Beijing May 9, 2017 The Summer Palace

My agenda for today was to visit a Hutong but by then Jack knew that the Summer Palace was my number 1 most desired place to return to and visit while here. He suggested that we do it today as he thought it would be less crowded and the Hutong could be done another day. I guess he didn't do his homework because as it turned out it was the annual school visit and the place was packed with buses and hoards of students lead by their teachers along with multitudes of other visitors. It was extremely crowded and walking was slow and you just sort went with the flow of people. Who knows, maybe in the next few days there could be a dust storm, rain or it could even be closed to the public for the day so I was glad to be there. I enjoy the Chinese people and I love listening to them talking. Some elementary school kids must have been learning English and once in a while i'd hear a kid calling "grandma!" and it made me turn around every single time and then they'd all laugh. It was all in good fun as we proceeded through the Painted Corridor. My pictures don't show the crowds because I waited for breaks in between otherwise my pics would have been of someone's back. The temperature was 32ºC in the city but cooler on the Palace grounds with a nice breeze blowing in from Kunming Lake. The Summer Palace had originally been built by the Qing Dynasty to be the Royal Imperial Garden and summer residence because it was cooler there than in the city. It's predecessor was the Garden of Clear Ripples started in 1750 and burned down by the British and French allied troops in 1860. It was rebuilt bigger and better and I first learned of it through the writings of Pearl S. Buck. Her stories were fiction with snippets of history or reality and all was very, very interesting to me, especially the stories of Empress Cixi who ordered extravagant things to be built such as a marble boat which is a big clumsy looking thing sitting in the lake but of course it doesn't go anywhere, opera houses for her entertainment and many more buildings for her and her servants and entourage of friends to enjoy. It was said she let the ordinary working people of China starve while she spent all or most of the nations military on her fanciful whims.
The first time I had been to the Summer Palace was in 1989 accompanied by my two daughters and a son-in-law. We visited 3 cities, Beijing, to see Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden Palace, Summer Palace, Confucious Temple, Temple of Heaven, Llama Temple, many other temples and factories like silk, pottery, carpets, cloisonné and more that I cant think of right now. Then we were off to another Province and the city of Xian to see the terra cotta warriors. I liked Xian very much; it's a walled city and we were able to walk on the wall and of course seeing the excavation still in progress of the terra cotta warriors was mind blowingly awesome. From there we flew to Shanghai which was a big busy city that did nothing for me. Beijing is also a big city but it felt friendly and homey and I felt at home there and especially so at the Summer Palace. As we were herded through the Painted Corridor enroute to the Marble Boat I noticed a wide flight of steps leading up Longevity Hill to a Temple like structure with trees behind itand that's all you could see. I was very drawn to it and wanted to go up there to see what was calling me there but I couldn't leave my group to do so. Five years later I was still thinking of it and still intrigued by it and wanted to go and see what was there. A lady friend was interested in going and so we planned quite an extensive visit with a big tour company of about 3 weeks to several interesting places and a 3 or 4 day Yangtze cruise as well. They had on their agenda several days of activities in Beijing plus a free day to go out and do whatever you wanted to do or see. I literally leapt on that chance of that free day! We had to apply for special permission from the Chinese Consolate to visit the Summer Palace without a guide long before we even left home and it took a while but finally my wish was granted to us. Off we went early in the morning of our free day in a taxi (our guide had written the name Summer Palace in Chinese for us as the driver knew no english. On that visit there were few people there as we walked along the Painted Corridor towards those steps that I was finally going to go up.. Suddenly, there it was, my heart was pounding as we climbed those steps up to a big temple like structure with a door. I think there was a girl to pay admission to, or maybe not. In any case we went in, looked around and it appeared to be just a dusty old building with remnants of old cast off things, clothing, bowls, figurines, junque etc that weren't guarded or preserved so we knew it wasn't an important place. We continued walking on through it feeling slightly uneasy like we didn't belong in there. At some point we heard a girl singing in Chinese way off in the distance somewhere and it was very nice and special so we went towards the sound but didn't see the girl.  We kept walking feeling like intruders and we didn't know if this was all we were going to see there but after wandering for awhile we came to an exit. We went out the doors into a garden area with paths leading off in different ways. I remember turning around at some point and and seeing the back side of a building with a lot of what looked like vandalism damage on it and it absolutely broke my heart. My friend and I decided to each go a different way and we'd be able to share our photos later. We were both very interested in the botanicals that were growing there and I collected some wild flowers, grasses, weeds, seeds, various tree bark, fallen leaves and misc. things like some small seashells that were amongst the red rocks. I forget if I added them to my flower press on location or if I did that back at the hotel. Meanwhile we were in communication with each other by shouting over the hill and dale and eventually met at a gazebo where we traded tales of what we had seen and found. One of the awesome things I had found was a small man made rock cave that was partially underground.  Inside was quite dark but I could make out places to sit on the outcroppings of rock by the light of a tiny rectangular window formed between three big rocks. I could tell right away that it wasn't just a random window for light but placed there deliberately to view something special. I looked through it and it seemed to frame and showcase some sort of modern day tv tower far away in the distance. I knew that it was actually designed to view something else hundreds of years ago in the past. What it could have been was to view the moon on a certain night perhaps, or a special star or maybe even an eclipse but I never did find out if I was even close. I just knew that Empress Cixi had designed it there to look at something special and meaningful to her.
I really cannot begin to tell of the wonders of Longevity Hill. Some of my memories have faded and the reason I write this is so I don't forget any more from this point on as I will read this often.  All I know for sure is how I felt familiar with the surroundings there and although I hadn't seen it before or even knew what was on that hill I had a very special feeling for the place. I've wondered about reincarnation because of the effect this hill had on me. Maybe I was a servant there eons ago, maybe a gardener or some other kind of worker. I don't think I was anyone special but I definitely had some kind of connection with this place and I've never had that feeling about any other place.

