Beijing Trip - Beijing Day 3

Today's schedule was a trip to the Forbidden City and Beihai Park. We started the morning with a short visit to DreamArts for 9:00am for worship and devotion. Afterward, the staff showed us the art center, which is on the 19th floor of a large building.


On the way to the art center, we passed by a sad looking building. The sign outside said "Beijing Electrical Engineering School."


View out the 19th floor art center towards the airport


Piano room (Casio digital keyboards)


Art room

We hung out at the art center until 11:30am waiting for a couple of us to be registered with the local police station. The staff took my passport to the PSB since we were not staying at a hotel. I'm supposed to do this each time I stay in Chengdu but have not bother to do so yet. After we were all properly registered, we went to lunch at the local McDonalds. I had a Big Mac combo for RMB21 or US$3, which is cheaper than the same combo back at home. It tasted exactly the same. Other stuff on the menu were China-only though: spicy McNuggets and cup of corn.


This McDonalds was open 24 hours. Most of us stood there looking at the menu (it's not that different than the US) while the cashiers kept asking us to order. They weren't rude but not exactly friendly either.


Lunch... no refill on drinks

After lunch, we took three taxis to Tiananmen Square. We tried to make sure each group had someone who spoke Chinese and had a cell phone. Out of the 10 of us, there are 5 Chinese people, one Indonesian Chinese, and 4 Koreans. It felt a bit like the Amazing Race. Two groups met up in Tiananmen Square while the last team was dropped off at the Tiananmen gate, below Mao's portrait.


On the way there, we passed by the new CCTV building.


Closer view. Much larger than I though it would be.


Some monument for heros of something in the middle of the square


There were some booths and flower displays in the square as part of the Paralympics


Security cameras everywhere

Part of our trip included a day trip in the Forbidden City. The entrance fee was RMB60 per person. It was a pretty hot and humid day yet there were still lots of people. I went through the Forbidden City during my last trip to Beijing. Since there were only two of us last time, we end up seeing a lot more. This time, we went around the edges of the area and took lots photos.


Mao's portrait on Tiananmen


Inside the Forbidden City (familiar from many movie scenes)


Modern Beijing skyline peeking over the walls of the Forbidden City


Emperor's throne (I think)


Back gate of the Forbidden City. The sign says Palace Museum, the same as the museum in Taipei. Not sure if the sign was there 10 years ago.

After spending several hours in the Forbidden City and coming out of the rear gate, we walked to Beihai Park. It was a pretty long walk and my leg/ankle was starting to hurt again. At the park, we did get to rest for awhile and debrief.


Some people playing Chinese chess outside the park entrance


Rental boats on Beihai (lake)


Lotus plants on the lake


Sun setting over rows of rental boats


The three girls on our NewSong NOC China team


On the way back to the guest house, our taxi drove along 4th Ring Road and past the "dragon" building near Olympic park.


Special menu at our favorite restaurant. The Engrish is awesome, "Does the pot to do the cauliflower" for RMB22.


Sept 14th is Mid-Autumn Festival or Moon Cake Day when the moon is at the fullest.

Beijing Trip - Beijing Day 2

Since today was Sunday, we went to visit the Beijing International Christian Fellowship (BICF) this morning. They have a lot of different services in different languages but we went to the main service at 11:30am. We met up with some of the DreamArts people at the bus stop and took the bus to the service. The bus fare was RMB1 since I did not have a debit card. When I paid the fare collector (there's one at each door), she asked me where I was going. I pointed at the rest of our group and said, "I don't know... I'm with them."

Their service felt a bit like NewSong with a contemporary band and lots of A/V stuff. However, the congregation was a lot more mixed (age and ethnicity) and most of the people on stage were older. They have three locations in Beijing and we were at the largest site. I think this was the same international fellowship I attended 10 years ago when I in Beijing but the location is different and they've grown a bit. It is still restricted to ex-pats/foreigners only so we had to bring our passports (thought last time I just showed my CA driver's license).


Worship team. There were two keyboard players but no electric guitar. Also the lady on house left looked like she didn't want to be there and appeared not to be singing very much.


Woohoo, the bass player was an old Asian guy!


The auditorium was pretty large and it was mostly full. I heard the attendance was something like 2,000 people. Not sure if it was for just the one service or the entire morning.


Can't visit a church without checking out their sound board (Soundcraft)

After the service, we walked down the street to a "California-style" shopping center to meet up with some people and ended up having lunch in the food court. It was weird walking around the shopping center; it was newly built and we felt we were back in Irvine. The architectural style and layout was eerily similar to The Spectrum or the District back home.


