China
Trip Report 2007: Do not drive tiredly.
Beijing
Note from 2014
This was written in 2007, the year before the Beijing Olympics. I have updated parts of it with 'new' stories that could not be told back then. If you prefer to see the pictures all at once see China Pictures.
This was written in 2007, the year before the Beijing Olympics. I have updated parts of it with 'new' stories that could not be told back then. If you prefer to see the pictures all at once see China Pictures.
New and old. Filthy and clean. Chaos and serenity. Beijing is a massive collection of opposites. This ancient city is also a new and vibrant city.
Our first glance - on the way in from the recently renovated airport - revealed a city like any other. Traffic, freeways and toll roads. Busy urban streets. Horns blaring. A chaos of traffic but so far not unique. But mixed into that traffic are motorcycle taxis and pedi-cabs and bicycles, bicycles and more bicycles to remind you that you're not at home anymore. Chinese characters mixed with a smattering of English on streets signs, storefronts and billboards. An explosion of red in every direction. And people . . . on the roads and sidewalks and packed in the buses, the malls and the restaurants. Not to forget the construction. Absolutely everywhere. The whole of Beijing is a big construction zone with cranes hovering in every direction you look as traditional neighborhoods fall under the bulldozer blades. China obviously wanted to put on a good show for 2008 and the push is on with everything in high gear.
Welcome to China.
Our first glance - on the way in from the recently renovated airport - revealed a city like any other. Traffic, freeways and toll roads. Busy urban streets. Horns blaring. A chaos of traffic but so far not unique. But mixed into that traffic are motorcycle taxis and pedi-cabs and bicycles, bicycles and more bicycles to remind you that you're not at home anymore. Chinese characters mixed with a smattering of English on streets signs, storefronts and billboards. An explosion of red in every direction. And people . . . on the roads and sidewalks and packed in the buses, the malls and the restaurants. Not to forget the construction. Absolutely everywhere. The whole of Beijing is a big construction zone with cranes hovering in every direction you look as traditional neighborhoods fall under the bulldozer blades. China obviously wanted to put on a good show for 2008 and the push is on with everything in high gear.
Welcome to China.
That can of Coke above is very representative. It looks awfully familiar but it sports the kind of pop-top that has disappeared from North America and Europe decades ago. A blend of new and old. But they're catching up at a phenomenal pace. In this report, I'll attempt to give you a feel and taste for the China that we visited circa 2007.
Note: Beijing in February is a mass of smog. Coal furnaces belch out noxious clouds which cast a haze into the sky.
This adversely effected all of our photos in & around Beijing.
This adversely effected all of our photos in & around Beijing.
Day 1 Tuesday Feb 6
We arrived in Beijing around 10 PM - about 2 hours late due to a delay in Vancouver. Customs and baggage went like clockwork in the recently-built terminal and we were met by our son and his fiancée - Shennie. He had been in Beijing for 3 weeks and she was on holidays from her new job at Deloitte in Beijing.
They were technically married already. In China, all marriages are performed in a quick civil ceremony in a government office. An appointment to get married in Beijing was a 2 or 3 month wait, so less than a week before our arrival the impatient couple went south by train to a government office in Shijiazhuang, where they could get a quick appointment. The public formal marriage with family in Handan was the reason for our trip.
We poured into 2 taxis - they are very small in Beijing - for the late-night 20 minute ride to their condo on Baiziwan South 2nd Rd in Southern Chaoyang, 2 big blocks south of Chang'an and its handy subway stop, as well as its Soho office tower and mini-mall. Less than 100 RMB with toll charge. And NO TIP! We dropped the bags and doubled back to the Soho to a cheap noodle place for a late dinner. I don't even remember what I ate or the name of the place etc due to the 24 hour travel day. During the walk back to the condo, we really noticed a strange vaguely familiar smell. We first smelled it at the airport, but it was everywhere. Hmmm. Smells like something industrial. Oh yeah, that's pollution. From coal heating.
Klunk. (The sound of my head hitting the pillow).
