The Forbidden City

I am overwhelmed by the Forbidden City. I believe I lived there in a former life. (in an Imperial role, not as one of the extra concubines or a fourth rate eunuch - someone higher up that that.) There are over 8000 buildings that comprise the Forbidden City from small little cupolas where two people can meet for a conversation, up to the Place that holds the Dragon Throne. I’m actually rather annoyed with the Chinese Governmental department that oversees the Forbidden City for closing off the middle opening to the Hall of  Supreme Harmony which houses the Dragon Throne. Here you have probably the most incredible throne in existence today. and you can’t let the public see the details? I and about 100 Chinese citizens were pushing each other to get a decent view, from an angle that was not at all satisfying. Fortunately I could take most of them and got about a 66% sighting, but come on!!! Commie pinkos!

Here's what I should have seen.

But still, the Forbidden City! Incredible, amazing, fabulously interesting, historically suburb Forbidden City. Hard to walk up and down the million plus stairs, hard to get the English language tape to play at the right time, annoying not to get a proper look at the Dragon Throne (did I mention that?) but unbelievably wonderful. It was so satisfying despite the aching knees and exhaustion. There are several trees in the Imperial Garden that are 300 and 400 years old. There were palaces and courtyards and gates and pavilions and belvederes (excellent trivia question - what’s a belvedere?) The size of the Forbidden city it what is so surprising. You go through one amazing gate leading to an amazing palace and that’s just the beginning, it just goes on and on. Those Mings and Qings know how to house their emperors and his entourage. 

We were also in Tiananmen Square, which is huge!!! We wanted to go to Mao's mausoleum, but we just ran out of time. But it was amazing just being in the historic square.

Where is everybody?

We had the most beautiful weather you could imagine. Picture a perfect crisp and beautiful autumn day. From what I gather about Beijing, you don’t often see a beautiful sunny day, pretty much ever. But this day was perfect. 

We stared the day taking a modern day rickshaws (electric motor) through downtown Beijing, over many HUGE intersections. I have mentioned before that the Chinese are crazy drivers and I don’t care how stereotypical that,  sounds, I’m standing by it. OK, I’m not talking about all Chinese, only the 1.4 billion who live in China. That I’m firm on. 

So these drivers were taking me and Svend to an ATM. Would you suspect an ATM in downtown Beijing would be a 15 minute ride away? After believing we were being kidnapped, in addition to possibly being killed, we safely arrived at an ATM. However the poor unsuspecting drivers didn’t know what they were getting into when they tried to get over on Svend Hansen. The price agreed upon when leaving was 3 yuan (we thought) which is on 45 cents, but when we got out that said 300 yuan $45. OK, so we had taken a taxi the night before for about 40 minutes and it cost 55 yuan, about $8.00. So we knew 45 cents was too little and gave then 50 yuan ($7.50) But Svend’s driver wasn’t happy and the two of them started screaming in the middle of the street. (If you know Svend, you probably have never heard him scream at anyone.) There was a good sized crowd starting to gather, but Svend just walked away with the Chines guy yelling something that I’m pretty sure we could all figure out.

They still like each other in this pic

It was so tense but really so much fun! I did manage not to laugh until the we were out of sight to those guys. So all this excitement, followed by the gorgeous day at the Forbidden City. We were going to go out for Hotpot that night, but were too tired, so we went downstairs in our Chinese Faulty Towers hotel and had a very unsatisfying meal served by a bitchy waitress. Perfect day!

Grammar Lovers Beware

Anyone who journeys through Asia knows that it is great fun to find and make fun of mis-translated signs. I didn’t say it was nice, I said it was fun. Here are some examples.

Obviously

No grammar mistake, but fun anyway

Words on a wall

While Billow listening is important, sometimes you need a toilet!

New Spelling for New Balance

No happiness for the driver if Svend and I take this taxi!

Of course it is

Question - how would you get into this shop to buy the unknown dead things? Jump over the bananas?

What do you think, should we swim there?

I have no words for this one..

There's a lot charm here

I hate when lunch is sitting outside the restaurant

Wouldn't this be Pro British Mission?

