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Anyway, this morning Jeff, of course, already had his favorites, and they brought him goodies like cookies and diet coke! He asked them to pose for a picture, which of course they were thrilled to do…

I got up a bit early today to exercise in the hotel gym, not at all unusual for me when we travel. Even though I (we) would walk 8+ hours each day, it just was not the same as real exercise. Anyway, when I got to the gym this morning, there was this large window in front of the tread mill that I was using. It looked out over a very hectic street scene with a bus stop. I had my MP3 player on, and I have several U2 songs that I listen to constantly. A Beautiful Day came on… there is one part of the song that goes “See China right in front of you” … Well., with all the frenetic activity in front of me, suddenly it dawned on me that I was in China….and directly in front of me … was…. Well needless to say, that was a profound moment for me… that song will always reinforce a special message in my life. Be here now, appreciate this moment, enjoy life… it is right in front of you !

We had ambitious days scheduled. Start early and end late! We had places to go, sites to see! We had decided to start the day with a “random walk”… a favorite way to get lost, or at least completely engulfed, in the experience of a new city. We walk and turn walk and turn (I try to keep a basic sense of direction… but don’t always manage to… we always have a map.) It also helps us get some bearing as to where we are in relation to the sites in the city.

As we left the hotel, we noticed that several stores and businesses had all the employees standing outside; they appeared to be getting a pep talk of some sort. We snapped this picture, but saw an assortment… some very professional looking in front of a bank, and “cast” of twenty or more in front of a hair salon, singing and doing a dance sort of thing… but all of them were getting the message of the day… in Chinese of course, so we had no clue… but I think that I would be embarrassed if my work day started in front of RCK and Sherrill Lazarus was “talking the talk” as the buses rolled in each morning.
We walked and walked and walked some more… we passed the local food market with toads and snakes for sale. Everyone was in a rush, everyone was busy, and everyone had a destination. The streets were crowed with buses, people, bicycles, and carts. Jeff loved the graphics on the buses and sapped several pictures. We window shopped and strolled down one of the main boulevards. When lunch time approached we started to notice kiosks selling the quintessential Chinese “food on a stick”… It looked yummy, and so of course we had to try some. All sorts of fruits, chicken, and skewered beef/pork/mystery meat were being roasted over grills.Our favorite was a chicken dipped into a spicy dried chili.

But what we love the most about he “food court” was the presence of a karaoke singer… on the street, singing, with the accompaniment of a bubble machine. It seemed like a true “China” moment.

Eventually we found our way to the Bell Tower. The Bell Tower was the place, in Chinese culture, where the day was greeted. The Drum Tower was where the day was bid farewell. It is said that the rituals performed insured happiness and prosperity to the city. We just happened to be in time for a performance, by four women in traditional dress, of traditional bell tower morning music… Check out both the pictures and the video… it was quite enjoyable.

It brought us backwards in time to a China that we never knew, but had envisioned as children, as we sat in elementary social studies classes, learning about the people on the “other side of the world.”

Here is a video of the performance in the Bell Tower

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After that we made a beeline to the Islamic part of town... We were hoping to see the Chinese Mosque, its bazaar, and the Islamic food vendors. Well, that is, what we thought we were headed for…. As a navigator I (hj) can sometimes be waaaaaay off base… and this was one of those times. We really needed to make a left, but I just could not see that… so we went (can you believe I am saying this)… so we just went straight. Two and a half hours later we found ourselves right back where we started… a 2 minute walk from the Islamic section of town. Oh well!



After our stay in Marrakesh where we were awakened each night to the sound of prayers (try 4 AM) we were curious to see a Chinese Mosque. The street to this mosque was a main food vendor street. One section sold trinkets to tourists, and next to that was a “local” bakery selling bean cakes and assorted other sweets. Next were the dumpling vendors, and the meat pie sellers, and the noodle kiosks, and then a few more tourist vendors. A never ending assortment of taste treats for all of the senses. We of course indulged in every way. We found the cricket and bird cages to be extremely intriguing…

Suddenly there was a clearing, no more shops… we had arrived at the mosque. After walking past the ticket gate… and being herded back to buy tickets… we entered the gardens of the mosque. Wow, what a …… hey wait a minute… those two people over there…. Don’t they look familiar??? Why yes, it is…. It’s MR and MS from the airport in Beijing! What a serendipitous meeting! Hi … hello… how are you. It was one of those... it’s a small world situations. All of us laughed about our first meeting, and how we had finally gotten to the front of the line. We exchanged stories; they spoke of their visit to Shanghai, we of the city of PingYao. They had “found” a few extra days and had decided to go to PingYao. We supplied them with the information about where we had stayed, and after our reviews, hope to stay there also. We all toured the mosque, essentially together… Jeff and MR talked of photo equipment and the pros and cons of monopods for nighttime picture taking. We all talked of home, work, and our varied travels. We exchanged email addresses and bid our farewells. A pleasant afternoon visit…

Jeff and I decided to return to the hotel to regroup. When we got there we saw that it was “happy hour” at the concierge’s lounge. Stopped in for a drink and some addictive cookies… A brown sugar, sugar cookie with walnuts (favored by both of us) and a chocolate, chocolate chip… We went back to the room about 630 PM. The next thing we remember is that it was 8 o’clock… in the MORNING! Whoa, did that kind of put a damper on the evening’s plans! We spent the day running around, here there and just about anywhere… we got to the Xi’an Museum… it was a great museum, filled with ceramics and mostly Qin Dynasty bronze vessels.


The best part of the day took place after dark. In the darkness of the evening (with a relative coolness and breeze in the air) strolling in the Bell and Drum Tower area was fun… vendors’ hawked wares, neon Chinese characters flashed us from above. Children played with tops that generated multicolored concentric circles of electric light, as they spun endlessly around and around on the concrete walkway. The architectural lighting on the building changed them into ageless, timeless, mystical Chinese pagodas, cloaked within a shroud of glistening lights. They became mysterious and exotic… a glance once again, into that ancient China we have all imagined as children. It was quite a spellbinding sight.
We dined at a dumpling restaurant. The place look more like a Formica topped cafeteria, than a restaurant renowned for its endless assortment of dumplings. Would this be a dinning experience to remember? They brought steel carts around, piled high with food of all types… we chose what we wanted, and ordered a few extras from a picture menu. These were the best dumplings we had in China. And the wait staff… they wore orange!

Tomorrow Shanghai.

xox

h