through the paraphernalia of the Panjiayuan Sunday Markets and then prepared for our trip to Xi'An the following day.

Xi'An is home to the world famous Terracotta Warriors, and each warrior is unique: each one has a different face. Xi'An is a really nice city, bigger than I thought, but I forget that even small cities like Xi'An have 3.25 MILLION people. It used to be China's capital, all the way back to the 11th centaury BC throughout 11 major Dynasties which makes it a major attraction for international visitors. It is the beginning of the fabled Silk Road and had many of the Hui (Muslim) influences that made Ningxia so interesting so our first stop was the fantastic Muslim Quarter and the Great Mosque. We happily ate our way through the streets and probably would have gone around in circles a few times but dad was sharp eyed and saw the miniscule sign to a tiny alley leading to the Great Mosque. I've known people who have had to give up because they couldn't see the turn off anywhere so we did very well! The Great Mosque is one of China's largest, and was a beautiful example of a Chinese temple-styled Mosque. That night I discovered another of my weaknesses: YangRou PaoMo. It's a local dish where they break up special bread into a bowl with noodles and mutton, and add a delicious broth which is just soaked up by everything. It doesn't sound like much I'm sure but by god I'm really glad I don't live in Xi'An or else I'm sure I'd die of paomo overdose. Or a mutton broth induced heart attack.

Mum and Dad were keen on taking a guided day tour so we hopped in a van with Kitty/Kelly as our guide and several other tourists from other hotels as well. I met a particularly nice young man, Martin, who took a trip to Beijing to help raise money for an English charity and took a side trip to Xi'An before returning home. The tour took us to the Bam Po Neolithic Village, the official Gov Terracotta Warrior Replica Factory to make us buy stuff, a "Chinese-style lunch", a Silk Factory to make us buy stuff, and then FINALLY made it to the Terracotta Warriors which were everything we thought they would be. One piece of advice for anyone who is going: see the pits in the reverse order. Pit 1 is the largest, and Pit the smallest so see Pit 3, then 2, then 1 to get the full effect.

During the mandatory stop at the gift shop, I thought I was blocking someone's shot so apologised and moved back, but the lady kept pointing her camera at me. I kept moving back until another lady next to me actually grabbed my arm to stop me and I reaslied I WAS the shot. Penny dropping, I posed for them, and reciprocated by making her son stay in the photo I was trying to take too, though he was unimpressed with it all. With the visibility rapidly deteriorating due to pollution, we did manage to make it to the Big Goose Pagoda just in time to race to the top, snap a few pictures of the pollution and then we all headed back to our respective hotels.

The next day the weather had improved somewhat and we went to tour the Xi'An City Wall, one of the few city walls still fully intact. You can walk/cycle/take the motorised cart the whole 14kms around it so I hopped on the bike and saw the whole city centre from a unique point of view. I was impressed by the number of people cycling it and felt bad for the males because it was a little rough in parts where the bricks have large ruts in them, and I hope the ride didn't permanently impair their ability to have children.

Finally, we went back that afternoon and while Mum and Dad rested, I went out and partied at Mike's 30 (see previous entry). My parents must think I'm such a booze hound because even though I've only had three big nights out in Beijing since I've been here, two of them were during their trip. So concludes our first week in Beijing, exactly where we started it: having brunch, though this time it was me nursing the coffee cup like it was my tenacious grip on reality. God bless Grandma's Kitchen...