I was going to order the shadow but I was too full.

Just a beautiful cup of Cha Latte!

Other non picture sitings:

The Mutton and Dog Butcher Shop -I'm going to have to find that place again and get off the bus with my camera

Singles’ day is a popular in the young people’s entertainment festival to celebrate their singles still proud. - an ad in the elevator at the Sheraton

The Dry Dock Experience

One of the perks I have been blessed with by hanging with Svend, is to get a view of the shipping world that few outsiders have. I bore anyone who will listen about my Panama Canal experience. Now once more, three years later I am aboard the Sunbelt Spirit, high in a dry-dock at the Chengxi Shipyard on the Yangtze River on a warm and smoggy day.

This doesn't look at all scary and yet it was. 

Getting onboard was not what one would consider easy. It wasn’t the slippery dock that was being hosed down or 100 plus metal steps into the dry dock itself that got to me, I was prepared for that. It was the metal bridge that went from the dry-dock to the ship, hundreds of feet above the water on what seemed (but wasn’t) a rickety apparatus. I’m still wiping the sweat from my palms. I believe Svend purposely left out that step when he explained what it was like to get onto the ship. But now I’m onboard and like Scarlett O’Hara I will think about getting off later. 

Right now I’m using the ships washing machine and catching up with the blog and trying to stay out of the way of all the important men doing whatever it is they do. In fact there was really a lot going on. From the outside the enormous ship was being sand blasted. 

Hard hats rule!

Seeing the Sunbelt Spirit, out of water with nary a Toyota in sight is a weird thing to see. There are 12+ empty  car decks with occasional teams of Chinese or Polish (or Swedish) people  doing things. There are 2 captains and 2 chef engineers on board right now, which means the executive Nancy and Svend Hansen cabins are being occupied by these people. Outrageous! But Svend found a lonely unoccupied cabin where the exercise equipment is set up for me to use as a hideout. (not to exercise) My new best friend Burt the steward made it nice for me. By the way I am invited to the Philippines where he will show me and Svend around when we visit. Little does he know I’ll probably take him up on that offer.

Look at Svend, pretending to be a mild mannered driver!

Everyone knows boys never grow up, right? So it was with Svend when after lunch he took me on a tour of the work being done.  Twelve empty decks, no cars, ramps in between them and a John Deere ATV. You know where this is going. Let’s try and scare the girl! Of course I was scared, but I have to admit it was fun! 

I don’t know if the Chinese welders enjoyed the a hardhatted western woman walking through their cutting torches and hoses. I wasn’t overly crazy about it myself, but this was an important part of the job removing a chunk of the ship and replacing the steel.

There’s a bend in the ship that was made by heavy waves and bad weather, isn’t that scary? It’s a big darn ship. It really is amazing to think of how much planning and coordination  goes into a job this big. It was good to see what Svend really does, even though I already know how valuable he is to Farefield Maxwell. SUPERintendent! 

And so the exciting day ended when the bus driver picked up all the weary workers for the 5:50 ride back to the hotel. Oh wait -what fresh hell that was!!! I was almost lured into taking back some of my disparaging remarks about the Chinese professional drivers. But no, this guy was horrendous!!! Lucky me,  in the front seat getting a bird's eye view of the little family on a scooter coming right for us (btw many of these electric scooters have no lights, but that doesn't stop them from riding around at night with a baby being held by the mom sitting behind the driver.) Or then there was the time he shot over to another lane leaning on the horn to get ahead of everyone else, naturally - a huge truck coming our way.  . Even the burly Russian shipyard workers were looking a little nervous. But once again we survived. I really wanted to slap this guy too!

Excuse me while I eat this beautiful piece of cake someone just brought me while I sit poolside. (obviously not still onboard the Spirit) There's thank-you-to-the-workers  soiree going on and one of the kind hotel managers just brought this over.

Why is my life so hard???

The Richest Village in China

Yesterday I went to the richest village in China and the best place to live in the world. HuaXi - that’s how it’s billed. You can see it on Youtube if you don’t believe me. 