We arrived in Beijing around 10 PM - about 2 hours late due to a delay in Vancouver. Customs and baggage went like clockwork in the recently-built terminal and we were met by our son and his fiancée - Shennie. He had been in Beijing for 3 weeks and she was on holidays from her new job at Deloitte in Beijing.
They were technically married already. In China, all marriages are performed in a quick civil ceremony in a government office. An appointment to get married in Beijing was a 2 or 3 month wait, so less than a week before our arrival the impatient couple went south by train to a government office in Shijiazhuang, where they could get a quick appointment. The public formal marriage with family in Handan was the reason for our trip.
We poured into 2 taxis - they are very small in Beijing - for the late-night 20 minute ride to their condo on Baiziwan South 2nd Rd in Southern Chaoyang, 2 big blocks south of Chang'an and its handy subway stop, as well as its Soho office tower and mini-mall. Less than 100 RMB with toll charge. And NO TIP! We dropped the bags and doubled back to the Soho to a cheap noodle place for a late dinner. I don't even remember what I ate or the name of the place etc due to the 24 hour travel day. During the walk back to the condo, we really noticed a strange vaguely familiar smell. We first smelled it at the airport, but it was everywhere. Hmmm. Smells like something industrial. Oh yeah, that's pollution. From coal heating.
Klunk. (The sound of my head hitting the pillow).
Condo - Yuecheng Residence,
Baiziwan South 2nd Rd, Chaoyang, Beijing Our new daughter-in-law-to-be had just moved into a condo in a newer building. 2 bedrooms, 2 baths with showers. Although the shower was really the whole room as there was no enclosure with just tiled sloping floors and a drain. To be fair, there are plans to pour some cash into renos. She also was really light on furniture however . . . Accommodations: Very basic condo with no frills yet. Nice and secure and with family. [2014: The condo had been purchased by the bride’s father – much more on him later – supposedly in her name] |
Day 2 Wednesday Feb 7
We leapt up full of energy . . . well, my lovely wife and I did anyway. But horror of horrors, they did't have coffee in the condo. Or a coffee maker. This was China so tea ruled the roost. Argggh. The condo unit was on the 2nd floor and we headed down to the central courtyard and walked to the main street at the front of the complex where we had noticed some shops. A strange upscale coffee shop was one of them. Festooned with couches and stuffed chairs, this place is seriously up market. And seriously expensive, as we dole out 80 RMB per coffee – which in Beijing is extortion. It was good, but not that good. The place had a strange vibe – kind of like a gangster’s den but I am sure that it was just our imagination, although it was beside a barbershop which more often than not will offer men 'services' other than just a haircut from what we were told. Ècaffé European Italian Royal Coffee. Best to search out a Starbucks instead . . .
We finally rousted the young’uns and headed toward the Forbidden City on a cool (high 7C) misty day. We stopped at the McDonald's on Wangfujing for lunch on the way. McDonald's? I know, I know, but they insisted that it was better than at home. It wasn't. Then after grabbing the obligatory candied strawberries on a stick from a street vendor, we made our way to the Forbidden City. We skipped the 1st ticket booth inside which only gets you up the Tian'anmen Gate. We got the right tickets at the next set of booths but passed on the audio tour things. We decided we didn't need to know every building and its history and preferred to meander at will. I quickly realized that Shennie was hopeless for any history. My pre-trip reading + guidebook always seemed to fill in the historical blanks sufficiently. We spent the next 3 hours just wandering around this massive site. Through its miscellaneous gates and buildings and gardens, it is a great place to just explore. Along the way, we ran across an exhibit of Imperial jewelry which was also very nice to see. Unfortunately, several of the main palaces were shrouded and closed for renovations as they beautified them for the 2008 coming out extravaganza.
It is a truly astounding place. As usual, pictures don't do it justice.