We walked down Lucky Street on the way to lunch


Wait, where are we? Beijing or Irvine?


Starbucks and Coldstone... where is the Chinese food?


Southern California architecture and stores

The food court was new and had lots of food choices. You have to buy a debit card when you walk in and they refund you the balance when you leave. I ended up spending RMB20 on a plate of cashew chicken with rice and a can of soda.


Food court... very clean for China. Of course we were told no photos allowed.


OK, not everything was Irvine-like

After lunch, the group decided to take the subway and find some "authentic" Beijing areas to walk around. A few of us took the taxi to the nearest subway station (because of my bum leg) and waited for the rest to make the 15 minute walk.


Automated ticket machines. I ended up buying an electronic card (RMB20 deposit). Fares are RMB2 to any station except the Airport Express (RMB25).


Checking out the Paralympics while we were waiting


Even though it was a Sunday afternoon, the subway was packed with people. I hate to come back during workday rush hour, especially since the odd/even license restriction on cars is still in effect.

We took the subway to Qianmen (Front Gate) south of Tiananmen Square. I think the was the gate into Beijing when the city was still walled (Mao tore down the walls after the CCP came in power). We had to transfer subway lines twice and each time involved a lot of walking. We semi-dressed-up for church so most of us were in long pants. It was pretty hot and humid in the stations though the newer subway cars were air conditioned.


We're not in Irvine anymore. We walked for about 30 minutes down this lane to the antique/art dealer lane. My team member from CCCSB was almost mugged here 10 years ago during our teaching trip.


Doorway


Taking a break. It was a lot of walking any my left leg has gone numb on me.


JeepSpeed!


We took taxis (4 taxis since we had 13 people) to the north end of downtown to the back gate and a lake/park. There were people kicking a feathered thingy (kinda like a hacky sack). It didn't look easy but this old guy was crazy awesome. He was kicking it really hard with another guy and would rally forever.

We walked along the lake which was surrounded by upscale restaurants and bars. There were lots of foreign tourists and everything looked expensive. We walked to the other end of the lake and had dinner at a restaurant called nuage (Vietnamese). Since people at our table were not that hungry, we just ordered some drinks and appetizers. The food was pretty mediocre, portions were ridiculously small, and it still cost our group RMB800+. Not going back there again.


You can pay for boat rides on the lake. At one end of the lake, there was a narrow bridge. It seems that Chinese people drive boats like they drive cars. There was a huge jam and boats were bumping each other to get through since no one was yielding. Good thing there are not too many Chinese airline pilots.


Spring rolls and shrimp rolls. Tiny... and about US$1 each (each roll, not each dish)


Pineapple fried rice. There was enough for one spoonful each of us (six) at the table.

Our table was on the second floor. To get up there, you had to climb a set of rickety stairs. After walking all day, my leg and ankle were really sore. So after dinner, I took a long time walking down. There were a group of Americans at the bottom waiting for me to walk down. They make a comment in English about about me taking forever, most likely thinking that I was local. I wonder if they would have made the same comment back in the US. I thought it was pretty rude but I guess I do the same thing when I speak Mandarin to friends/family so other people around us can't understand.

Great Firewall of China, Olympics Version

Since the Olympics and the accompanying rush of foreign journalists, China has been letting up on the GFoC. Since arriving in Beijing, I've been able to read/post to my blogger.com blog and I can still read the Chinese version of BBC, which I heard has been blocked since the beginning. However, all is not free in China. I just tried to get a bible verse from the Bible Gateway, and got the familiar "webpage not available" error. I guess foreign new sources are okay for now but not religious websites; I don't think it even has Chinese versions of the bible.

Just to be sure, I tried looking up "tiananmen" in Google.com (not Google.cn) and the first link was a Wikipedia page in English. I clicked and it did come up, with the picture of the "Tank Man" and everything. However, when I tried to click on the "中文" link on the left for the Chinese version, it was blocked. The Chinese government is probably counting on the fact that the average Chinese citizen can't read English very well. Not sure what they will do when all that English education begins to pay off. It's probably a moot point anyway; they will go back and re-block everything once the Paralympics are done and all the foreign journalists go home.

Beijing Trip - Beijing Day 1

Finally arrived in Beijing at around 11:30am. The new terminal at Beijing Capital International Airport is huge. I thought the terminal building in Hong Kong was pretty big but this is supposed to be even bigger. Too bad I had to walk through both today.


