Living in Beijing?

When we were first planning this trip, we wanted to make it a volunteer-based trip. We didn't want to just travel as tourists; we wanted to help out. With that in mind, we'd planned to join a mission trip in Beijing. Unfortunately, that fell through and we were at loose ends for a bit—but God does provide!

We googled English churches when we first came to town and ended up at Beijing International Christian Fellowship (BICF). We were hesitant to attend at first—the website said you had to have a foreign passport and we wanted a church that was active in their community. However, we decided to go and see,and when we did, we were excited to find out about all the outreach activities they participated in. We were also excited to see the “volunteers needed” section of their church bulletin! After the service we went to the Welcome Corner, introduced ourselves, and offered our assistance.

It's funny. Before I left I didn't think my writing would be of use in the mission field. But then I arrived in China and was told that while there were no short-term mission trips in the field during the time we were there, what they could really use help with was writing some articles for their newsletter. This included learning and writing about an awesome mission trip the BICF Impact ministry arranged to a small village school in rural China, as well as interviewing a woman running an amazing ministry in another area of China that provides for AIDS orphans.

While I was writing or editing, Amanda was using her equally well-matched skills to create and organize some financial information for the ministry in Excel documents that amazed all the staff! :)

In addition to office work, we also had the chance to help teach English to former street kids, volunteer with orphans from the Sizhaun earthquakes, and learn about a ministry to migrant children. It was a busy month!

One of the other fun parts of staying in Beijing for almost a month was that we were starting to develop a sense of community. We had “our” restaurant in a non-tourist area of town, where the staff knew us and what we always ordered. We had “our” street fruit stand where the young sales girl recognized us and laughed with us at our frequent purchase of mandarin oranges. We also had our roadside bun stand close to “work” where we could buy these great green onion or red bean filled buns for only 1 RMB (20 cents or so)! It's always amazed me how quickly community can form, even in a country where you don't speak the language.

Ohh...right, I almost forgot to mention “our” coffee shop! Jungle Java—bottomless cups of real coffee and the most amazing desserts in the world!!! I think we ate our way through most of the cakes and things shown here. If anyone is in Beijing and craving North American desserts or sandwiches, this is most definitely the place to go! (We recommend the cinnamon buns—they are to die for.)

We were also beginning to get to know little bits of the city. We figured out the metro (okay, that's not too hard...) and started to figure out the buses too (more difficult as things aren't listed in English). In fact, we were quite proud of ourselves when we went out to an unfamiliar area of town for lunch after church on the last Sunday we were in Beijing and were able to get on a different bus than we arrived on and find our way home with no assistance at all.

By the time it was time to leave, (Hmm...that's an interesting phrase “time it was time”) we didn't want to go. We had such a great time in Beijing and met some really great people and there's really only one reason we left at all: it was really, really cold! :) Okay, so the fact that the Chinese refused to give us visas for more than a month might have had something to do with it too, but, seriously, it was cold! (Okay, not that cold really—it was maybe 7° C or so, but that feels cold when you're not dressed for it—and when you are thinking tropical thoughts... )

Remembering

Two and a half years ago I lived in China. When I left, I promised I'd return to visit. Finally, at the end of our China visit, I kept that promise and travelled to Shijiazhuang. The short trip was a trip about remembering: remembering people, places, food, and language! The language bit was funny actually...I think I remembered more Mandarin in the 2 ½ days we were in Shijiazhuang than in the 2 ½ weeks previous. It's amazing how having all your senses engaged can help your memory recall.

We stayed with my Chinese family while in Shijiazhuang. It was so great to see them all again! My “brother” and “sister-in-law,” Jack and Anny, now have the cutest daughter named Rachel. She is adorable! She took a little while to warm up to us, but once she did, she was sure we were there for her own private amusement. She had us read books to her, play catch, sing songs (we taught her Head and Shoulders, Ring Around the Rosie, and the Chicken Dance), and just generally play! She called us Ai-ee (“aunt” in Mandarin).






