China Day Two -- We Conquered the Subway and Found the Church

It is crazy hard to see because of all of busy leafwork on the sign,
but this sign welcomed us to church this morning.  It says
"Welcome to the Beijing Branch" in English and Chinese

Today we began our first full day in China by waking up at the bright hour of 1:30 in the morning, local time.  JoJo woke up, totally disoriented, and I saved him from accidentally peeing in the corner of the hotel room.  He was half asleep and thought he was next to the toilet.  After that I was wide awake.  I looked at my watch and misread it, thinking it was almost 3 in the morning.  We thought that that would be an acceptable time to wake up as we adjusted to jet lag.  Unfortunately it was really 1:30, so that would mess us up today as we tried to adjust to the time change.  Our sleep yesterday was ridiculous.  We seemed to take two hour naps about every two hours.  Herman had just gotten back after taking some of the kids around the block to a Chinese market.  They picked up some Oreos, but instead of vanilla or chocolate cream in the center, it was fruity of some sort.  Interesting.  I didn't really like it, but it wasn't horrible.  It was a fun adventure for them.  Apparently they had their first person stop them and ask to take their picture.  However, it was some guy, and he wanted a picture with just Laney and Savannah.  Herman had JoJo in the picture with them, and Laney made one of her big overly enthusiastic smiles so that it wasn't too creepy.  Still a bit weird.  Everyone got back to the hotel okay, but we didn't really get a good full night of sleep.

But, the good news is that it is super easy to be on time to church when you start getting ready so early in the morning.  I didn't expect to find any organized church meetings while we were in China because of the restrictions China has on religion.  However, although there is a restriction on active proselyting, preventing missionary work from taking place here, there is an active LDS presence for those members who are serving here in various business and government roles.  Beijing has three branches, one is Chinese, and they do not interact at all with the two English speaking branches, I'm sure in order to prevent the appearance of active proselyting or something like that.  The two English branches are divided by those who live close together in the city, and those who are a bit more scattered in the outlying areas of Beijing.  We chose to go to the branch of those who are from the outlying areas.  They met at 8:30 this morning, and we were having to take the subway there, so we figured if we couldn't make it there in time, we could attend the other branch at 10:30 since they all meet in the same building.

On our way to church on the crowded Beijing subway

We had to take the subway to get to the building where the branch was located.  I am so grateful that we took our trip to New York City a few years ago, because I was able to figure out how the subways are organized and what to expect when riding in a crowded city.  If I hadn't had that experience previously, the Beijing subway would have probably caused me to have a nervous breakdown.  We entered the subway station at Tiannanmen Square.  On the way there we barely saw the entrance to the Forbidden City.  It was so foggy today that we only could see a little bit in front of our face.  But we were able to find the station okay.  We had to purchase our tickets from the workers there, and none of them spoke any English, but with some hand gestures and big smiles we were able to get our message out, and they got us the tickets.  It was amazingly cheap -- $2 for our entire family to travel across town.  I can see why the subways are popular here.  It didn't seem really crowded when we got to the platform.  I thought that it was good that we chose to have our first experience on the Beijing subway on a Sunday morning when it would not be so crowded.  That was until the train arrived.  Holy Cow!  The people were packed on there like sardines.  Wall to wall people on every car.  How in the world were we going to cram our eight people into one of the cars, especially when there were another large group of people at each door waiting to get on?  Well, after seeing the subways and riding them this morning, I totally understand why the Chinese people don't necessarily do polite lines like we do.  If they waited politely for the lines to move forward they would never get on the crazy thing.  We gathered ourselves together and rammed ourselves into the car.  We pushed and prodded everyone in our path.  No one complained because everyone else was doing the same thing.  I didn't get a picture on the way back because my arms were pinned against my side like I was in a straight jacket, but on one segment of our trip all eight of us were pressed together.  JoJo and Hyrum were in the middle of the pack and had to look straight up so that they could breathe.  I had my arms wrapped around my family like a mother hen, and Herman dedicated himself to making sure we could waddle our little group out of the car when our stop arrived.  Total craziness, but I have to say that this is one of the things I love about traveling to places like this.  I loved the crowds packed in together.  I loved that we were able to maneuver within the system.  We were a curiosity indeed.  There were hardly any children at all on the subway, and really there weren't any families at all at 7 am when we got on to head to church.  Luckily, as a curiosity, everyone gave us a bunch of good will and forgave us any mistakes we might have made.

Getting on the subway headed to church

We finally made it off the subway and to our stop, but we still weren't sure exactly where the church was located.  We knew that it was very near the Liberian embassy, but in an area with lots of tall buildings, that doesn't really get us all that close.  Herman had researched the location for us this morning, so we followed him as he took us to a building in the area.  However, once we arrived there, we weren't exactly sure we had the right place.  There wasn't any sort of obvious welcome sign where we could see it.  Now was when our purchase of a cell phone in China made the most sense.  We called the branch president and found that we were in the right place.  We just needed to head up to the fourth floor.