Part of terminal 3 from the air


From the inside


There are a lot of baggage carousels. In the corner of the sign it says "... passengers are strictly prohibited from dropping off or carrying other people's stuff." I guess it's grammatically correct but it's still funny to see the word stuff on an official sign.

Since most NewSong people were in Beijing already, I took a cab to meet them at the Wangjing hospital. The taxi driver didn't know where it was exactly so he had to ask some pedestrians. During the ride, he kept asking me how foreigners thought about the Olympics. I just told him we all thought it was pretty good, not getting into details about all the stuff I blogged about. When we arrived, the fare was RMB54. I pulled out a hundred and immediately he started whining about not having change. The only other bills I had were a 50 and 2 ones. He ended up taking the RMB52 but was pretty rude about it. Did he really expect foreigners taking the taxi from the airport to have exact change?


A lot of taxis were late model Hyundai Elantras. I used to own one of these.

Anyway, we went to lunch at a local restaurant (RMB35 each), returned to the guesthouse, which turned out to be a three bedroom apartment, and I took a much needed nap. I did sleep a bit on the plane, courtesy of NyQuil, but was still pretty tired. At 6:30pm, after our last team member arrived, we went to a hot pot place for dinner. Unlike the places in Chengdu I went to, here you get your own pot to cook from. Most of us got the non-spicy broth but three people went with the spicy version.


Chinese meatballs! (RMB8 each)


Spicy


View out the window of our 19th floor apartment


Another view... not sure which way (towards or away) from downtown Beijing, but there are tall buildings every which way you look. The smokestack in the middle of the photo is probably a trash incinerator. I saw lots of those in Taiwan.

Beijing Trip - Hong Kong Airport

Just arrived in Hong Kong after a 14 hour flight. Unlike Leon's flight earlier this week, the interior was still old and it was a packed flight. Sometimes I need to go to the bathroom a lot on a trans-Pacific flight; however, this time I didn't have to go at all. I did need to get up and walk around a bit to keep my left leg from swelling too much.

Since the plane arrived so early, I was able to take a shower in the Business Class lounge. The layover this time is only 2 hours so I need to start walking to the gate soon. After all the Olympics frenzy, it's easy to forget that the Paralympics are still taking place. Our plane arrived at gate 1 and right when you walk out, there is a media credential center. I didn't know there were equestrian events at the Paralympics though.




I take this same shot every time I'm here... there are a lot of planes this early in the morning (6am).

Back to LAX, Cathay Pacific did not update the departure board in the lounge so I went to the gate at around 11:00pm for my 11:45pm flight. The departure gate is 102 which is way on the south end of the Bradley Terminal. They are still renovating the terminal so none of the people movers are working. It a LOOONG walk from the lounges to gate 102; it took me about 15 minutes. Imagine my dismay when I read on the departure board that boarding was delayed until 11:40pm. We ended up boarding at almost midnight and the plane did not take off until 12:45am, an hour late. Amazingly, we still got to Hong Kong on time. There must be a lot of slack in the schedule. Maybe they fly slower when there's more time available since Cathay flights seem to always arrive on time in Hong Kong.


Everybody sit down... it's not time yet.

The girl (Sandra Chen) at the business class check-in counter at LAX was pretty friendly this time. She tried to make small talk, and we ended up talking in Mandarin. Turns out she's from Hainan Island in China; I was just there this past February. I thought most of Cathay's counter people were from Hong Kong so they can speak Cantonese. Maybe I should have asked for her phone number or something.

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I just got an email with links to photos (here and here) taken by other NewSong people that are already in Beijing.

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I also tried calling Leon. He was checking in for his flight from Chengdu to Hong Kong at 8am. I think our flight leaves at the same time though my flight is from Hong Kong to Beijing.

Beijing Trip - LAX

I'm at the oneWorld lounge at LAX again, waiting for my flight to Hong Kong. I was here when it first opened and it was pretty deserted. Today, the place is packed with people, almost standing room only. They do have more food though, except my stomach is feeling funny and I don't want to use the airplane toilet for 14 hours. I also see people walking around with flashing pagers; not sure if it's for letting you know your noodles are ready or something else.

My flight arrives in Hong Kong Saturday morning and I have a 2 hour layover before my flight to Beijing. I'm not sure where I'm supposed to go when I get there. Hopefully can reach the rest of the NewSong people then explain it to a taxi driver.