China Day Six -- Just Stay Alive! I Will Find You!

Outside the Summer Palace

Today began with something totally mundane that became a bit of an adventure.  We had to do our laundry.  I had grand designs to find a local laundry shop and get our laundry done cheap about twice a week while we are in China.  I read over and over and over again about how cheap the local laundry services were, so I had no worries about this.  Well, it turns out that we must be in the expensive laundry area of Beijing because everywhere we went was going to charge us the equivalent of one American dollar per piece of laundry. When you take a family of eight and add four days of laundry, I can easily say that it was going to cost us a small fortune to get our laundry done.  By the time we finished our trip here I would have spent enough on laundry to purchase a brand spanking new machine in America.  That just wasn't going to cut it.  Our first great idea was for us to go old school and just wash all of our clothes by hand in the hotel bathroom.  It was going to be a ton of work, but to save that much money it would be worth it.  We did all of that yesterday morning.  However, by this morning it was evident that this plan was not going to work because the clothes, even the light weight stuff, was not even close to being done drying.  We had to come up with a better idea.  We came up with a two part solution.  The first part was going to involve us wearing our clothes more often before washing them which meant we would need to be more careful while wandering the city so that we didn't muddy them up too much.  The second part involved Herman taking his master bargaining skills through the neighborhood to see if we could bargain our way to a better laundry price.  Herman left this morning with two huge bags of clothes and some stick deodorant (supposedly a hot commodity, although we aren't really noticing that here in Beijing) to see if he could find a great deal.  He ended up finding a local laundry that was pretty removed from the main area that was willing to do all of our laundry for 250 RMB.  It was still horribly expensive, but it was worth it for today.  Hopefully we'll find better bargains on this in the other cities of China.  It will hurt my heart to spend so much of our travel money on laundry services.  It was kind of hard for me to turn over all of our clothing to someone else to wash, but after spending a large portion of yesterday morning hand washing everything I can say that I got over my worries pretty quickly.

After handing off the laundry we headed to the subway to get to the Summer Palace.  Our family has devised a good system to use while traveling the crowded Beijing subway system.  Our biggest fear has been that we would somehow get separated during the loading or unloading of passengers.  This is a very real possibility here because the cars are so super crowded and the time for exit and entry is so short.  While we are getting on and off we are also battling crowds of locals who are trying to do the same thing.  Our system is to have either Herman or me at the head of the line.  We call this person the Point of the Spear.  That person's job is to jam through the crowds to get us onto the subway car.  Then each big kid is responsible for holding the hand of a little kid and following our tip of the spear.  Laney has Katie, Savannah has Hyrum, and Spencer has JoJo.  Then either Herman or I bring up the rear.  We call this person the caboose.  This person's job is to push us forward and make sure that no kids get left behind.  This also means that if we somehow get separated there will be at least one adult with each group.  This plan has worked wonderfully for us.  We have never had any problems . . . until today.

Today we got onto the subway at Tiannanmen Square just fine.  Then we had to transfer to another line to head in the direction of the Summer Palace.  We were heading toward this second subway line with Herman in the lead and me bringing up the rear.  We saw that the cars had arrived and people were loading as we headed down the stairs.  Herman thought we could make it.  I wasn't so sure.  I said that we should just wait for the next line.  As we have found again and again in China, it is the hesitation that will kill us.  We hesitated.  Then we decided to go for it.  But we were in a hurry and our line fell apart.  Savannah and Hyrum ended up getting on first, followed by Spencer and JoJo.  Then, horror of horror, the alarm beeped, letting us know that the doors were getting ready to close.  Herman dived onto the car so that there would be an adult with the kids, but he was wearing a big backpack.  As the door closed it caught his backpack in it.  I watched in horror and then decided to try to do something, so I slammed into his back to push him through the automatic door.  He made it through and then turned around to see us separated.  We used some sign language to say that we would meet up at the next stop.  At least I hoped that is what we were communicating.  Oh what joy we brought to the Chinese people who were watching this unfold.  There was laughter galore all around.  And to be honest we were laughing a bit too.  At least Herman had made it and I was with Laney and Katie on the other side.  It would have been less funny if the kids were alone without one of us.  But we have talked about what to do if that happens, so hopefully it would have turned out okay.