Now it's 2017 and here I am trying to recreate that visit and things aren't coming together the same way. Maybe 23 years is too long to have waited; maybe i'm too old now and I should leave it in the past. I don't think Jack has guided any or many seniors. He seems surprised every time he turns around and sees me lagging way behind him. Jack is about 30 and his parents are fit and healthy at 50. His grandparents, well they're dead and he doesn't realise that that's the category he should see me in except i'm not dead yet. I have grandkids his age but he expects me to keep up to him as he strides along and climbs millions of steps effortlessly. But he is doing the job that his company sent him to do with me and my special requests. So i'll just go along with it and try to keep smiling as I do need his help and so i'll hope for the best.

Well, long story shorter.......well, a little anyway.....we finally came to the end of the Painted Corridor and I anxiously looked up expecting to see those familiar steps to the pagoda on the hill. There were steps but with a sinking feeling I knew they were different and the pagoda was different too. I told Jack this doesn't look like how I remember it; we must have gone the wrong way! He responded it's the only entrance to Longevity Hill so I thought ok, 23 years have passed and the memory can get fuzzy or maybe it's been redesigned so up we went. And up some more and then some more stair climbing until I thought I was going to die there with all the stair climbing in the 30º blazing sun. It wasn't like this at all before, what the hell happened?!?!? There was no covered corridor to walk up a slanted wooden floor around the outside of the pagodas and then dirt pathways just slightly sloped like last time that lead out into the gardens; this was all flights of very steep rock steps between several pagodas to walk through out onto another set of steep steps to go up, up, up and repeat many times!!!  Holy crap; is my memory that bad??? Did I come here  to die?  I thought those blasted steps would never end but they did and eventually we were on top of the hill. And still, nothing familiar was seen or felt. I looked for the kinds of plant materials that i'd collected before and none were there but then it was a different season than last time so i'll give that a pass. Some areas were bone dry and the weeds were either already dead or dying. There was no rock cave with a little window, no gazebo, no mysterious seashells stuck in the red clay soil, no red rocks. It was so disappointing to not find the same place or anything even close to it, and no feeling of familiarity on my favourite hill in the world.

We didn't linger there long at the top before starting the trek back down. and some of the route was more difficult going down than it was going up as jagged rocks stuck out everywhere.  At the bottom we were back at the Painted Corridor again and that was also wrong and totally different as the last time my friend and I had walked over a curved little bridge of some sort and there was a road and parked right there at the gate was our taxi; the only car left still waiting for us although we hadn't made arrangements for him to wait for us or even dreamed that he'd still be there. After all we'd been gone all day and only left because we saw a sign that said the gates were closed at 6p.m. and here we were with just minutes to spare or we would have spent the night behind the tall walls of the Summer Palace!