We wandered out the back - the north gate - near closing and found that taxis can't stop on the road behind the palace. So we followed the frozen - yes, it was - moat around to the east and finally get one on a side street with a good day of touristing under our belts. Dinner was at Xiaba Xiaba (another suggestion from the besotted couple) a hotpot restaurant franchise geared to twenty somethings. The staff yell greetings and farewells to every diner coming and going, so it's not a quiet place. Hotpot is popular in China. You order multiple plates of thin, frozen rolled meats and various veggies and boil them in broth in your own bubbling pot on a hotplate. Your plate is a bowl of peanut sauce. Not expensive, but I don't remember the price.
Day 2 Notes:
No tipping
Pedestrians beware
Just say boo and wave the hawkers away
You better know how to use chopsticks
Don't drink the water - even hotel tap water is not potable
Taxis are cheap and always seem to be available
Always have the destination address written in Chinese for taxis
Scratch the bar on the top of your restaurant bill and you can win money (the other bar is a tax code)
We leapt up full of energy . . . well, my lovely wife and I did anyway. But horror of horrors, they did't have coffee in the condo. Or a coffee maker. This was China so tea ruled the roost. Argggh. The condo unit was on the 2nd floor and we headed down to the central courtyard and walked to the main street at the front of the complex where we had noticed some shops. A strange upscale coffee shop was one of them. Festooned with couches and stuffed chairs, this place is seriously up market. And seriously expensive, as we dole out 80 RMB per coffee – which in Beijing is extortion. It was good, but not that good. The place had a strange vibe – kind of like a gangster’s den but I am sure that it was just our imagination, although it was beside a barbershop which more often than not will offer men 'services' other than just a haircut from what we were told. Ècaffé European Italian Royal Coffee. Best to search out a Starbucks instead . . .
We finally rousted the young’uns and headed toward the Forbidden City on a cool (high 7C) misty day. We stopped at the McDonald's on Wangfujing for lunch on the way. McDonald's? I know, I know, but they insisted that it was better than at home. It wasn't. Then after grabbing the obligatory candied strawberries on a stick from a street vendor, we made our way to the Forbidden City. We skipped the 1st ticket booth inside which only gets you up the Tian'anmen Gate. We got the right tickets at the next set of booths but passed on the audio tour things. We decided we didn't need to know every building and its history and preferred to meander at will. I quickly realized that Shennie was hopeless for any history. My pre-trip reading + guidebook always seemed to fill in the historical blanks sufficiently. We spent the next 3 hours just wandering around this massive site. Through its miscellaneous gates and buildings and gardens, it is a great place to just explore. Along the way, we ran across an exhibit of Imperial jewelry which was also very nice to see. Unfortunately, several of the main palaces were shrouded and closed for renovations as they beautified them for the 2008 coming out extravaganza.
It is a truly astounding place. As usual, pictures don't do it justice.
We wandered out the back - the north gate - near closing and found that taxis can't stop on the road behind the palace. So we followed the frozen - yes, it was - moat around to the east and finally get one on a side street with a good day of touristing under our belts. Dinner was at Xiaba Xiaba (another suggestion from the besotted couple) a hotpot restaurant franchise geared to twenty somethings. The staff yell greetings and farewells to every diner coming and going, so it's not a quiet place. Hotpot is popular in China. You order multiple plates of thin, frozen rolled meats and various veggies and boil them in broth in your own bubbling pot on a hotplate. Your plate is a bowl of peanut sauce. Not expensive, but I don't remember the price.
Day 2 Notes:
No tipping
Pedestrians beware
Just say boo and wave the hawkers away
You better know how to use chopsticks
Don't drink the water - even hotel tap water is not potable
Taxis are cheap and always seem to be available
Always have the destination address written in Chinese for taxis
Scratch the bar on the top of your restaurant bill and you can win money (the other bar is a tax code)
Beijing - Forbidden City
Day 3 Thursday Feb 8
7:30 AM finds the 4 of us piling into a van on our way to see the Great Wall at Badaling. A bit brighter day but just as cool. Another day for the long underwear and this time I brought my gloves - a good thing as it turned out. While I had been leaning towards the Muianyu section of the wall from my research, my daughter-in-law had arranged this one through her mother, who has a good travel agent in Beijing. 160 RMB pp for a shared van. Only one other couple came along - a pleasant English Sri Lankan couple just fresh from touring Australia. Driving north, we passed the Yonghe Gong Tibetan Lama Temple as well as a colorful collection of stores and homes. In the northern suburbs we passed the site of the 2008 Olympic games. For a square mile around, everything is under construction. Event venues, condos and more condos are being slapped up to feed and house the world. The guide promised us that we will come back later in the day on our return.