Words of Wisdom

 This whole event made me think of that scene in Last of the Mohicans where Daniel Day Lewis's character is leaving his lady friend in the midst of a huge battle, and he screams "Just stay alive!  I will find you!  Just stay alive!"  I love that scene!  I'm not sure why I thought of that scene at that moment, but it made me laugh in the subway today.  Anyway, Laney, Katie, and I got on the next train, and the rest of the group boarded our car when we got to the next stop on the line.  It worked out okay.  It was our great subway adventure of the day.

Here's the classic scene from Last of the Mohicans.  "Just stay alive! No matter how long it takes.  No matter how far.  I will find you."  Love it!  And the music?  Some of the best movie music ever!

But I digress . . .

When we got off the line at the Summer Palace exit we found a group of American restaurant chains there.  We stopped at Dairy Queen and bought blizzards for all of us.  They were much cheaper than American blizzards so Herman went all out and let all of us get our own cups rather than sharing like we normally do.  Hurray!

We walked a block or two to get to the Summer Palace, and we all bit back a silent groan when we learned that it was three times as large as the Forbidden City.  We weren't sure if our poor feet would be able to handle the walk.  But we found that this place was so wonderful to visit.  It was absolutely beautiful.  There is a giant lake there surrounded by old Chinese palace buildings and a Buddhist temple on a giant hill.  We did have to walk a lot around the place, but it was more relaxing -- kind of like visiting a beautiful nature center.  The crowds were much smaller here, so it wasn't so confining.  We were able to really enjoy everything.

The Great Stone Dragon

Giving our aching feet a break

By the Buddhist temple at the hilltop

It's not just true love . . .
He's actually holding me up because I'm exhausted.

View of the lake from the top of the hill

View of a gorgeous Chinese building from the top of the hill

I love these gorgeous rooftops!

Love these kids!

View of the temple from the bottom of the hill

Laney and Savannah crossing the great divide.  Notice the  edge at the bottom of each doorway.  We were told that these were installed in ancient buildings to make sure that people didn't "let the chi out."  Interesting, but it would have sucked to have any sort of disability in this sort of system.

The Blau Children looking at the beautiful lake

From another angle

I was super excited while I was there to notice that I was understanding a few individual Chinese words as the people spoke around me.  A group of old men walked by us while we were resting, and I saw one of the men smile at Katie.  He then turned to his companion and said that she looked like a little doll.  And I understood him!  Hurray!  I think if I were immersed in this place long enough I could figure things out.

There were several boats on the lake -- not the loud, noisy speedboats that you see on American lakes, but quieter paddle boats and electric boats.  The family decided to take one out.  This was not my favorite activity of the trip.  I have some phobia about boating on lakes.  I have always had nightmares of drowning or having one of my children drown, so I'm hyper worried whenever we go boating.  These boats had no life jackets, so I was terrified of something happening.  The rest of the family thought this was hilarious.  I would warn them of boats coming close to us, and everyone would laugh and laugh because I was worried about boats fifty yards away when we were on boats going probably five miles an hour.  It was not an enjoyable ride for me, but everyone else loved it, so I guess it was worth it.  It is a beautiful lake.

Laney getting her turn behind the wheel

A beautiful archway on the lake

Despite my anxiety I did drive for a bit

The kids thought it was soooo funny to pretend to tip over
the edge and make me scream.  They're a riot.

Katie at the controls

Spencer not watching where he is headed.

Hyrum gave it a go as well.

Herman should have made me feel safest while he was driving,
but it didn't work out that way.  He likes to see me freak out over unnecessary things, I think.

McDonalds ran their own pedicabs between the Summer Palace and their store.
That's something you don't see every day.

