Monday, May 15, 2017

5/7/2017: Summer Palace, Hutongs, Forbidden City

We set out in our smallish bus @ 9 AM (I'd been up since 5:30) for the Summer Palace, which was mobbed.  All the rooms have high thresholds because the demons that lurk outside the doors bringing can't bend their knees, so can't make it over the threshold.  Twin lions guard the main courtyard; you can tell the female because she has a lion cub under her left paw, while the male has a ball.  The summer palace is on a man-made lake, which did have very fresh breezes, but (as I said before) the place was packed.  We walked out along a lake-side pavilion, and then took a boat ride, where the breeze was very fresh.









Thence to a rickshaw ride through hutongs (alleyways) adjacent to the Bell tower (which I'd visited on my own yesterday.  Hutongs not v charming -- if it were Brazil, I would have called them favelas.  Many decrepit bikes and parts of bikes.  Also an Amazon fulfillment bike-powered cart trundling along.   We went into one house for lunch, all 19 of us -- it was fine.  Most of the houses don't include toilets -- just use the public toilets in the hutong.  Yich.  I can't imagine.

But the hutongs are considered v choice real estate.  People live very packed together -- our guide repeated a joke that people recognize each others' farts.

We went to a tea demonstration, which was sort of fun -- the demonstrator gave us tiny cups of green, oolong, green with jasmine, green with rose tea, fruit tea.




One of our number is a loudmouth -- he was being pretty obnoxious, but she held her own.  She ended with a demonstration of mugs that change color when filled with hot liquid, and a little clay man who peed when water hot enough to make tea.

Then we had a buying opportunity -- I bought some (surely overpriced) tea, but refused the (free) mugs and peeing man, and, instead, got a bit more tea for free.

Thence to the Forbidden City -- which is immense.  You go over the moat and through two huge courtyards and throne buildings (can't go inside) only to see a third, huger and higher before you.  The courtyards are completely bare of trees, anything, with 15 layers of bricks below them so no one could tunnel up into them.  Massive cauldrons of water in case of fire.  It was quite hot (about 90) but not muggy and there was a breeze, but I still went through all the water I'd brought & wished for more.  We were pretty footsore and tired by the time we reached the Imperial gardens, which had peonies and cypresses and locust trees.










The roofs were made of yellowish tile, giving rise to the rumor they were made of gold.

We all trundle along following our guide with Whisperers in our ears (devices that pick up what our guide says without his having to shout.  We're surrounded by hundreds of other groups, following their guides, in English, French, Chinese, German.

Meanwhile, I have a laundry crisis.  I left laundry yesterday morning, the 6th of May, but on the laundry slip, I wrote 5/7/2017, so mistaking the day, and, in addition, not remembering that Europeans (and probably Chinese, too) would write the day before the month, not after.  It was supposed to come back the same day, but didn't.  They said it would be back today by 6 PM, but it's not here.  The housekeeper was here, and I was trying to explain, but of course having written the wrong date in the wrong order didn't help.  She was very apologetic, and her English wasn't that strong, and of course the only relevant sentences I could get out were "I don't understand", and "I do not speak well".

Oh dear.


It's a long way from home.

No comments: