Beijing 2013: Highlights

We saw so many historically and architectural important and beautiful places in Beijing. It was a wonderful experience, but the pictures tend to blur together into one big pagoda after a while, so I'll just hit the high spots with a brief description!

Beijing 2013: Olympic Park

What a beautiful view we had of Beijing Olympic Park! Whether by day or night, smoggy or clear, inside the hotel or out, we saw some very pretty sides of the city.

Beijing 2013: One Big Party

There was one interesting occurrence that really brought home the unusual political system that China has. With a history of communism since 1949 and the odd co-mingling of that with capitalism today, our guide explained that China has a "one party" system. But we American and European tourists had a very difficult time grasping that concept. How does it work? Who do you vote for? What are party members even called? Certainly not representatives, since they don't answer to the public! It all came to a head when we were visiting Tiananmen Square and trying to understand the lack of parlimentary buildings. In fact, the "White House" equivalent, where the Chinese president lives, is secret! The Chinese people don't even know where their leader resides! And most Chinese no nothing of what occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989, which is ironically the only thing Americans likely DO know about China and its political history.

It was certainly an usual experience to explain democracy and the divided branches of the American system to our young Chinese guide. He couldn't seem to comprehend such a system, just as we cringed at the idea of his!

Great Hall of the People

Soldiers in Tiananmen Square (you can see Chairmen Mao's picture in the background)

We got a tiny taste of how seriously China takes their communism when we visited the mausoleum of Chairman Mao Zedong. There is generally a several hour wait in line to go through, but we came long right before closing and zipped in. We had to leave hats, bags, purses, backpacks, etc. all outside with a friend or rent a locker. Nothing is allowed inside except your person! No cameras, no flowers, etc. We went through several layers of security and then were rushed along a pathway and up the stairs into the mausoleum. We were herded through the building and past the preserved body of their revered communist leader (who was draped in the Chinese flag and encased in a glass box, no less). It was a bit surreal and I'm certainly glad we didn't stand in line for any length of time for the privilege, but it did seem to give us a glimpse into the culture and politics of this country.

Mao's Mausoleum

Beijing 2013: Home away from Home

You may have noticed these posts are late. I'm having to back-date my posts (it's actually near the end of June now and we're already back from China). This is because China does not allow access to Blogger. Nor YouTube. And has spotty WiFi to boot. So, I couldn't blog while in China. And we were so busy, I didn't have a lot of time to upload photos to include with my text, anyway. But we do take our freedoms (and Internet freedoms) for granted here in the States, so the infringement thereof was an interesting first impression.

But speaking of first impressions, our hotel is beautiful. Since Jeff is presenting a keynote paper at the conference, his trip expenses are covered, including the room. What a great blessing, because some of the other cheaper hotels are apparently not nearly as comfortable. Air conditioning is spotty, breakfast buffet limited to Chinese food, no WiFi, staff only speak Mandarin; these are some of the issues other conference participants have had to deal with.

But we have a nice suite with gorgeous views out the humongous windows of our 13th story room (though very superstitious about certain numbers, 13 is not one of them in Chinese culture, so this hotel actually has a 13th floor). The staff is friendly, and language is not such a barrier here (although all the concierges have pretty poor English, which makes getting directions or advice rather difficult)!

We have a corner room, so our bedroom and sitting room face Olympic park and our bathroom looks out over the convention center. Our 70+ square meter suite is apparently bigger than most Beijing apartments!

I absolutely love our double vanity vessel sinks and the iridescent blue-green mosaic tile around the tub and walk-in shower. It's given me new ideas about our downstairs bathroom remodel!

Beijing 2013: Travels

World travel may sound exotic, but the getting there is mostly a grind to be endured. At least, that's the case in the economy cabin! Business and first class seem quite tolerable, maybe even enjoyable, but we have neither the miles nor the moolah for the upgrade, so steerage level for us!

But I can't complain. Our flights to China went as well as could be hoped, with only the basic hassles and standard discomfort that is three legs of a trip to get half way around the world. The upside: I can now say I've been to Japan! We had a connection in Tokyo, although it was dark when we landed and took off, so I can't claim to have seen Japan, just been there. And their public bathrooms are all I could have hoped for. The acclaimed Toto toilet was in every stall with the fabulous Washlet toilet seat that washes your rear, plays sounds to hide your sounds, deodorizes, etc., etc. Good thing there was a multilingual explanation sheet or I might have missed my connection trying to figure out how to flush!

How much wood could a Jeffrey chuck...?

I mentioned our mountain of wood chips in a previous post. In all, we had eight giant piles of wood chips delivered when the local tree trimmers were clearing around area powerlines. One pile is all cedar and will be used to mulch the existing beds. But the remaining mixed piles will form the foundation of my new landscape plan on the east side. That long stretch of property gets only morning sun and has a good deal of shade from the large oaks, cedar, hackberry, and various other trees. Grass never grew well there and it's been host to brambles, poison ivy, and other undesirable weeds. So I mowed it all down and am smothering it with cardboard and wood chips. I'll mix in compost, manure, gin trash, and the like as we're able to eventually create a woodland bed for azaleas, hydrangeas, ferns, hostas, and other shade lovers.

The expanse is about 10-15 feet wide in places and extends at least 100 feet, so trucking in topsoil would have been astronomically expensive. I'm really excited about the free wood chips, but it's back-breaking work to move them around and spread them out as we shape the beds. We may have to eventually call in some machinery to get it all where it needs to go, but right now it's our regular morning workout. Jeff calls it "Farm Strong", our personal version of CrossFit!

Queen of the hill

Maybe one day, those piles will look like this!

Good thing we have the girls for help!