Outside the McDonalds near
the Summer Palace

We left the Summer Palace after enjoying it for several hours and headed back to the subway.  On the way we decided to finally break down and eat at McDonalds in China.  It was a very nice restaurant, and they had an English menu to point at so that we could easily order.  I got Happy Meals for the younger kids because I wanted to see what sort of toys came with it.  It was some sort of cartoon character that must be popular in China.  The kids liked it.  I thought it was interesting that in China the chicken meals were cheaper than the hamburger ones, unlike America.  The food tasted a lot like McDonalds normally does, but there was a slight aftertaste that is very Chinese.  I can't really describe it.  It just follows everything I have eaten here, whether sweet or sour or meaty or veggie.  I also braved the bathroom there and was happy to see that it was immaculate.  It didn't smell at all, and that is unusual in Chinese bathrooms.  

Outside the Lama Temple

We then headed back to the subway to see the Lama Temple.  After arriving, however, we found that it had closed half an hour earlier.  Bummer!  We would have to come back tomorrow.  That's okay though.  We have an extra day to do things, so we could fit it in.  Instead of walking right back to the subway we decided to walk back in the direction of the hotel.  I'm not sure why we did this, but we did.  However, despite our aching feet we found that we really enjoyed this extra walking.  We left the very touristy shops of the area around the Lama Temple and entered older Chinese neighborhoods where people were doing their normal day to day business.  We saw tons of neat little farmer's markets.  I have never seen so much Chinese cabbage and gigantic green onions.  There were mountains of it everywhere.  We were a curiosity to everyone.  I'm sure that they thought we were lost.  Maybe we were a little, but it was worth it to get a taste of normal Chinese life.  

A worker hauling a ton of Chinese cabbage on a bike cart to market

A giant mountain of Chinese cabbage and huge green onions

We finally made it to another subway station and decided that we needed to just get on instead of hoofing it back to the hotel.  Unfortunately, now it was rush hour with everyone leaving their jobs and heading home.  I have wanted to avoid this time of day on the subways our entire trip, but now we were in the middle of it.  If I had thought the subways were busy before I was sadly mistaken.  This was amazing.  How were we going to get on?  What is amazing to see is that there are these older retired people in yellow hats who work the subways at this time of day.  Their job is to push the people entering the cars so that we can all squeeze on.  We got to know each other very well as we were slammed into everyone else.  Lovely.  But we really did love this.  There is just so much energy in this system.

A worker at Wangfujing used Savannah for a demo on some
neat hair design products he was selling

Here's the finished product.  I admit it.
I have hair envy over Savannah's super gorgeous and thick red hair.

We were exhausted once we debarked at Wangfujing, but we wanted to go and have Peking Duck for dinner.  We walked, once again, through the Wangfujing shopping district as we headed to a small restaurant off the beaten path that served Peking Duck as a specialty.  We had originally wanted to go to Da Dong restaurant because it was rumored to be the best in the city, but at $30 a plate in American dollars we weren't that interested in having the best.  We would just settle for very good.  By the time we got to the restaurant JoJo was asleep and Hyrum was headed in that direction.  They didn't really get to enjoy the experience much.  It was a very nice little restaurant, and the owner and waiters took very good care of us.  When the duck chef came out to carve the duck for us the owner stood by to make sure that we ate it the right way.  It is served in little slices that you put on a thin pancake like thing along with some sliced veggies and a sauce.  It was good enough, I guess, but it isn't the favorite thing I've eaten here.  It was a bit too greasy for me.  But, I'm glad we got to have the experience of eating it.

JoJo didn't make it to the main course, and Hyrum is on his way out

The chefs preparing the duck

Our personal chef preparing our bird at the table

Outside our Peking Duck restaurant

We finally headed home after another exhausting day of sightseeing.  It was still worth all of the walking, but we went to sleep immediately, too tired to do anything else.  Tomorrow is temple day as we visit several of the famous temples located throughout the city.