Beijing, China - Day 2

Tuesday, April 21

Yesterday as we left the ship, we were advised that the "all aboard" time had been brought back to 4.00pm instead of 6.00pm so we decided to get an early start this morning and met William at 7:30am in the lobby of the hotel.

Our first view of Tian'anmen Square with the Forbidden City in the background

The queue in the background is to get in to see Chairman Mao's body and it's only 8am!

We drove to Tian'anmen Square - the world's largest gathering spot. Thankfully it wasn't a weekend day but the number of people there was still staggering. The queue to see Chairman Mao's body was so long, William estimated it to be a 2-3 hour wait - and this was around 8.00am! We were glad that didn't form part of our itinerary. Walking through Tian'anmen Square was very interesting. Obviously thoughts of the massacre were in our minds and the heavy presence of Chinese military added to the feeling of lack of freedom. The focal point at the end of the square is a huge portrait of Chairman Mao.

The Chinese take photos of any and everything so "selfie sticks" were out in full force. Al wanted to take a photo of me and all of a sudden I was swamped by Chinese women and girls wanting to have their photos taken with me. As soon as one would get her pic, another would jump in. It was very good for the ego and hysterical too, hearing the ones who spoke English saying I looked like a film star. They kept touching my hair and some jabbered away in Chinese. A bit further on, an old Chinese woman spoke to William saying she wanted her picture taken with me. I was brought right back to earth when William told me that she said to him I must be from Mars! Oh well, stardom was good while it lasted! He did try to soften the blow by saying she was from a distant rural province and this was probably her one and only pilgrimage to see Chairman Mao's body and it was possible that she had never seen a blonde haired woman before in real life.

Film Star or Martian?

The Forbidden City is located at one end of the Square along the Feng Shui axis. It was forbidden to the common man and only the Emperor and his concubines lived there in relative opulence until the collapse of the various dynasties about 300 years ago. Chinese opulence is nothing like the Russian opulence in St Petersburg though. The myths that surround everything are all very strange to us and we both felt that if you could believe them, you could believe anything but the Chinese are very superstitious and seem to take it all on board. Different animals, colors, shapes, etc. represent longevity, prosperity, happiness, etc. William was very knowledgeable and told us so many different myths and stories that we ended up totally overwhelmed by them all. One thing that surprised us was how dirty everything was in what is such a national treasure. Yesterday at the cloisonné factory William had told us we would be amazed at the cloisonné at the Forbidden City. He was right, we were, but for all the wrong reasons. Exquisitely intricate cloisonné vases and pots were housed in glass display boxes that were so thick with dust, we could hardly see them plus they had to be viewed from outside the various rooms through an equally dusty window! All through Beijing we noticed buildings, many modern and of great design, but all dirty on the outside so obviously clean windows and facades are not a high priority for them.

Views of the Forbidden City

Next stop was a Silk factory and we were really interested to see how the silk is harvested from the silk worm then spun into fabrics. The factory specialized in pure silk duvets, covers, etc. and we are now the proud owners of a pure silk doona complete with pure silk cover & pillow slips. The Chinese have not been pushy in any way re selling and we did not feel coerced at all as we so often do at these sort of stops.

From there it was time for lunch and a loo stop. I will be so glad to leave squat toilets and slimy Chinese food well behind me. Chinese cuisine has never been a favorite but it is definitely off the radar for us for quite some time. We were pleased to find some western food and fresh veges on this restaurant's menu though.

Not what we see on Aussie roads - especially freeways too!

It was then time for our 3.5 hour drive back to port to meet the 4.00pm boarding time. We had a great run back and didn't encounter any traffic jams but did see some interesting sights along the way with overloaded trucks, etc. The Chinese port authorities seemed to have no regard for our timetable. No sooner were we all back on board than we were told we had to go back ashore to the terminal for a body temperature check. This was novel. We all filed through an opening with a heat thermal machine above that registered our body temp on a computer. The official in charge of this computer seemed more interested in everything around him than watching the computer. All of a sudden, people behind us were told to go back to the ship - they apparently only needed to check 600 people and who knows for what! Next drama was an amazing wind and dust storm that blew up causing the ship to move and destabilize the gang plank meaning that the last stragglers about to board had to wait in the terminal until the wind died down and things could be rectified with the gang plank. The wind died down as quickly as it had blown up.

The wind and dust storm that blew up at the port terminal

We were due to sail at 7.00pm but several hours later we were still in port and our poor Captain was obviously at his wits end trying to comply with the Chinese officials' myriad of requirements. His announcements to us, whilst still very professional, were indicative of his total frustration. Around 10.30pm we slowly pulled away from the wharf headed to Jeju, South Korea but with a day at sea in between.

 

 

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