A pleasant drive into the country brought us to our 1st tourist stop, the Ming tomb of Chang Ling. You approach along a narrow road with a line of poplars (poplars are the ubiquitous tree of China it would seem, since they also plant them along every highway). The tomb area is quite lovely, surrounded by big hills/small mountains. Since it was cold and off-season, the massive bus parking lots were empty, but I can imagine in peak times that this is not the case. The Chang Ling tomb is unexcavated - or at least inaccessible to us mortals, but the grounds are nice with several buildings to scramble around. Our guide kept rambling on about the dos and don'ts of the era and virtually everything ended with having your head cut off. Fun times. I kept looking over my shoulder for sword-wielding executioner-type dudes.
Then, of course, it was down the road to a jade factory. We were not in a buying mood. Then another 20 minute drive to a combination government-run eatery and cloisonné factory. These factory stops are where the tour companies and your friendly and helpful guides make their money. You get a brief walk-through of whatever they're making and then you move on to the showroom. Well-dressed, English-speaking salespeople latch on to every loose person and attempt to insert a vacuum into your wallet. RESIST! While the factory tours are mildly interesting, the hard close techniques in the showroom get irritating. The goods seem to be of high quality, but the prices are just stupid. I watched a particularly unfriendly couple from Texas buying big in the cloisonné factory. The manager was hauled over to do the close. And of course they are giving you their 'best price' which will be double or triple what you will pay in the Beijing hutongs or markets for the same goods. We compared. You have been warned.
After this rigmarole, we finally wound our way to the Great Wall. You can first see it from the highway around Juyuon Guan as you drive into the mountains. The appropriate ohs and ahs resounded in our van. Fifteen minutes later we pulled into the Badaling Great Wall parking area. Again, we were thankful for our winter visit with only a smattering of buses and vans. It was very cold. We broke out gloves and hats - especially after one of the hawkers snuck up behind me and plunked a fake bearskin style hat on my irritated head as I was fumbling in my bag for my good ole Canadian toque. The hawkers here were particularly hungry and they would come running out of their huddles to hit on us as we 'ran the gauntlet' to get to the ride up. There was even a wooden bear den - complete with a mangy bear - for the usually dorky photo shots. We paid an extra 60 RMB for the tram ride up and down and even though it was pretty hokey, it was so damn cold that we were glad we did. Up on the wall, a fierce Mongolian wind was blowing from the north. This certainly didn't encourage a nice leisurely stroll despite the sunshine. Small patches of snow were visible in hidden corners too. The Great Wall is, of course, great. But after only 20 or 30 minutes and one watchtower, we had all had enough of the bitter weather and opted to head to the warm van. Thankfully the British couple readily agreed. On the way down, the hawkers were even more aggressive as they watched our tourist dollars walking away. No "I've Been the Great Wall' T-shirts were sold to us that day. My son came up with a plan for the hawkers. When they won't take no for an answer, just keep offering 1 Yuan. For anything. T-shirt - 1 Yuan. Snow leopard skin - 1 Yuan. Jade carving that's really just a cheap fake anyway - 1 Yuan. Just keep walking and offering 1 Yuan. They'll get the hint.
But the Great Wall was certainly a highlight.
Back in the van, we wound our way over a twisty road and back to the highway for the trek back to Beijing. True to his word, our guide took us back through the Olympic area but our destination was not any of the venues, but a silk factory. Time for another wallet-suckage attempt. We got the story - 1 worm or 2 for you, madam? Then the sales floor. We did some dickering with them but we ended up passing on a 5000 RMB offer for a king bed comforter and pillowcases. More on this in my Xi'an segment . . .