The experience  started out with a long drawn out process at the front desk where they couldn’t grasp the fact that I wanted to take a bus and not be driven by a private driver who would sit around and wait for me for a few hours and charge $60. Not that that’s so much for 4 hours, but the bus was 60 cents. Eventually a different person behind the counter wrote out these directions- Number 12 bus 10 stops. then walk 526 meters - find bus 205 and get off in 23 stops. Now that’s service. He said I’m afraid of some confusion getting from bus 12 to bus 205 (Yes, me too 528 meters in what direction?) But I said, I’ll give it a try. Now the first concierge says. “Probably no one speaks English at the bus station” can you tell he’s not my favorite person? I said, Not to worry - I’ll figure it out  and off I went thinking, I don’t care if I have to walk around the Jiangsin bus station for 3 hours, I’m not coming back saying I couldn’t get to HuaXi!

But of course I got the HuaXi - and back  thanks in part to the kindness of helpful strangers. During the the "526 meter walk" I was looking hopelessly lost and a kind woman got me on the right track without speaking a word of English. Those days of playing Charades paid off.

OK that was a lot of talk without even mentioning the greatest place to live on earth. People who live there get to live in their own house, get a car and cooking oil. The houses are nice, at least what I could see from outside the gates, because it s definitely a gated community. There was a lovely park with a big grandstand and seated statues of famous people, the only one I recognized was Mao. The only thing missing from all this loveliness was people. Yes it was the middle of the day, but someone, somewhere? the caveat for living here is that you have to work seven days a week, which in my opinion is cruel and unusual punishment. And where are the kids?

The jewel in the crown of this “village” is an opulent and gorgeous hotel/museum. The lobby has huge pieces of jade, great marble floors, it is really really posh and in the middle a statue of Mao with 2 carts and water buffalo. Incongruous, I thought. I do wonder what Mao would have thought about all this. 

We tourist could take the elevator to the top floor (72nd) for 150 yuan (about $22.50) Initially I thought this was a huge rip off because when you get to the top, although the design was great, the view was very much impeded by the smog. This was surprising since it didn’t seem too smoggy from the ground.  And guess what, - you could buy stuff up there. I’ve heard the term “red capitalism” since I’ve been here and I guess this is it. 

However the rip off was greatly lessened by the fact that every 12 floors on the way down, there were beautiful element themed exhibits. Floor 60 was metal (what's your favorite metal, gold of course.) Not surprisingly,this was the most beautiful. There’s a solid gold cow in the foyer (again, what would Mao say?) But I thought it was impressive. The building was a tower, so on these exhibit floors you went around a circular route. The floors, walls and ceilings here were all painted gold to emulate the Summer Palace of the last dynasty. (I happen to be reading Imperial Woman right now, which has a great deal to do with the Summer Palace, so I was really enjoying the vibe) Gold is good!

The other floors were wood, (some beautiful artwork ) water,(aquariums) fire, and earth (a four season's walk through a garden). They got less impressive as you went down, although on the fire floor there was a movie running that began with the volcanic beginning of the earth, man's discovery of fire and a quick fast forward to the building of HuaXi, presumably man's greatest accomplishment.

I'm not sure why the bovine theme, but each floor had an impressive cow, bull or buffalo in its foyer.

The story of HuaXi is very interesting and is the product of one person Wu Renbau. It is a farming commune that has branched out to manufacturing, and other stuff that's getting boring. The final decision is it's cool and interesting, but I would rather have a couple days off every week. 
Back to the Sheraton pool please. Full disclosure - it cost 60 cents to get back too.

The elevator for touching Buddha’s feet:

Poor Robert, having to spend Saturday with two Gringos. But as I said, he is a lovely man and didn’t let on he would have rather been with his one year old, not doubt adorable son and his probably lovely wife. We know we are going to see a statue of Buddha, which is never bad, but I’m still curious about the entertainment. Anyway, off we go on the hour drive,-PS. -Robert is a good driver - no career for him in the chauffeur trades.

