The Zehrens Go Global

Beijing ~ July 6

We have had a full day today! It was mercifully overcast so it wasn’t too hot although it was humid. It could be much worse so we are not complaining. Everyone was encouraged to bring umbrellas which of course assured no downpours (you know it would have rained if we had left the umbrellas at the hotel!)

Everyone slept in except poor Zoe who claims to have woken up at 4:30 am. We managed to all get up, eat and shower by 10:30 am and made our way by foot towards the Forbidden City where the Chinese emperors resided since the 1400s. The last emperor lived there in the 1920’s. The lines were incredibly long and there were SO many people! Most of them were Chinese visiting from other parts of the country. After haggling with several potential English speaking guides, we chose Lu Lu who is Mongolian. We really had to concentrate to understand her but she was really sweet. The Forbidden City is massive!! There are approximately 800 buildings (no we didn’t see all 800) and I believe she mentioned 7 courtyards. Boy those emperors had it good! They had servants (eunuchs) for everything and approximately 3000 concubines (yes I have the right number of zeros behind the 3). The Forbidden City was amazing and over 600 years old.

We then made our to Tian’ anmen Square which just continues on and on and on. It’ simply huge. Much to John’s disappointment, we missed seeing the pickled body of Chairman Mao which is on display in the morning hours. Most of Tian’ anmen Square was barricaded off from the public.

We then entered the area known as Qianmen which is an ancient shopping district. We had so much fun there. There are so many small alley ways which lead off with more stalls of goods being sold. The girls had a blast haggling over pricing. They scored some good items before leaving the area and were happy. We ate a late lunch there as well and this time everyone was satisfied with their choices (not too hard to mess up noodles and white rice). One of the most memorable events while in Qianmen was using the public restrooms which are basically a stall and a porcelain hole in the floor. (The Chinese must have strong thigh muscles for squatting). We were forewarned to carry Kleenex for such occasions(thank you Grandma Judy) which was a life saver! Thereafter, everyone’s intake of liquids was kept to a minimum. No one wanted to repeat that visit if at all possible.

By this time we were totally confused as to where our hotel was located but we knew it was too far to walk. We tried to hail a taxi for a good half hour. Rickshaw drivers kept approaching us but wanted the equivalent of about $34 for a ride (only 2 adults can fit in one) and we needed two to handle our family of five (2 rickshaws x $35 = too much!) John used his sales skills and managed to obtain 2 rickshaws for a total of $20. Those guys worked hard for their $10 each. The girls felt that this was the most fun thing we had done for the day. They took us down one way streets (going the wrong way), through an outdoor restaurant and into intersections. We arrived safely back at the hotel where the kids took a late night swim.

Several things must be noted about the day. First, at least 50 Chinese people (I kid you not) took pictures of one or more of the girls. Seriously! It was comical. About 1/3 of them politely asked to have their pictures taken with them and the other 2/3 would run over and snap their picture and then run off. Hailey was the biggest celebrity of the three with more requests for pictures than her two older sisters although they had their fair share as well. Some even felt the need to stroke Hailey’s hair. When we asked Lu Lu (our Mongolian guide) why this was happening, she explained that most of the people are from the country where they rarely see Caucasians and some have probably never seen blondes before. It should be noted that no one wanted pictures of John & Stacy. Hmm…..

Things we have noticed about Beijing and the Chinese people so far: Beijing appears to be really a clean city; every Chinese family we saw only had one child; and they dress more stylish than we expected and in shorter than expected skirts/dresses/shorts. Apparently three is a lucky number here so we are lucky with three kids (even if they are not boys as preferred by the Chinese) Can’t wait to see what is in store for us tomorrow.