All in all, it was another great day of touristing. If I were to do it again, I think I'd just skip the tour and arrange a cab. There were taxis waiting at Badaling, so it is doable if you can overcome the language bit. I would agree with many posters that Badaling would be a circus in prime season - it had all of the hoopla albeit in February it was frozen hoopla - so Mutianyu might be a better choice. I don't know. We went when we went where we went.
7:30 AM finds the 4 of us piling into a van on our way to see the Great Wall at Badaling. A bit brighter day but just as cool. Another day for the long underwear and this time I brought my gloves - a good thing as it turned out. While I had been leaning towards the Muianyu section of the wall from my research, my daughter-in-law had arranged this one through her mother, who has a good travel agent in Beijing. 160 RMB pp for a shared van. Only one other couple came along - a pleasant English Sri Lankan couple just fresh from touring Australia. Driving north, we passed the Yonghe Gong Tibetan Lama Temple as well as a colorful collection of stores and homes. In the northern suburbs we passed the site of the 2008 Olympic games. For a square mile around, everything is under construction. Event venues, condos and more condos are being slapped up to feed and house the world. The guide promised us that we will come back later in the day on our return.
A pleasant drive into the country brought us to our 1st tourist stop, the Ming tomb of Chang Ling. You approach along a narrow road with a line of poplars (poplars are the ubiquitous tree of China it would seem, since they also plant them along every highway). The tomb area is quite lovely, surrounded by big hills/small mountains. Since it was cold and off-season, the massive bus parking lots were empty, but I can imagine in peak times that this is not the case. The Chang Ling tomb is unexcavated - or at least inaccessible to us mortals, but the grounds are nice with several buildings to scramble around. Our guide kept rambling on about the dos and don'ts of the era and virtually everything ended with having your head cut off. Fun times. I kept looking over my shoulder for sword-wielding executioner-type dudes.
Then, of course, it was down the road to a jade factory. We were not in a buying mood. Then another 20 minute drive to a combination government-run eatery and cloisonné factory. These factory stops are where the tour companies and your friendly and helpful guides make their money. You get a brief walk-through of whatever they're making and then you move on to the showroom. Well-dressed, English-speaking salespeople latch on to every loose person and attempt to insert a vacuum into your wallet. RESIST! While the factory tours are mildly interesting, the hard close techniques in the showroom get irritating. The goods seem to be of high quality, but the prices are just stupid. I watched a particularly unfriendly couple from Texas buying big in the cloisonné factory. The manager was hauled over to do the close. And of course they are giving you their 'best price' which will be double or triple what you will pay in the Beijing hutongs or markets for the same goods. We compared. You have been warned.
After this rigmarole, we finally wound our way to the Great Wall. You can first see it from the highway around Juyuon Guan as you drive into the mountains. The appropriate ohs and ahs resounded in our van. Fifteen minutes later we pulled into the Badaling Great Wall parking area. Again, we were thankful for our winter visit with only a smattering of buses and vans. It was very cold. We broke out gloves and hats - especially after one of the hawkers snuck up behind me and plunked a fake bearskin style hat on my irritated head as I was fumbling in my bag for my good ole Canadian toque. The hawkers here were particularly hungry and they would come running out of their huddles to hit on us as we 'ran the gauntlet' to get to the ride up. There was even a wooden bear den - complete with a mangy bear - for the usually dorky photo shots. We paid an extra 60 RMB for the tram ride up and down and even though it was pretty hokey, it was so damn cold that we were glad we did. Up on the wall, a fierce Mongolian wind was blowing from the north. This certainly didn't encourage a nice leisurely stroll despite the sunshine. Small patches of snow were visible in hidden corners too. The Great Wall is, of course, great. But after only 20 or 30 minutes and one watchtower, we had all had enough of the bitter weather and opted to head to the warm van. Thankfully the British couple readily agreed. On the way down, the hawkers were even more aggressive as they watched our tourist dollars walking away. No "I've Been the Great Wall' T-shirts were sold to us that day. My son came up with a plan for the hawkers. When they won't take no for an answer, just keep offering 1 Yuan. For anything. T-shirt - 1 Yuan. Snow leopard skin - 1 Yuan. Jade carving that's really just a cheap fake anyway - 1 Yuan. Just keep walking and offering 1 Yuan. They'll get the hint.