The roads are amazingly good in this part of China, straight well paved, well lit, many with solar street lights. As we got closer to our destination the terrain became more hilly and more interesting. Suddenly we spied a bronze Buddha that looked as big as the surrounding hills. Now I can see why this is a tourist attraction.  The Buddha at Ling Shan. Turns out to be the largest bronze Buddhas in China. I like how they qualify the material of the Buddha - I must research if there are larger stone or iron Buddhas to be found. Soon we arrived at the parking lot that was filling up with buses and cars at 8:30 AM. Robert did the tour guide stuff, bought the tickets and a a device with nice English translation recording of all we would be seeing. One you go through the first gate, there are bridges to cross and which bridge you choose is important depending on what improvements you need to concentrate on. I accidentally went over the Bridge of Helping Others, or maybe that was the Buddha pushing me.

The place was amazing, spread out over a vast park dominated by the massive 88 meter bronze Buddha. There was also a baby Buddha that periodically comes out a lotus flower on the top of a pillar during a fountain show set to music, a wall with fresco scenes from Buddha’s life  (quite nicely done) an amazing multimedia program inside a palace building that told the story of Buddha’s life culminating in the Bohdi tree rising from the middle of the floor and a light show representing Enlightenment. You did not need to understand Chinese to be impressed. So that’s how they entertain you before noon in Wuxi, China!

The visit wound up with taking a jitney then and elevator (literally called the "Elevator for touching Buddha's feet") up to the huge statue and having the opportunity of touching Buddha's feet with will bring you peace. Then you need to walk down 218 stairs because the jitney won't drive anyone down.

Adios for now Shanghai...

So we survived and enjoyed 3 nights in an authentic Chinese community at the lovely apartment. Now it  was time to journey two hours north to Jiangyin, where the shipyard is located. The agent sent a driver to pick us up at the end of our alley. We bid farewell to the “USA teacher, wonderful, beautiful"and were off The man never said one word to us and as soon as the traffic cleared up enough for him to drive like a maniac, he did so. A word here about the drivers we have encountered so far… all insane!! No that’s not fair, only those who drive for a living, the taxi, limo and bus drivers. I believe when you go for a test as one of these professionals, you only pass when you demonstrate the ability to weave through traffic at 75 miles an hour, beep your horn incessantly for no apparent reason, and talk on the phone in Chinese. On one bus ride, I had to stop myself from walking up to the driver and slapping him on the head. He lay on the horn continuously for seven stops. - But it did only cost15 cents, so I guess I shouldn’t complain.

When we got to the loveliest Sheraton I have ever seen, I was quite happy. We’re all for authentic, live-like-the- native travel, but an olympic size pool, sauna and spa trumps those noble thoughts in roughly 1.2 seconds.

Ahhh home sweet home for the next  2 weeks!

We were invited to dinner by Robert, the shipyard go-between  in charge of making the customers happy, a really nice, sweet guy with good English, and Ding, his boss, also very nice. They had just been in Boston for a short time and when they had 3 hours to wait for a plane they took the T to Harvard and MIT.! Wouldn’t you just go the the Black Rose?

Robert did the ordering of the various dishes - sushi, fish, crabs, vegetables, etc. Apparently these “hairy crabs” are all the rage at this time of year and although they were fine, crabs are crabs - too much work for too little reward. I’m done with them unless they are from Alaska or a can.

The fish was called “bubble fish” which was good. After we  ate it Svend said, “At first I thought you said “Blowfish, like those poisonous ones in Japan” yes of course, that’s what they were. Apparently not that many people do really die when they eat them and we didn’t die either, so that was good. All and all the food and the company was quite good.

One bummer is that they had to change which shipyard was going to be used and the new one is at least a half hour away by bus instead of ten minutes. When Svend said it was OK, we had to do what was best for the ship, Robert said, “But ships don’t have feeling, people do” I thought, how cute was that? (and P.S. - no way I’m leaving that Sheraton to move closer to the new shipyard!) 

It was arranged that Robert was going to take up to a famous tourist place about an hour away. The next day and would be at our hotel at 7:30 AM so we could get there early so as not to miss the entertainment! What kind of entertainment do they have at 8:30 AM???? But from the outside, one would never have guessed at my inner thoughts. Yes, thank you, see you at 7:30 AM!!