So ends my very long story of Longevity Hill and the Summer Palace. I don't expect that i'll ever return again even though I still love Beijing and it's people. Maybe I shouldn't have gone expecting to find the past and i'd still have my old memories and feelings intact. Travel is more difficult now even with a shorter flight and private guides and drivers with comfy air conditioned cars. I'm somewhat disappointed but I knew this might happen "because you can never go home again" I'm glad I went and experienced what I did. I accept the fact that in 23 years I no longer  have the mentality, the energy or the time to waste chasing dreams anymore.

Addendum

Here's the crazy thing. Once I was back at the hotel looking at my pictures and video guess what I spotted on the video? I caught a glimpse of the long covered corridors that ran alongside the pagodas on the hill that I hadn't noticed in person. Probably the reason for this is that I had to watch my every step as these old places were built hundreds of years ago with natural and therefore uneven rocks and as well I was sitting huffing and puffing wherever I could find a bit of shade. Jack was wrong; there was two ways to get up there and we had gone the wrong way!  Later on I mentioned it to Jack thinking that he didn't know about that route and I wanted him to know for any other old folks that he would take there. But he knew!!!! He already knew. He said he had chosen the steps as he thought i'd do better climbing them than the sloped floors in the fricking shade. WTH?   Holy crap, that little mistake robbed me of a good experience on my main reason for coming back to Beijing. I couldn't believe it. I had done my best to make it clear to him what I wanted to see and do there.
We had bypassed the right way by a few meters and God only knows if  I would have gotten my bearings and been able to relive my last visit had we gone that way.

In retrospect I saw lots of really old people there at the top of the hill and lots of little kids as well. So I mentioned to Jack that it must have been  really difficult for them as those steps were so tall and little 3 and 4 yr olds were so short. He responded that the parents had probably carried them. Whoa...I saw no parents carrying kids up those thousands of steep steps in the blazing sun and I know there was no way they could have done it themselves. I should have clued in by then that they had to have gone a different route than we did. On the path that took us down Jack pointed out a little 4 yr old boy who was jumping from step to step and he said see, kids figure it out. But I know as a mom and grandma that they might be able to jump down but they cannot jump up all those high steps; who's he trying to kid.
Obviously Jack wasn't quite honest about a few things......there is indeed a few ways to get up Longevity Hill and also there had been dust storms on 2 of my days there that he didn't mention. Not saying don't trust your guide but don't accept his answers without really thinking it through.
The end, finally.

 

 

Beijing, China May 5 - 6, 2017

My flight on Air China took off half an hour later than scheduled. Everything went well and my seat wasn't on a wing as the online plane diagram had shown. Instead I had window seat just ahead of the propeller, so it was much better and more scenic than where I thought i'd be sitting. Maybe it was a different plane than originally planned, it was a 777 and I forget what the original plane had been.
We were barely off the ground and settling in for the 11 hour flight when they came around with drinks so I had a coffee and some coconut snacks I had brought with me. The attendants picked up all cups and cans and whatever and a few minutes later lunch was served. I chose chicken and rice and it was served with veggies, a very good Chinese bun, nice crisp salad, yogurt and a fruit salad as well. At some point I noticed land through the cloud breaks and saw snippets of the coastline of beautiful B.C. and the Yukon Territory. This is the usual route to China from Vancouver. Eventually the pilot asked that all window shades be pulled because it would soon be blindingly bright with the sun and snow of the frozen north. So that was the end of my sightseeing and the start of my IPad game.

It's now 12 midnight at home according to my watch and the outside temperature is -51ºCelcius and we've just passed over Manchuria Our speed is 938 kms per hour. More game time and then it was just an hour or so to destination. It's about 1:30a.m. at home now on May 6 and about 12:30p.m. in Beijing. It was awesome flying over Beijing as it was even more beautiful than I remembered. I love this city so much and so happy to be seeing it once again. It was much, much bigger than I remembered!  It is HUGE now with a population of 22 million people. We were over the city for quite a long time and then experienced the roughest scariest landing I've ever had but yayyyy, i made it and so glad to be here. The temperature in Beijing was a beautiful 29º C. The terminal that I landed at was the newest and it's massive and modern and beautiful with gleaming marble floors, sparkling glass and people galore. It was a very different scenario than the last visits i'd had here in 1989 and 1994. It was a very long way to the luggage pick up carousels but part of the route was by train and then it was just a short distance outside where lots of tour companies and guides and drivers waited with placards with passengers names on them. I spotted mine right away and it was even spelled correctly and so I met Mr. Hong, my driver who didn't speak English so he checked my passport to make sure I was the right person to pick up. I was and so we were out of there quickly and enroute to my hotel the Sunworld Dynasty in beautiful downtown Beijing. (see map) It was so busy I thought it was rush hour except it was like Vancouvers rush hour X 100!!! Except Vancouvers lasts for 4 to 5 hours on weekdays and the Beijing rush never stops. I will never complain about ours again!