Besides playing with Rachel, we also hung out with the whole family, played badminton with my “sister” Tina, and made dumplings with Mrs Wang. The dumpling-making was lots of fun. However, it's a lot more difficult than it looks. And, when I say we made dumplings, I mean the whole shebang!




We started with a trip to the market to buy supplies...















then mixed the filling...
















made the dough...












put the dumplings together...












and then cooked and ate some for lunch...and dinner...and breakfast! They were fabulous! I'm now expected to make them when I return to Canada—we'll see if I still remember how to make them when we get back home in a year or so. :)






Visiting my family again was awesome; equally awesome was seeing some of my friends. We met Linda at the park in Shijiazhuang for a short time (too short!) and caught up on what was happening. Then, when we got back to Beijing, we met my friend Li, her mother, and her boyfriend. They are from Shijiazhuang but live in Beijing now.

I wish I'd had more time to spend with everyone—but I guess that gives me yet another reason to visit China again!

The Wall

In terms of tourist destinations, the Great Wall was, by far, the highlight of our trip. After much deliberation, we decided to hike from Jingsanling to Simatai, spend the night in a hostel there, and then watch the sunrise over the Great Wall the next morning (that's what I did when I visited the Wall two years ago). The difference between this trip and the last though, was our decision not to book a tour, but to get there on local transportation instead.

That was fun.

Really. 

The adventure started upon arrival at the bus station in Beijing where several people approached us and insisted that the bus we wanted didn't exist. The signs weren't in English, though, so it was hard to verify that. We'd have been happier trusting them if they hadn't tried to split the two of us up, keep us away from the other backpackers we met, and stop us from asking the other locals. However, after wasting almost an hour, we finally took the bus they recommended along with another couple of backpackers. 

We arrived in Miyun, a town close to the Wall, an hour later only to find that another bus had supposedly vanished! Everyone gave us blank stares when we explained what we wanted and again all the signs were only in Chinese characters. We never found that bus either. Finally six of us (four other backpackers were also headed to the Wall) negotiated a price of 20 RB each with one of the minibuses and headed to the Wall. 

The ten kilometre hike itself was brilliant! The weather was actually warm and there wasn't a cloud in the sky! The trees around the Wall were just beginning to change colour and, most importantly, there were very few other tourists about. We decided to stay and watch the sunset on the Wall and then hiked down to our hostel. The next morning we woke up at five am, sneaked out of our hostel by jumping the gate and then headed back up to the Wall. The night was cold, but the stars were absolutely breathtaking! Funnily enough, even though we thought we were the only people around, we got to wall, turned a corner and almost gave another girl a heart attack! We hadn't thought to bring a flashlight so we were hiking in the dark and she didn't hear us coming. It was quite funny—and she even agreed with us after we peeled her off the ceiling of the watch tower. :)

The sunrise was well worth the cold weather and the early rising hour (hopefully the girl we met thought it was also worth having five years scared off her life). Once the sun was up we hiked to—and past—the end of the tourist section of the Wall. We toasted the day with our last ginger beer and then headed back down to play the transportation game once more.

This time things were going our way. Despite the assurances of the taxi driver that it didn't exist, we finally found the local bus! It cost only 4 RMB.

Beijjing backpackers

So...since we've been in Beijing almost a month with no posts, this has the possibility of being very long, so be warned.

China is a fascinating place to visit, and from famous attractions like the Great Wall to lesser known ones like Jingshan Park, Beijing has been brilliant!

Our first tourist outing was to the Forbidden City. And even though it's horribly clichéd, I'm going to say it: the Forbidden City is far from forbidden now! (Well, I guess it's still forbidden for foreigners who don't want to pay 60 RMB...) Despite the crowds though, it was quite interesting to wander through both the main sections (the audience hall and the main throne room) as well as the smaller halls, lodges, and pavilions built for various reasons and named things like the Lodge for the Proper Places and Cultivation of Things or the Hall of Crimson Snow.