But the Great Wall was certainly a highlight.
Back in the van, we wound our way over a twisty road and back to the highway for the trek back to Beijing. True to his word, our guide took us back through the Olympic area but our destination was not any of the venues, but a silk factory. Time for another wallet-suckage attempt. We got the story - 1 worm or 2 for you, madam? Then the sales floor. We did some dickering with them but we ended up passing on a 5000 RMB offer for a king bed comforter and pillowcases. More on this in my Xi'an segment . . .
All in all, it was another great day of touristing. If I were to do it again, I think I'd just skip the tour and arrange a cab. There were taxis waiting at Badaling, so it is doable if you can overcome the language bit. I would agree with many posters that Badaling would be a circus in prime season - it had all of the hoopla albeit in February it was frozen hoopla - so Mutianyu might be a better choice. I don't know. We went when we went where we went.
The Great Wall at Badaling in February
Back at the condo, we changed accommodations . . . to give the lovebirds (and ourselves) privacy I had booked this night in a hotel a block way. The 5 Star . . .
Hotel: Plaza Royale (Regal Court Hotel - HoJo managed) - 23 Xi Da Wang Rd
838 RMB per night - duplex suite
booked thru www.asiatravel.com (Nothing but excellent service btw)
Accommodations: We opted for a deluxe 2 story duplex room with king bed. Very nice. Plush couch and chairs. Bathrobes and slippers. 42" Plasma TV, electronic lighting control, in-house restaurant. Very nice. The staff fell over each other with good mornings. The doormen would gladly signal a taxi and tell him where you are going.
The Negatives: 15 minutes west of the heart of Beijing by taxi. Not much else around
Hotel: Plaza Royale (Regal Court Hotel - HoJo managed) - 23 Xi Da Wang Rd
838 RMB per night - duplex suite
booked thru www.asiatravel.com (Nothing but excellent service btw)
Accommodations: We opted for a deluxe 2 story duplex room with king bed. Very nice. Plush couch and chairs. Bathrobes and slippers. 42" Plasma TV, electronic lighting control, in-house restaurant. Very nice. The staff fell over each other with good mornings. The doormen would gladly signal a taxi and tell him where you are going.
The Negatives: 15 minutes west of the heart of Beijing by taxi. Not much else around
We quickly checked into our hotel and then trudged over to a local Carrefour supermarket/everything store for some supplies. Yikes. Now this place was a serious zoo. It was packed. If you're Canadian, think Boxing Day X3 or Black Friday in the US. Wall to wall, cart to cart shopping in high gear. All ages and all talking at once. I couldn't escape fast enough. At the front of the complex they also had a Bread Talk - a popular Chinese boutique bakery chain - and a Pizza Hut which we sampled in Beijing Redux - more on that later. Btw one great thing Beijing has - in some areas - is footpaths over busy roads. These allow you to cross mid-block - they're actually much safer than crossing at some intersections - especially at night. Ditto the tunnels around Tian'anmem Square.
For dinner, we decided that famous Beijing duck was our goal. At the insistence of our daughter-in-law, we skipped all the Guide Book versions and went to a local chain restaurant called Jin Shan Cheng near the China World Trade Centre. It was a great choice. The appetizers were good - fried pumpkin and some eggplant dish - and the duck was superb. Sliced with style table-side too. Well worth the piddly 137 RMB we paid for dinner for 4. For those astute readers, you will note that this is far, far less than we paid for 2 coffees on our 1st morning . . .
For dinner, we decided that famous Beijing duck was our goal. At the insistence of our daughter-in-law, we skipped all the Guide Book versions and went to a local chain restaurant called Jin Shan Cheng near the China World Trade Centre. It was a great choice. The appetizers were good - fried pumpkin and some eggplant dish - and the duck was superb. Sliced with style table-side too. Well worth the piddly 137 RMB we paid for dinner for 4. For those astute readers, you will note that this is far, far less than we paid for 2 coffees on our 1st morning . . .
