First full day of fun in Beijing
We had an AMAZING day of sightseeing and shopping today!!!
It started off with the #1 most comforting thing ever – finding out that the breakfast buffet here at the hotel is pretty darn good. What a relief. There is nothing worse than having to drag
yourself somewhere every morning because the food sucks.
After breakfast Fu Ling (aka Freda) our tour guide came to pick us up for a tour of some of the “Hutongs” in the old part of Beijing. The term hutong is loosely translated as ‘alleyways’. Our bus took us into the area, and then we all emptied into rickshaws, and the drivers zipped us through the maze of back alleys. The pictures don’t really do it justice, but basically each hutong is its own little community. All the buildings are single story. There are shops facing the street, and then every so often there is a
door that leads to an inner courtyard of homes. In each courtyard there are between 15 and 30 families. The highlight of the tour was the visit to Mr. Leung (we think that is his name….), who is famous for his collection of birds, and even more famous for his crickets. He apparently raised the champion fighting cricket in all of China. Who even new that cricket fights existed? Our guide told us there is a lot of money in it……
He was very generous with his home, showing us his crickets, the biggest grasshopper I’ve ever seen, and then he let us poke around his house to get a feel for life in a hutong. In the photo he is showing us the special scale to weigh the crickets before the fight (they both have to be in the same weight class, naturally!) To say it was
fascinating doesn’t do it justice. It is incredible to think that we were getting a glimpse of the high-life. Mr. Cricket sees up to 150 tourists a day, so you have to figure that he is doing OK, and his accommodations were certainly modest by western standards.
Next we went to the Bell Tower. The tower was built in the late 18 century. It is home to the heaviest bell in the world, weighing in at about 6,000 lbs. It only rings once per year, on New Years.
There is a tea house in the bottom of the tower, where we were treated to a traditional Chinese tea ceremony. Did you know that there are two cups in the ceremony? One is for smelling the fragrance of the tea, and the other is for drinking. We were given STRICT instructions that we were not to mix the two!
Then it was lunch time. Our guide took us to a local restaurant and ordered for us. This was great since we are still sort of finding our way when it comes to ordering food. Although, I must say that there is a lot more English spoken here than we expected. All in all it is a pretty easy city to get around due to that, but having a guide sure is a bonus.
After lunch Fu Ling made arrangements for a bunch of us to go to the Pearl Market. This was not part of the planned itinerary, but we figured it would be good to go now while we are still childless. As you can see from the photos, this was a little slice of heaven for me. I am posing with my new best friend, "Mandy" the sales person. We bought some jade jewelry, and also pearls for both AJ and Charlotte as keepsakes for when they are older. It wasn’t cheap, but the prices are a fraction of what you would pay for the same quality at home. I was also looking for a “Charlotte” bauble to match the earrings I got when AJ was born, but I just couldn’t find the perfect thing. Well, that’s not exactly true. I did have my eyes on a perfectly lovely strand of black pearls, but that was when I had no idea how expensive they were. Once we saw the price tag – 96,000 RMB (about 13K CAD) – I quickly reset my sights on
a pendant with a single pearl : ) We will most definitely be going back when we return next week.
Tomorrow morning we get up bright and early (5:30 am) for our 2.5 hour flight to Guangzhou. Only 2 more sleeps until we finally get to meet Charlotte!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Monday is going to be really tough. We do paperwork in the morning, and we don’t get the babies until 2:00 pm or so. Naturally we will post as soon as we are able…..
It started off with the #1 most comforting thing ever – finding out that the breakfast buffet here at the hotel is pretty darn good. What a relief. There is nothing worse than having to drag
yourself somewhere every morning because the food sucks.After breakfast Fu Ling (aka Freda) our tour guide came to pick us up for a tour of some of the “Hutongs” in the old part of Beijing. The term hutong is loosely translated as ‘alleyways’. Our bus took us into the area, and then we all emptied into rickshaws, and the drivers zipped us through the maze of back alleys. The pictures don’t really do it justice, but basically each hutong is its own little community. All the buildings are single story. There are shops facing the street, and then every so often there is a
door that leads to an inner courtyard of homes. In each courtyard there are between 15 and 30 families. The highlight of the tour was the visit to Mr. Leung (we think that is his name….), who is famous for his collection of birds, and even more famous for his crickets. He apparently raised the champion fighting cricket in all of China. Who even new that cricket fights existed? Our guide told us there is a lot of money in it……He was very generous with his home, showing us his crickets, the biggest grasshopper I’ve ever seen, and then he let us poke around his house to get a feel for life in a hutong. In the photo he is showing us the special scale to weigh the crickets before the fight (they both have to be in the same weight class, naturally!) To say it was
fascinating doesn’t do it justice. It is incredible to think that we were getting a glimpse of the high-life. Mr. Cricket sees up to 150 tourists a day, so you have to figure that he is doing OK, and his accommodations were certainly modest by western standards.Next we went to the Bell Tower. The tower was built in the late 18 century. It is home to the heaviest bell in the world, weighing in at about 6,000 lbs. It only rings once per year, on New Years.
There is a tea house in the bottom of the tower, where we were treated to a traditional Chinese tea ceremony. Did you know that there are two cups in the ceremony? One is for smelling the fragrance of the tea, and the other is for drinking. We were given STRICT instructions that we were not to mix the two!
Then it was lunch time. Our guide took us to a local restaurant and ordered for us. This was great since we are still sort of finding our way when it comes to ordering food. Although, I must say that there is a lot more English spoken here than we expected. All in all it is a pretty easy city to get around due to that, but having a guide sure is a bonus.
After lunch Fu Ling made arrangements for a bunch of us to go to the Pearl Market. This was not part of the planned itinerary, but we figured it would be good to go now while we are still childless. As you can see from the photos, this was a little slice of heaven for me. I am posing with my new best friend, "Mandy" the sales person. We bought some jade jewelry, and also pearls for both AJ and Charlotte as keepsakes for when they are older. It wasn’t cheap, but the prices are a fraction of what you would pay for the same quality at home. I was also looking for a “Charlotte” bauble to match the earrings I got when AJ was born, but I just couldn’t find the perfect thing. Well, that’s not exactly true. I did have my eyes on a perfectly lovely strand of black pearls, but that was when I had no idea how expensive they were. Once we saw the price tag – 96,000 RMB (about 13K CAD) – I quickly reset my sights on
a pendant with a single pearl : ) We will most definitely be going back when we return next week.
Tomorrow morning we get up bright and early (5:30 am) for our 2.5 hour flight to Guangzhou. Only 2 more sleeps until we finally get to meet Charlotte!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Monday is going to be really tough. We do paperwork in the morning, and we don’t get the babies until 2:00 pm or so. Naturally we will post as soon as we are able…..
posted by Stephen Daze | 10:40 AM
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