Our most brilliant find was Jingshan Park, which we randomly decided to visit because it was close...and only2 RMB. It used to be an imperial park and the hill at the center was actually built as a windbreak for the Forbidden City. We hiked to the top of the highest hill and the view over the Forbidden City was fantastic! The temples on the hill were also interesting (even if the Anglo-French invaders stole four of the five Buddha statues.) A random tidbit from this park is that it's the place where the last Qing Emperor hanged himself, to avoid meeting the peasant army marching on the city. This somehow made him a national hero... still a bit confused as to why...

The Temple of Heaven was fun in that it was different from all the Buddhist temples we saw in Korea and Hong Kong. Not too surprising since it was a Tao temple and not a Buddhist one. It was round and it's where the emperor used to go pray for a good harvest each year. The craziest thing here were the locals hanging out in the surrounding park! There was this long walk-way area where people would bring sound equipment, set it up and start singing. Often others would congregate round and join in...or they would move about 20 feet down the walk-way and set up their own sound equipment and sing their own song... When we walked by the first time there were at least 6 or 7 different people or groups singing within a few hundred yards. I don't know if they were trying to outdo each other or what, because most places you stood you could hear at least 3 distinctly different people singing! It was insane!

Tienanmen Square where many Chinese locals know nothing about the Tienanmen Square standoff... Seriously, they don't. They do come to pay homage to Mao though. We walked past there the other morning and there were thousands (yes, thousands) of people lined up to get into his mausoleum.

The swimming building and the National Olympic Stadium weren't built yet when I was here before. They are quite the buildings...very ingenious architecture! We didn't bother going in though. They are just barely open to the public and a bit expensive. Instead we stayed outside and took pictures. When we were trying to capture this picture, we had one tout who wanted to take the picture for us. We said no, but he took pictures while I was jumping anyways. Afterwards he was showing us his pictures (which didn't look nearly as good—his shutter speed was too slow) and asking if we wanted to buy them. We said no and showed him ours. He was suitably impressed and immediately quit trying to sell us his...but then whipped out his printer and offered to print our picture out for 20 RMB. We gave him an A for effort—but still refused!

Peking university was fun to visit too. It was free—but I think we were supposed to be students to get in. We just smiled, looked confident, and walked past the guards. It's amazing how often looking confident gets you into places! And...it's a beautiful campus! We both thought it was time to be students again. We tried to get into some classes, but it's harder to beat an electronic card reader with confidence...

We went to the Beijing Zoo on Amanda's birthday. (Yes, all the requisite jokes about visiting home for your birthday were made!) It ended up being a good day to go since the low season started November 1st! Some of the zoo was rather depressing—like the poor bears who got to hang out in a mostly bare cement pit... However improvements are being made and newer areas—like the giant panda section—were much better. And the giant pandas were quite adorable! We also liked the big albino python and all the monkeys.

Now as a tourist there are things to see and then there are things to do. One thing to do in China is to try the local street food on a stick. In terms of food on a stick, there are normal things like chicken or lamb kebabs, sweet things like sugared apples, odd things like tofu or squid, and scary things like scorpions and silk worms! We tried most of the above. (Check out our picture folders on facebook for proof!)

Our last tourist stop was to the Confucian Temple. Confucius, of course, never claimed to be a god and would probably be quite ticked to find out that there are temples dedicated to him! None the less, it was interesting to visit. According to the people who set up the display on Confucianism in one of the buildings, Confucius is the sole reason anyone in the world lives in a civilized society. Now, I think Confucius was an amazing guy, but that's just a bit of a stretch! The other display that was set up though, was about the Great Wall and that was fascinating. It was a rephotography exhibition based on photographs mostly taken in 1908 and then retaken in 2006 or 2007. It's amazing to see how the wall has or hasn't changed, depending on the area.

And yes, we did visit the Great Wall! In fact, no post about Beijing would be complete without a mention of the Great Wall, so consider this the mention! :) Our Great Wall experience was brilliant—and we have so many pictures that I think it warrants it's own post. Consider this the preview.