Day 3 Friday Feb 9
Now it was down to the reason for the trip. It was arranged that the mysterious, well-placed-in-the-government bride's father would pick us up at 11 AM for the 5 hour drive to Handan for the wedding on Sunday. He arrived an hour early with a big minivan and a government pool driver. So, while he shuffled and waited impatiently, we packed our bags in the van and eventually set off. We spent the 1st hour driving around Beijing to find a suitable restaurant as a welcome spot for us - compliments of the father. After an attempt or two, he finally settled for one. And all of this time he was barking instructions to the driver or into his cell phone during frequent calls. Oh, have I mentioned that the Chinese are cell phone obsessed? Not so different than anywhere else in the world, I guess. I was very happy to leave my Blackberry at home in Canada, thank-you. We never did get around to getting the proper SIM card for my wife's GSM phone as somebody always had a phone that we could borrow. And speaking of phones, I dove into the Yellow Pages at the hotel to look something up. Silly me . . . they're in Chinese . . .
So, we had a 'size em up' lunch at some nice restaurant near Beijing University. Everyone was on their best behavior, of course. Even our son, the groom, had only met the father briefly once before. We knew the bride's mother was very nice and approachable, but he was the enigma. He was very gracious but very stiff. While we were always fuzzy on what he did in the government, he was supposedly in the upper echelon of the anti-corruption division of the Interior Ministry. Shennie told us that he was required to attend the weekly 'meeting of the 300' - top officials who meet early Wednesday evening for drinks with the President.
After lunch, we skirted Beijing on an outer ring road and headed south for the long haul to Handan. If you are wondering where the subtitle of this ode is from, this is it. Do Not Drive Tiredly - is a sign on Chinese highways to discourage accidents. They also have Do Not Drink and Drive signs. The highways are very good, but trucks lane hog the left lane which is posted at 120 km/hr. Many cars opt to pass on the paved right-hand shoulder. We even passed a police car doing this so it appears to be accepted if somewhat dangerous . . .
Now it was down to the reason for the trip. It was arranged that the mysterious, well-placed-in-the-government bride's father would pick us up at 11 AM for the 5 hour drive to Handan for the wedding on Sunday. He arrived an hour early with a big minivan and a government pool driver. So, while he shuffled and waited impatiently, we packed our bags in the van and eventually set off. We spent the 1st hour driving around Beijing to find a suitable restaurant as a welcome spot for us - compliments of the father. After an attempt or two, he finally settled for one. And all of this time he was barking instructions to the driver or into his cell phone during frequent calls. Oh, have I mentioned that the Chinese are cell phone obsessed? Not so different than anywhere else in the world, I guess. I was very happy to leave my Blackberry at home in Canada, thank-you. We never did get around to getting the proper SIM card for my wife's GSM phone as somebody always had a phone that we could borrow. And speaking of phones, I dove into the Yellow Pages at the hotel to look something up. Silly me . . . they're in Chinese . . .
So, we had a 'size em up' lunch at some nice restaurant near Beijing University. Everyone was on their best behavior, of course. Even our son, the groom, had only met the father briefly once before. We knew the bride's mother was very nice and approachable, but he was the enigma. He was very gracious but very stiff. While we were always fuzzy on what he did in the government, he was supposedly in the upper echelon of the anti-corruption division of the Interior Ministry. Shennie told us that he was required to attend the weekly 'meeting of the 300' - top officials who meet early Wednesday evening for drinks with the President.
After lunch, we skirted Beijing on an outer ring road and headed south for the long haul to Handan. If you are wondering where the subtitle of this ode is from, this is it. Do Not Drive Tiredly - is a sign on Chinese highways to discourage accidents. They also have Do Not Drink and Drive signs. The highways are very good, but trucks lane hog the left lane which is posted at 120 km/hr. Many cars opt to pass on the paved right-hand shoulder. We even passed a police car doing this so it appears to be accepted if somewhat dangerous . . .