 It gave me a chuckle because that's the number of the radio station I listen to in Vancouver

 

 Car entrance into my hotel

 The Sunworld Dynasty

I could hardly believe the difference from 23 years ago when there were very few cars, just a few tourist buses, some city buses and millions and millions of bicyclists. I remember the streets were very wide and people riding bikes at least 20 abreast were like a solid and continuous river flowing to the sea. Obviously the fact that 8 and 10 and maybe even 12 lanes for cars would take over those wide streets and had been forseen and planned for all those years ago. Back then most cars were limos driving high government officials to and from their duties and they were of utmost importance and got the right of way by blasting their horns all the way as they drove and cyclists and walkers made way for them. Even seeing all those bikes parked at places like Tiananmen Square just blew the mind and we marvelled at it as they all looked so similar one had to wonder how anyone ever found their bike after work.

It's very different now and everyone seems to own a car and some I saw enroute to the hotel were Honda and something Chinese made called a Hinda or Hondi and their logo was like Honda but with a slanted H, Chery, Outlander, Porsch, Audi, BMW, Range Rover, Volkswagon  and surprize surprize, Ford. There were many more makes of cars but by then I lost interest. It was more interesting looking at all their huge beautiful buildings and some were really spectacular in design. I did see some bike riders, many peddling while reading or texting on their phones and some were pulling carts as well.  There were other little weird modes of transportation that looked like boxes and tiny little flimsy type vehicles, some with no window glass and some had plastic. They had only a front seat and were very low to the ground and sometimes there were 3 people squashed into them. Holy shades of Flintstones; they looked totally out of place in this modern city.  Probably no seat belt law there either, although my driver never took off until he heard the sound of me clicking in. Their roads also impressed me big time as they were very black and clean and beautiful and there were no potholes and I don't think there were drains on the roads, at least not placed exactly where the tires would go bumpity bump over them like ours do. There's also rickshaws in the hutongs but not on the same streets as the cars anymore. Getting on the freeway seemed easy for Mr. Hong as the merge lanes were quite long before you had to actually merge and drivers learn to blend in easily and safely but it must take a lot of practice because you'd often be within an inch or so of other cars all around you. I couldn't drive there! Cars and trucks travel on different streets unlike here and what a good idea that is! The roads in beautiful downtown Beijing are called Ring roads and they encircle a large area of the downtown. Ring road 1 is only for small cars up to a certain weight, number 2 for heavier larger cars, number 3 for small trucks and maybe buses and other heavier weight vehicles drove on the number 4 road and so on getting farther and farther out of the downtown core. I never saw any of the big trucks that we have here slowly lumbering up the slopes to get onto the bridges slowing everyone else down while using up a lot of space and damaging the road.  I've often thought that it would be cool if they were only allowed on the streets from say, midnight to 5 a.m. or whatever and I bet it's something that will have to be utilized in the future. In Beijing the really big trucks and equipment have to do their jobs during the wee hours and everything runs efficiently with this idea.
I'm entering 2 addys to see a map of the ring roads because I can't tell if either is going to work or is even clickable.

"https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=1gYVQrxqS1rrMsCquxeoQXcq8WFE&hl=en"

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1gYVQrxqS1rrMsCquxeoQXcq8WFE&hl=en&ll=39.935041671002075%2C116.40259749999995&z=10

Revolving doors into the lobby from the car entrance

Twenty-three years doesn't seem like all that long ago to me but the advancements made here are mind boggling. Back then it seemed like the majority of the Chinese people were poor and now they're not. Their economy has made remarkable leaps and bounds and now that old China is long gone and a prosperous new China has taken it's place.

