America Day!!!!
Trip Start
Sep 18, 2004
1
13
69
Trip End
Jun 05, 2005
Beijing, China
Thursday, October 7, 2004
America Day
Yesterday (Oct. 6th) was what've I've come to title 'America Day'. I woke up with my first bout of illness (er diarrhea) since leaving the US. I was pretty proud of myself having lasted this long without getting sick. Somehow Montezuma found me hiding in China.
We started off America Day by watching Edwards and Cheney debate. They have shown the Kerry/Bush and the Edwards/Cheney debates live on the English channel here. We are very glad because we really wanted to see them. After the debate, we went to the internet cafe to review the voters guide and fill out our submarine ballots. (They're blank, you fill in the candidates names.)
So in my sickened state, I was longing for some familiar foods
1. View from Circular Mound Altar
. After the internet cafe we went and got lunch at McDonalds. I had a Big Mac, reg. fries, reg. Coke. Nelly had a Filet 'o Fish and some tea. That cost us a whole 31 RMB ($3.75 USD) which seems really cheap to me. It tasted sooooo good. Just like it tastes at home. Yummmmm!!! The McDonalds looks like any urban U.S. McD's and was extremely packed. They actually have people walking around helping you find seats.Next we went to the US Embassy to register ourselves as being in China. That was fun. The streets with all of the embassies are blocked off by Chinese military. We had to show our passports just to enter those streets. Again, Nelly was labeled, by the guard, as Chinese despite being a US Citizen and being born in Taiwan. Occasionally we'd pass pairs of heavily armed Chinese military guys that followed our every move. We finally got to the emabassy and worked our way through all of the security procedures, which were carried out by English speaking locals. Within the compound, in order to get into the building of our choice we had to go through another security booth, this one was manned by a very nice U.S. Marine. This guy was the first bona fide American we had seen in the whole check in process. Once we were inside the building, it was like we were back in the States. People smiled and were friendly. They held the door for you. They waited in line.
2. The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests
Ohhhh and the bathroom was sweet!! It was large and clean!!! You could sit on the can without hitting your head on the opposite wall. They had a giant roll of toilet paper. (Here the hotels give you less than enough for one day, and you have to supply your own TP in public bathrooms.) I felt like The King on his throne.At the embassy we registered and submitted our submarine ballots. Little did we know, you can get an absentee ballot at the embassy and vote right there.
Coming back from the Embassy we decided to finish off America Day with dinner at Pizza Hut. This was the nicest P-Hut I've ever been in. It was sort of a cross between a Pizza Hut and Olive Garden. The food was really good too. The garlic bread was rather cute. It looks like a tiny, sliced loaf of toasted Wonder Bread, with garlic butter on it. Yumm!
I can't say America day was a total success, I was still making frequent trips to every western toilet that I could find. But boy it was nice to watch a good political debate, eat American Food, vote like a good patriotic American, and spend some time on a small plot of American soil.
3. Dragon Spout
Internet Cafes
So far, we've been lucky enough to be located near cheap internet cafes along our trip. Hence the frequency with which we've been able to add log entries. Internet cafe's here aren't anything like I'd imagined. I thought they'd be nice ground level store fronts, with clusters of computers here and there. The ones we've found have always been up a dark and shady set of stairs and are big open rooms with rows and rows of computers jammed together. If you happen to pass anywhere near the bathroom, it reeks of sewage. The kiddies that run the places obviously don't clean. What also adds to the ambiance is the fact that people smoke, sing and yell at each other continuously. Fun!
Tourism
The past two days we've been laying low for a couple reason. First, the National Day holiday is finally ending and people are going home. We wanted to wait for them to leave so we could enjoy the tourist sites in relative peace. Second we're both feeling under the weather. So we don't have much to report on the tourism front. However today we did tour Tiantan Park, it is the huge temple where the Emperor would go to pray for good harvests. The site was beautiful and free of the throngs of people we'd seen at other places. We rather enjoyed our time walking around there.
What Next?
Since we haven't seen much of Beijing, we are planning on staying here until the end of the week. After that, the plan is to head west to central China, starting at Datong, then Taiyuan, Luoyang and Xian.
