I joined a few TripaDeal groups on Facebook when I started booking all of these holidays. This one is the Terracotta Warriors tour. The China FB groupswere explicit about a couple of things.
The flights from Australia get in REALLY late. The days are go!go!go! and the lunches and dinners are late. Blogless Sandy and I took heed and brought a whole heap of muesli and nut bars with us.
So we weren’t surprised when we arrived at our hotel at 2 am. To my surprise, Tina, our Beijing guide, started the day at 9:20, so we were able to get most of a good night’s sleep. Muesli bars stuffed in our bags, along with a couple of hard boiled eggs I souvenired from the breakfast buffet, we jumped on the bus and made our way to our first stop, Tiananmen Square.
Long time readers… very long time readers… might recall that the first time I went to England, my dear friend Scott kept telling me to look up whenever we were in gracious manors or cathedrals. This morning, I looked up to the most enormous building on the road opposite the hotel.
The longer I travel, I’m loving how things are starting to prompt memories and emotions between other trips. This morning Blogless Sandy got up and opened the curtains. I had a flashback to Banff last year when Megan got up, opened the curtains and said, “It’s SNOWING!”
In Beijing, it was more like smog. Not quite as exciting.
Our first stop was Tiananmen Square. The first thing I noticed was that there is now far more security in place than there was back in 2018. Instead of going through security once at the entrance, we had to put our bags and belongings through scanners multiple times.
Here, your ticket is your passport, so you have to be prepared to hand it over to the tour guide who will then organise admission.
The weather was very humid and hot, and all of the concrete pavers in the square weren’t helping things. People were everywhere. Tina told us that you have to book your ticket to come here many days in advance, even for Chinese citizens. This includes visiting the crystal coffin where Mao’s body lies in state. This wasn’t on offer on this tour but no matter. We did it in 2018 when you could just join the queue.
Over 1 million people have visited chairman Mao since he died. As Tina said, he’s far busier now when he’s dead than when he was alive!
We wandered through the place, taking in the sights, then Tina asked us to do a group photo. Now, I’m not a fan of these, to be honest. I know I’ll never look at it again. But she told us the REAL reason tour guides insist on taking these.
It’s because when after tours have finished, occasionally someone will claim that they didn’t go on the tour, or an optional activity, and will try and get their money back. But if your smiling face is there in the group photo, you don’t have a leg to stand on. Interesting, hey?
The left hand side is wishing the Chinese unity and longevity.
People of the world are also wished unity and longevity on the right. In other words, we hope we are a peaceful family with a peaceful world for everyone.
I like this photo because it illustrates something Tina told us. She said that to visit Tiananmen Square was a dream for many Chinese, especially those born after the 1940’s.
I didn’t take too many photos in the Forbidden City because I saw it back in 2018, so my blog posts capture it. This one was taken looking back at a door. It had 81 gold buttons on it, which you can see sticking out.
In feng shui, the number 9 is lucky. If you go through the doorway and you touch nine buttons,and then pretend to put the last one in your pocket – that brings you good feng shui. I tried it out. I’ll let you know how it goes.
It was funny wandering around the Forbidden City. I remembered so many things. I remember where to buy the tickets, where we had lunch, where I bought my brass statue of the Empress. I remember walking through the gardens and being able to get close enough to actually see what’s in the pavilions.
It was surprising to me, because I was only there for an afternoon a long time ago, but it was like seeing an old friend.
The grand entrance. It’s wonderful theatre. The way this whole place was designed to accentuate the power and majesty of the emperor is impressive.
The scale is amazing. The courtyards were intended to fit hundreds, if not thousands of people. This square was where the Emperor would give his morning audience, so the government officials would come here early in the morning.
And by ‘early’, I mean 4 o’clock in the morning. Feng shui believes that the best time to remember things starts at 4 o’clock in the morning, so that’s why the government officials came to listen to the Emperor. Personally, I think everyone in this scenario would be pissed off at the early starts, from the emperor right down to the lowliest clerk, but I suppose you can’t argue with tradition.
In the middle of the courtyard was a great big cauldron to fill up with water. They were dotted around all over the place. Tina called them ‘Asian fire extinguishers’ and we laughed. They used to be covered in gold, but the French and the British stole the gold when they came through.
Just like in Vietnam and Japan, the girls like dressing up in traditional clothes and taking beautiful photos.
The details here are beautiful. The dragons on the roof, with their tails running down. The colours of the tiles and paint, with gilding accentuating the opulence.
The shape of the pavilions.
The tiles themselves. Stunning.
Imagine being the emperor, standing here overlooking hundreds of people in the courtyard below you and knowing that they were there to fulfil your every command? It would go to your head.
Now, commoners and – even worse – foreigners flood through the doors every day. The horror!
They even bring their toddlers. Even stairs don’t deter them!
We made our way through and joined the group again at the end. Then we had an adventure. We had to jump on a city bus.
I felt sorry for the locals. Our group had 40 people, while half of another TripaDeal group jumped on as well. We rode for 5 squashy minutes until we got off and rejoined our normal bus, probably to the great relief of the locals.
After a late lunch, we went to our first optional extra. It was a stage extravaganza involving puppetry, acrobatics, thousands of litres of water all over the stage and a light show.
Also, ladies wearing live peacocks on their heads, as you can see.
It was spectacular. The guy who designed the opening and closing ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics designed this show ten years earlier. Some people elected not to go, which I thought was pretty dumb. They came halfway across the world and then chose to sit on a bus instead of spend $100 for a ticket to a show that would never be put on in Australia.
We went back to the hotel after this, but the best was yet to come.
Seven years ago, I taught a lovely kid called Lucas in year 8 English. At the end of that year, he and his family relocated back to China after 2 years of living in Australia. When he left, he asked if he could email me, so over the years we’ve kept in touch. Sometimes he’d ask for help with an English problem he had at school, which made me smile.
When I knew I’d be coming here, I let him know. He’s at uni now, studying in Beijing, so we caught up for dinner. I was a little worried that we might run out of things to talk about, but I needn’t have been concerned. We talked and laughed all night and I didn’t get back to the hotel until midnight.
Every teacher has a few special kids that they never forget, and Lucas is one of them for me. I am so proud of the way he’s handled living in different countries with very different cultures, and how he’s taken the best of each of them to carry with him, going forward.
He’s a terrific person and I’m so glad we were able to catch up.
God, I love travel. It’s so much fun to meet, and then catch up with friends from all over the globe!
Here’s a then and now photo:
Dad joke of the Day:
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