It's been a very long day getting to Beijing so I skipped dinner and went to sleep before 8p.m. I think the last time I did that was when I was 5.  I am pleased with my hotel and the great security system it has. You have to put your key card into a slot on the elevators to go higher than the third floor. My room was on the 6th floor and it had everything I needed in a hotel room including free WiFi. There's a king sized bed, both a deep tub and a separate glassed in shower, fridge, electric kettle to boil water along with a couple cups and tea bags, iron and board, English tv channels, a little sewing kit and a box that held pencils, erasers, ruler and scissors which proved very handy for me and I used them a lot. My window view is of the third floor atrium overlooking an awesome buffet which serves 3 meals a day. The ceiling soars up ten stories to a glass roof so it's nice and bright all the time. As well there's other restaurants which I won't see because I prefer buffets. There's a pool that I might use and a gym and acupuncturist that I won't. Also on site are several stores, a furniture store I think it is, an expensive perfume shop that doesn't interest me, clothes, jewelry and other expensive misc. but no convenience store for water, candy, chips, or the like but there's a 7/11 just across the street and a couple minutes walk away. Tap water is not safe to drink so they keep the room stocked with expensive mineral water from France which i'll never drink as it's about $12. per bottle and i'd drink at least 4 a day so i'll just go to 7/11 where bottled water is a fraction of that price. Alternately I can boil tap water and the kettle is very efficient and quick.

A visit to Vancouver Island

I set off from Delta about 8a.m to the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal to catch a 2 hour ferry ride to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. My destination was the city of Courtenay about a two hour drive from where i'd arrive at Duke Point near Nanaimo, B.C. Weather was cool with a spattering of rain off and on so I didn't spend much time on the open deck of the ferry and instead went with the hoards to the restaurant for some legendary White Spot fare or maybe the famous Sunshine breakfast served on all the ferries since time began I think, lol. Ever since I can remember the ferries always had names like "Princess of Nanaimo", Princess of Sanich" etc. and later on they were named "Queen" of selected British Columbian cities. This one was quite new and was named the "Coastal Inspiration" In this class is also the Coastal Celebration and Renaissance while some of the smaller ferries have names that start with Salish (Orca, Eagle, Raven, etc) as well as other classes and sizes of ferries that do the route to many of the smaller British Columbian islands. The larger ones carry aprox 500 cars and 2100 people and travel at 22 knots. Many who walk on and get transportation where they land and the price is very reasonable for that. At this time of year the ferry I took departs from Tsawwassen 8 times a day with 8 sailings back but in the summer there's many more as the trip is very popular then. Also from Tsawwassen are the ferries that go directly to Victoria, B.C. at the southern end of Vancouver Island and there's also one or more that does the route back and forth from Victoria to Seattle.

The drive was uneventful except I was astonished by a strange phenomenon that I hadn't encountered before. The 2 hour drive took you from dry to spattering, to raining, to pouring or pelting down to torrential sometimes all in just a few minutes and then repeated in a different order off and on all the way. But what really struck me as unusual was that other cars on the highway appeared to be enveloped in clouds as they drove along, lol, but it really did look strange seeing all the white puffs speeding along. The cause appeared to be the way the water was churned up by the tires making a thick mist around them. Maybe it happens here too and I haven't noticed that as I rarely drive on a 120km highway on my travels near home and the rain doesn't do that where I drive or at least to that degree as well as the fact that there's a lot more traffic around here. In any case it was a memorable experience and when I arrived in Courtenay it was a beautiful sunny day. Four days later the drive back to Duke Point was in exactly the same scenario and I found it to be very unusual but probably commonplace to those who live there although my niece didn't know what I was talking about. Wish I could have snapped some pics but I was driving and frankly it was sort of unnerving.

I had a nice visit for a few days with my Godaughter/niece and her cat Mickey. We shopped and talked and looked at old family pictures and ate out every night with deserts and Starbucks and got all caught up with our lives. It was a very nice break and I enjoyed my visit and hope to make the trip more often, preferably in the summertime!
Leaving the Tsawassen Ferry Terminal

 Passing another ferry probably heading to Victoria

 Nanaimo, B.C.

 The captain announced a pod of Orcas was visible so lots of people ran to find a good viewing spot. They breeched several times and it takes your breath away when you see them but I only caught a tiny speck in the ocean on my camera.

On my way back now and this is Roberts Bank, aka Delta Port. This is where my hubby used to work. It has expanded a lot since he retired and while they still load coal destined for China the container business is the larger business now.

 I looked carefully hoping to see the resident Orca "Westshore Willy" who lives and plays in the area here around Roberts Bank. He has lived here alone for many years and become very tame over the years. He likes to come up close to the workers to show off the big fishes he catches sometimes. Many of the workers there have actually been able to pet him and he is very friendly and gentle.

My view of another ferry as I sat in my car waiting to drive off.