Beijing Welcomes You... and You and You and You and a Hundred Thousand Other People Too

Our Sunday morning wake-up call was at 6:30 so that we could meet Vivian's classmate Rebecca, a Beijinger who had previously worked as a Forbidden City tour guide. Rebecca's first stop for us was a little restaurant across from the Temple of Heaven where we partook in a typical Beijing breakfast- a breakfast I hope I never have to experience again. To be fair, it wasn't all that bad, just not very suited to my tastes. The best part was the sesame pastry filled with beef. There were also some soybean desserts and something like mashed potatoes in a thick, salty soup. But the real stinker (literally), was a gray milky soup that Rebecca described as "stinky tofu mixed with smelly socks."

After breakfast, we crossed the street to the Temple of Heaven complex, where the Emperor would go through temples from the south to the north to pray for a good harvest, representing his ascent to the heavens. Being sacrilegious, we took the north to south route.

reenacting the Beijing Huan Ying Ni music video

sliding down national treasures seems to be another favorite Asian pasttime

Following the Temple of Heaven, we went to China's national protest stage- Tiananmen Square- where it seemed every Chinese person had also decided to visit. The square, which felt at least as large as a football field, wasn't jam-packed but it was filled with tourists. Unfortunately, the main Tiananmen building as well as the Monument to the People's Heroes were surrounded by scaffolding, as they were being refurbished for the 60th anniversary of the PRC this October. Also unfortunately, we weren't able to see Mao's embalmed body as we would have had to wait behind the hundreds of people already waiting.

You didn't really want to see Mao's face anyway, right?

After pushing our way through the Tiananmen archway, we found ourselves in the pathway leading up to Forbidden City, the same pathway the Emperor used to traverse (actually, be carried along). That day it was filled with hundreds upon hundreds of tourists and littered with trash instead.

It's actually pretty sad that a place which used to be so important and well-preserved is now a veritable dump.

We were especially lucky to have Rebecca around to guide us through the maze which is Forbidden City, as she not only provided historical information, she also showed us the most expedient path through the place.

storm drains

The palace is quite an awe-inspiring production, with its towering walls, gold plated tiles, and majestic staircases. I almost remarked that, unlike Korean palaces, Forbidden City would have been extremely difficult to invade until my Chinese friends reminded me that the British and French actually occupied the palace during the Second Opium War.

Whoever said that Korean palaces and temples all look the same has evidently never been to Forbidden City. While the first few structures were amazing to behold, the law of diminishing returns eventually kicked in, and once we got to the third or so building which looked exactly the same as the first two, I really couldn't care less.

People kept swarming to take pictures of the insides of the buildings, even though most of the time there was nothing more than a few chairs inside. I got pushed up against more hot, sweaty bodies that day than I ever thought possible.

After the monotony of the palace structures, the clock museum inside Forbidden City was an unexpected highlight. The clockmakers of the 17 and 1800's crafted some incredibly elaborate and sophisticated timepieces, which were all the more amazing considering the fact that they had no computer technology to aid them, only gears and sprockets.

One of the clocks featured hopping birds and flowing rivers, another an elephant which would pull a chariot along a track. Yet the most impressive clock was one which contained a seated figure which would actually write out various Chinese characters onto a small piece of paper whenever the clock chimed.

One of our latter stops in Forbidden City was the concubine quarters. These were behind the largest wall in the entire complex (as seen below), apparently to keep an angry/jealous empress from getting in and starting a girlfight.

These pots actually had a two-fold purpose, neither of which involved playing hide-and-seek: one, they could be filled with hot water to provide warm spots during the winter, and two, they could be filled with any sort of water to be used in case of fire, which the residents of FC were constantly afraid of

Vivian and Rebecca, having lived in Hong Kong for two years, had picked up the brisk walk and unending stamina associated with the island and kept wanting to see more and more, while Sutong and I, influenced by the "lazy American" attitude, were drained and kept waiting for the tour to end.

At long last, we emerged from the back gate of Forbidden City, from which we traveled to a hutong, an alley-sort of street which is historically where Beijingers have lived. Nowadays, they seem to be catering more towards foreign tourists, with restaurants offering Western food and souvenirs.

Next, we had dinner at a place called "Jing Wei Lou" near our hotel, which I would strongly recommend to anyone visiting Beijing. While the flour dishes like the dumplings and green onion pancakes were average, the toffee-glazed sweet potatoes should be as much of a must-eat as Peking duck.

donkey meat tasted slightly of liver

kung pao chicken, vegetables, and toffee-glazed sweet potatoes

I'm really thankful we had sunny weather and clear blue skies that weekend in Beijing- apparently both are relatively rare in the city- and it was great to be able to see the famed capital for myself. Nevertheless, by the time I landed back in Seoul Monday, I was glad to be back in the clean, modern, [mostly] efficient, and more compact city. Beijing certainly boasts power, grandiosity, great bargains, and great food, but it also suffers from its huge size, overcrowding, brusque attitudes, and relative inefficiency. It seems to me that Korea's small size, which I had previously seen as a negative aspect, is actually a boon. People in Korea seem to be united by various strands of Korean culture (including, but not limited to, Kpop, dramas, hagwons, and Starcraft), while China is home to so many people from varied racial, economic, and cultural backgrounds that it's much more difficult to pinpoint definitive commonalities linking Chinese people together.