The Old Summer Palace and Seoul Part 2

I've been meaning to post these pictures for a few days now - especially after Kristin's comment about not having anything to check before she began work. But it's been tough to do so as I am using dial-up at my folks until I can get wireless. I am, at the moment, at a wifi spot. So, I will throw the last of my blogworthy pics up and then start posting pictures of Minnesota (and hopefully tempt friends in Japan, India, Germany, and Canada to make a trip out to see yours truly.

The old Summer Palace is very close to Peking University, so we walked there. There are two major differences between the old Summer Palace and the New Summer Palace:
1) The new one's architecture is strictly Chinese in nature, while the old one also included several buildings that reflected Western architecture (and which were, designed by Jesuits - those clever fellows).
2) The new one still has most of its buildings standing while the old one was blasted in 1860 by the British and the French during the Second Opium war (The museum has become a kind of symbol to the Chinese of foreign aggression). So while, as you saw in my earlier post, you can walk around and enjoy the New Palace in the way it was enjoyed by the last Emperor of China, you can only walk around the Old Palace ruins (which looks a bit like the Roman Forum) and try and imagine how magnificent it must have looked.

This place also had a place where you could dress up in imperial togs and get your picture taken. This child looked far more regal in his robes than i did in mine:

One of the treats of the Old Palace is this stone maze that somehow escaped the fate that met the buildings just to the east of it:


I would have liked this maze more if the walls were higher and the way in more difficult, but this was one of those "all roads lead to Rome" sort of mazes. I guess I'd have preferred a hedge maze to stone as well; however, in light of the demolishment of the once grand structures, I was going to cut this little maze some slack. Apparently at night on special occasions, girls who were part of the court would run through the maze with lanterns and guests of the emperor would rush in after them, using the light to guide them to the center pavilion. Along the way, there were some nice trees planted at various points. Here is one such tree creating its own maze of branches:

And here are some pictures of the ruins. Each one had a plaque in front of it with an etched brass plate showing what the building once looked like, but these were difficult to photograph (and to see, for that matter, given the sun's glare on the brass):



The Old Summer Palace was my last sightseeing place in Beijing. After bidding my parents an early farewell at customs at the Beijing Airport the next morning, I was on my way back to Seoul for a couple of days. I'd gotten to the airport super-early as we were concerned about traffic - it was the last day of holiday. Fortunately, I was able to catch an earlier flight to Seoul, so I didn't have to sit around so long. A note about airlines. This whole trip I flew on the Korean Asiana Airlines and I have to say that this airlines is one of the most efficient, hassle-free airlines I've ever had the good pleasure of flying with. Highly recommended.

Back in Seoul, I decided to go to a Korean Folk Village on the outskirts of town - this required a long bus ride, followed by a long walk, but the village was one of the nicest I'd been to:


I guess a lot of South Korean period films are set here - they were filming while I was there - here's a gang of actors waiting to go on:

All along the village were little huts with people showing how various Korean food, medicines, arts, crafts, and tools were made. Here's a picture of a paper-maker's shop:

I stopped here for lunch and had this lady make me a Korean pancake which was really delicious:


The grounds were extensive and included a small, cool (in both senses) lake upon which boats glided (I wanted to type "glid"):


The next day was somewhat low-key as I was getting tired and anxious to be getting back to the US. I stayed in the city and visited another palace - not as grand as the others, but nice nonetheless. There was a small ceremony going on outside of the gates, so I got some more pics:

Everyone was getting their picture taken with this dude, so I did as well:

In the afternoon, I went to this area that was a kind of street market that went on for blocks in every direction. The hawkers were a bit less vulturey than they were in Beijing at the Dirt and Silk Markets, so I was able to walk around pretty easily:

I saw this cool alley with a bunch of noodle stalls and women calling out, trying to get everyone to sit at their particular stall. I went in and had one of the most memorable meals in Korea. It began with kimchee and cold noodles and was followed by a fresh bowl of hot noodles in a really amazing broth. The cold noodles were spicy, but delicious - I had to keep refilling on water:

The Summer Palace

Hi all. I'm home. I got really nostolgically excited as my plane flew over Minnesota. As I got closer to the airport, the first recognizable thing I saw from the plane window was the Target on Cliff Road near my parent's home in Burnsville. I was so happy to see how green everything was. My thanks to all of you who arranged things with nature to work out perfect for my return - the lilacs blooming was a nice touch.

This morning I drove to Cub Foods to get some groceries as I was a bit peckish. I stepped in the doors of the store and was overwhelmed. I've been to this grocery store many times, but after a year plus in Asia, everything was huge and I had no idea where to begin. After I got a few groceries, I called my sister-in-law to ask her where I could get Japanese foodstuffs and she recommended Kim's - a Korean/Asian market that has a lot of the things I've grown used to eating.

