Summer Palace Day
Trip Start
Oct 07, 2008
1
5
15
Trip End
Oct 25, 2008
Beijing,
China
Sunday, October 12, 2008
I took the subway to Xixhimen station and took a scary cab from there. I wasn't sure about taking the subway, but it was very easy with excellent signage. The only thing I didn't like about it was that the staring was worse on the subway because you're stuck in one place. The same thing happened to me in Spain. Yes, I'm black and yes, I wear locks. Since I've been in China I've only seen a handful of black people myself, and most of them were men, so I understand the looks of surprise, double-takes and looking just a little bit longer than normal, but the nonstop, non-looking away stare, even when I look back at you, is ridiculous. To keep these starers from driving me insane I've decided that they think that I'm gorgeous and that's why they can't look away.
The cab ride was uncomfortable for different reasons. The driver was weaving in and out of lanes with hardly any room between him and other cars and buses. Big buses! I had to close my eyes at a couple of points and hope for the best.
At the Summer Palace I hired a tour guide named Helen to show me some of the palace. It was Saturday so it was extremely crowded. It was another huge, beautiful area in China. It was breathtaking. Unfortunately for me, there were a lot of stairs that kept going and going and going. I kept going too, despite my wobbly legs, because I wanted to get up as high as possible. I took a boat ride from one side to the other with Chinese passengers. It was nice to be able to sit down. The first four or five of us to get on sat on one side so the boat felt like it was going to tip, and one of the women yelled something, so two of us moved to the other side of the boat. We all got a good laugh out of it, except one little girl who started crying. She calmed down pretty quickly and we waved at each other. Generalization Alert! The kids in China are extremely cute!
We arrived on the other side of the lake in an area with shops and restaurants. A woman stood outside the first restaurant and invited people in Chinese to come to eat or drink tea. When she saw white people or me she would say in English "Hellooooo. Tea. Food." I replied "Food" because I was sooo hungry by that time. I ate some hot, spicy vegetables with rice and drank a Coca-Cola. The food was delicious. Two Chinese women were sitting at the table next to mine and the one facing me surreptitiously took my picture as I was writing in my spiral. They both got a big giggle from it. I thought it was funny that they didn't think I had noticed. Had I been thinking, I would have lifted my head and made a big cheesy smile just as she was pressing the button. I'm sure there are plenty of pictures of me out there that I don't know about.
After I ate, I walked around some more, nodded at a few people who were staring at me, said a couple of ni haos to some little kids, and left the food/shopping area to find more of the Summer Palace! I walked up and down tons of more steps and rocks, through caves, up and down hills. Every view was more beautiful than the last. It seemed like it went on forever. Exhausted, I tried to find my way out at about 5:00. I finally got to an area and saw a whole bunch of people going in one direction so I figured that that was the way out. I stopped to take a picture and when I turned around, most of the people were going the other way. I stuck with the first direction I had chosen and finally saw some small landmarks that I recognized. I then exited the way I came in.
Then came the long journey home! Outside the Summer Palace a cab driver speaking English asked me if I needed a cab. I said yes. He asked where I was going. When I told him I was going to Xixhimen Subway Station, he told me that there was too much traffic. Another cab driver told me the same thing, so I asked them which bus I could take to the subway. They told me to take bus 332. Riding a bus in Beijing was on my to-do-list because I've heard about how people push and shove their way onto the buses and trains in China and I wanted to elbow a few people, just for the experience. The people on the subway so far had let me down, not pushing much at all on the rides I was on. I walked around the bend to the bus station and waited in the line for bus 332. I asked the couple behind me (using my handy phrasebook and map) if bus 332 took me to Xixhimen Station. They said no, but to take bus 332 to some station (I''ll add the station name later) and then take the subway from there. There were three doors on the bus- front, middle, and rear. The middle door is where a bus attendant stands to collect the money. The other two doors are for exiting the bus. After we got on the bus (a man who worked at the station made sure the line was orderly, another disappointment), I got a seat in the back row. Because I'm a doofus I got up for my stop right after they had stopped for my stop. I walked up to the bus attendant to ask if this was my stop and the young couple that had helped me were sitting across from her. They told me that this was my stop, but it was too late. The bus couldn't stop there again. I asked the bus attendant how I could get to the subway. She started taking to me rapidly in Mandarin, got out a piece of paper, I figured out she was asking for a pen, so I gave her one, and she said"ba ling ba" as she wrote down the bus number 808. I was happy to hear Mandarin words that I understood. Then she wrote down two more bus numbers. I didn't understand if I was suppose to take 808 and then transfer to the other two buses, or take one of the three buses to Xixhimen. I wish I had learned the word for "or" in Mandarin! The attendant spoke rapidly the whole time, then she took out a book, pointed to the bus number and to all these words written in Chinese characters! She was trying so hard to help me. As I'm trying to tell her I don't understand, she keeps talking. It was hilarious! Then a man comes up and asks me in English if I need help. I tell him where I'm going--Xixhimen Station. He asks me which line I'm taking. This is a very straightforward question, but I didn't get what he meant. I knew that there are two subway lines at Xixhimen Station (Lines 2 and 11) and that I was taking Line 2, but what he was asking me did not compute. What I didn't get was that unlike in Chicago when a station has two or more subway lines running through it but you use the same entrance, in Beijing, that is not necessarily the case. Xixhimen Station has an entrance for Line 2 and an entrance for Line 11. But at this point, I still don't know what he's talking about. At the next stop, the man says "Get off here, take the paper," and as I'm hopping off the bus he says "Good luck!"
At this bus stop, I ask a man which bus will take me to Xixhimen, he points to a bus that has just closed its doors, then points to a bus 808. I hop on the bus. We ride for a while, then at one stop, everybody gets off. As I see what's happening, the bus attendant (a male this time) says something to me which I took as a clue to get off the bus. So now I'm waiting at this bus stop and another 808 comes by. People stay on this one, so I get on. No bus attendant on this one. I get off at the Xixhimen bus stop, but don't see the train station. I see an older and a younger woman walking down the street and ask them in Chinese how to get to Xixhimen Station. The younger woman speaks English and asks me what line I'm taking. She apologizes for her English not being very good (I hear that quite a bit) and I apologize for my Mandarin not being very good. Then she says to follow her. She asks a teenager who's walking down the street where the station is and the girl tells her, then the woman points me in the right direction. I walk in that direction and see the Xixhimen Station, only it's the Line 11 entrance. I enter and ask a woman working there how to get to Line 2. She says "Go around" and points me in the right direction. I go through the turnstyle and learn what "go around" means. From what I remember, I had to make a u-turn at the turnstyle, go down some stairs, go up some stairs, go outside, follow the line of people through the lanes, go down some more stairs, around a bend, then down some more stairs to Line 2. I went to Food Street again for dinner. This time I had some dumplings, some hot and spicy noodles, and more candied fruit on a stick. I got two of the fruits on a stick for the price of one, but it was too much food. I had to throw some of it away. I think it was the only food in the garbage can. Unfortunately there was a "fertilizer" smell wafting through the street that night, so I didn't stay out too long. It smelled really gross. So I went back to the hotel and went to sleep.