It was a nice little branch.  There were a lot more youth than I expected.  The amount of youth varies in a branch like this, but they had about forty yound men and women there.  That was great for Laney, Spencer, and Savannah.  The primary was a bit smaller, but it was still a respectable amount.  Unfortunately they were practicing for their primary program today, so Katie, Hyrum, and JoJo just had to sit by and help sing the songs.  They didn't get to have any sort of actual lesson.  We arrived almost an hour ahead of schedule.  We didn't know how long it would take to use the subway.  So we helped set up the room with hymnals.  They had a fast and testimony today because they have an Asian area conference next week.  Herman and Hyrum bore their testimonies, and it was a nice little meeting.  It was a little like a military ward because of all of the turnover with people moving in and out so often, but this branch was full of diplomats and businessmen and their families.  Everyone was very friendly, and you could see that they really have a strong sense of unity and community within the branch because they are all so isolated living as members in Beijing.  I thought it was interesting that as we left the services we were reminded to be quiet because they were having "Virtual Church" in one of the classrooms next door.  I guess this is what they do for members who are scattered in various areas throughout China who do not have access to any branch of the Church.  They do a conference call together.  Actually there was a guy there who was visiting for the week with an awesome French accent who was one of those members who did not get to attend church regularly because of his work in an isolated region in China.  Way cool to see how the Church organizes itself to reach all those who are in need, wherever they may be.

Herman tried really hard to set Laney up on a date with one of the many super cute guys who attended the branch, but it was a no go.  Apparently the American school set up for the children of diplomats is rigorous, and no one at all has time to date.  They are overwhelmed with school work.  I don't think that Laney was too worried about the lack of a dating opportunity though.  She kept trying to tell Herman that we would be too busy to have time to throw a date together.  So it all worked out for the best, I guess.


We took the subway back to Wufangjing Avenue.  This is a bustling market area that is famous in Beijing.  We decided to check it out to see if we could pick up something inexpensive for lunch.  It is absolutely amazing to behold.  There were so many people and so many vendors.  It was a little bit like you would see at a county fair, but not.  The main avenue is a pedestrian street with posh sorts of stores mingled with quaint little local vendors.  We didn't go there to really shop.  We just took in the atmosphere and got an idea of what to expect when we come by later this week.  We did grab a few unusual food items from some of the street vendors.  We had some sort of crab apples on a stick that lots of the locals seemed to be enjoying.  It was not a favorite with the Blau family.  Unfortunately I ended up having to finish off everything for the kids.  I'm just glad they were smaller crab apples so that I wasn't having to finish off full sized apple treats.  We didn't get super adventurous with our meats yet.  We had some good chicken and pork on a stick, and there was good but disturbingly crunchy fried crab.  On one of the neat side streets they were selling all sorts of bizarre meats -- lots of squirming bugs on sticks, waiting to be thrust into the fry oil.  We all made a promise to ourselves to be adventurous sometime this week and purchase one of those sticks.  We just weren't brave enough today.

Herman bargaining for a discount
 on dumplings at Wangfujing

We weren't really accosted at all as we browsed through the street vendors.  Everyone was pretty polite and kept their distance.  But we really didn't enter any of the retail shops or the Oriental mall at all.  We just stuck to the food vendors.  I imagine that the retail vendors are the ones who are described as being so forceful.  We only had one lady vendor grab us, and she grabbed at JoJo.  It was so unexpected that we just stood there for a second trying to figure out what in the world she was doing.  I'm not sure if she was trying to inspire JoJo to stick around and grab one of her items for sale so that she could charm us into purchasing it or if she wanted to keep JoJo for herself.  JoJo has turned out to be the most popular Blau wherever we go.  Everyone loves to look at him and say hello, and it produces a huge squeal from onlookers when he says "Xie, xie (thank you)" to anyone.  However, in this case we quickly through up our hand in the lady's face, gave out a firm "Boo Yao" and headed on our way.  Grabbing onto our little boy is not going to endear us to you enough to get us to purchase any item from your kiosk.

Yum -- I think?

Wufangjing was just an amazing place to see.  There were so many people gathered together.  I'm sure that we didn't get the best deals on the little bit of food we purchased.  We are still a bit too nice in our bargaining, but we're learning.  We figure if we screw up our bargaining with the already cheap street food, we will at least learn our lessons and get better for when we are bargaining in the shops later this week.  Herman even tried to trade some deodorant for something, causing the rest of us to run away in horror and embarrassment.  He didn't succeed, but he had great fun trying.  The street had so many interesting people to watch.  Once while I was taking a picture of Herman checking out the bugs on a stick I ended up talking with a man from India who was amazed that people were purchasing such things.  That makes me wonder just how weird this is because I would have thought that a man from India would have seen such items in his own country.  With all of the interesting people to see, I think that our family may have topped the list as the most interesting people to see this day.  We got double take looks a lot as we passed everyone on the street.  There were so many young men checking out Laney that it got horribly uncomfortable at times.  She never noticed, thank goodness, but it made me want to take on a big protective stance at times.  Luckily we travel as a pack, and that offers all of us a lot of protection.

Our first visit to Wangfujing

The crazy crowds at the market

Street marketing -- Traditional Chinese garb

After our adventure we headed back to the hotel.  Our idea was to take a little half hour nap and then stay awake until this evening, hopefully getting us over our jet lag.  Unfortunately that seems to have backfired.  I am awake now, but I haven't been able to wake anyone else.  It is after 9 pm, but everyone has been asleep since 2 pm.  It is going to be another early wake for tomorrow.  Tomorrow we head out on our only organized tour that we purchased for this trip.  Our travel agency has hired a driver and guide to take us all to the Great Wall at Mutianyu.  We leave at 8 am, and something tells me that we'll all be ready to go at about 3 am.  Afterwards we go to Beihai Park for a full day of fun.  I can't wait.

It seems I've just fried our power cord to the laptop, so updating will be a bit harder in the future.  We have the iPad, so it can be done. I just hate typing on that thing, so it'll be slow going.  Still, I promise to update often with pictures and stories of our adventures.