Well, even though I'm back, my blog hasn't caught up with me yet, so I am going to post today on the Summer Palace. This HUGE area complete with lakes and dragon boats was, to me, the highlight of my time in China. Here are some pics with (as per usual) very little commentary. It's hard to belive all this was built for just one family, but great to know it's available to everyone now:



Here's a short video of some musicians playing traditional Chinese music in the building in the preceding picture:

They had this area of the palace where you could don emperor/empress style costumes for about 10 yuan (which is nothing) and then take your picture. Mom and I, who don't mind a little foolishness decided to try them on. I look like I'm wearing some kind of one-piece legless baby outfit with a bow tie. I thought I'd look better if I kept a stoic look, but I simply look nervous and constipated:

Mom's pic looked much better - she'd have made a better dowager empress than I'd have made an emperor. I think under my rule, China would be a pretty silly place (but we'd have fun, my friends, we'd have fun):







These are the dragon boats that tooled around on the lake - we wanted to ride one, but the line to get tickets stretched on to eternity, so we just took pics:

This old man talked to me and I talked to him. It didn't matter one bit that neither of us could speak the other's language, nor that we couldn't even get the gist of what the other was saying. I pointed to my camera and he nodded:



Every building had it's own interesting name, like "The Palace of the Fragrance of the Lotus" or "The Temple of the Reclining Buddha," but this one was my favorite because it included one of my least favorite words (you can guess which one):

Notice it's not just moisture, but EXTENSIVE moisture.


The next night, two of my students, Takayuki and Yuriko had come into town for Golden Week, so we met them at their hotel and got some coffee in the lobby bar, but had to move because they were drilling into the lobby floor (at 9:30pm) and we couldn't hear anything - the staff moved us to the closed dining room. It was so great to see these two and I hope to visit them when they move to India in the fall:

I still have a couple more places from China and Korea to put up here, so in about 2 posts I'll be all caught up.

I have a job interview tomorrow morning - wish me luck!

El Ciudad Prohibido

Doesn't it sound nice in Spanish?
("Sí" is the only proper answer here)

The day after the (_______) Wall, we decided to head to another one of Beijing's amazing sights - The Forbidden City. We decided to take a subway. The subway lines themselves are not too difficult to navigate, but buying ticket's was a bit of a challenge for us - as we butchered Chinese trying to make ourselves understood to the ticket booth lady, a young man whose name would turn out to be Zhang Hua (Hua being the first name and pronounced something like Hwaaaaaa) offered to help us. He was on his way to meet a friend and was only going to help us on the first leg of our journey, just until our transfer, but then decided to accompany us all the way to Tiananmen West stop. Hua had studied English, but had never had the opportunity to communicate with native English speakers so he was excited for the opportunity. He was a university student from a different area south of Beijing and was up in the city for the holiday week. Once we got to Tiananmen Square, he called his friend whom he'd planned on meeting and then told us he would be happy to accompany us through the Forbidden City which he'd never seen before, but had, of course, studied in history classes. He turned out to be a great guy to walk around with - he pointed out things we'd never have known but for his presence and he also took pics whenever Mom, Dad, and I wanted a picture together. It was nice - here was someone who wasn't an opportunist or the kind of person offering to be a tour guide for a price - he was just a nice guy who wanted to practice English for the morning. We had a great time and all had lunch together in the Forbidden city.

Here's a picture of Tiananmen Square:
Mao was gleaming in all of his communist glory as he welcomed us through the Gate of Heavenly Peace:Here is Zhang Hua with my folks just before we entered the Forbidden City:We thought we were buying tickets to get into the city, but we only were buying ones to go up onto the top of the Gate of Heavenly Peace, but this was okay, as I was able to get a good picture or two of Tiananmen Square (the significance of which, I'm told, is lost on many young Chinese students):Many of the buildings were being restored in preparation for the 2008 games so some of the scenery was marred by scaffolding, but here's an idea of what it looks like when you step beyond the bridges through the gates:

Now I'll just put up some pictures of the Forbidden City with little commentary (except where necessary) - it seems pointless to put "this is a sculpture of a dragon" just below a sculpture of a dragon.
Although, if any of you have a good caption for the following, I'd love to read it:



This is a sculpture of a dragon:(sorry)



A note about the Forbidden City: you don't really get a full sense of the maze of buildings and passageways that intricately wind about within these walls until you go up to this hilltop temple outside of the gates of the palace. I thought my wide-angle lens would capture it, but of course it didn't come close to capturing how it really looked standing there:


Once we climbed back down the hill, we started heading around the northeast corner of the Forbidden City so we could find a kite shop my guidebook mentioned. There were many cherry blossoms in full bloom - I like the juxtaposition of the corner of the city with cherry tree, don't you? ("Sí, Mateo."):We found the kite shop after a little bit of searching, it was a tiny, mom and pop type store. I bought kites for my nieces and nephews (and me):The next day, mom and I took a taxi to the Dirt Market (which mom frequently calls "The Dirt Farm" by mistake. I'd promised I wouldn't mention this fact, but then I started typing and couldn't resist - sorry mom, but you know it made Becky chuckle.) The dirt market is a place for cut-throat bargaining. Most of the trinkets sold here were probably made in factories in the last five years where they were antiqued so they looked about a hundred years old. But this is part of the charm - if I'd had an extra suitcase, I would have filled it with trinkets from this fascinating market - tons of Cultural Revolution-era prizes, small chess sets made to look like they came from the Ming Dynasty (or some other -ing Dynasty), carpets, pots, figurines, watches, glasses, etc. I snapped this picture right as we got to the market, not knowing a man was walking right toward the center of the picture. But it couldn't have been more perfect - he looks exactly how I felt after milling my way past hawkers down the endless rows of merchandise:
Here are the wares available for purchase:
Here I am reading some of my favorite quotes of Chairman Mao:



I know the things I purchased were probably worth less than what I paid for them, but I don't mind. I bargained and got things for much cheaper than I would have paid for them in the States.

Up next, The Summer Palace.