The F--bidden City was awesome! It is huge and you can easily get lost inside of it. With my typical luck, my camera died after we walked through the first gate. Luckily Devon was looking out for me and we're going to trade pictures. Walking through the City was awesome. Thinking about how thousands of years worth of Chinese rulers have walked through the same grounds is a cool experience. The pagodas have beasts on the corners of the buildings to show the significance of the building. The more "beasts" the more important the building is. You can see the beasts on the roof in the pictures. Also, they have huge stone carvings and walkways that only emperors could walk on. There is a 102m moat around the whole place and there are many gardens that the emperors used to woo concubines. They said that all the trees within the City are well over 300 years old. Underneath all of the building overhangs, intricate carvings of dragons, flowers, and landscapes are painted with green, blue, and gold paint. There was one room that had some of the largest hand sewn rugs I've ever seen. They had golden threads weaved in really intricate patterns. It was a really great experience overall, but after walking around for 3 hours we were all pretty tired. We went to a dumpling restaurant afterwards and ate delicious dumplings. Our leader ordered us some traditional food, but we pretty much stuck with the meat dumplings. The place was supposedly notorious for their dumplings and had my camera been working, I could have taken pictures of the people hand-making the dumplings in the back.
When we got back to our apartments, Devon and Kelly went to the Silk Market and Andrew and I went to get our haircut. We were laughing at lunch when we were talking about getting a haircut or a massage out in China. Our leader was not shy to tell us the real deal when looking for one of these services. The main point: watch out. China still relies on the sex industry to make a little money, so naturally massages and haircuts are used as fronts for the dirty business. We joke that be careful where you go to get a massage because it might just come with a happy ending. Our leader assured us to never say "special massage" because it implies sexual favors. Also, when looking for a massage place, never go to a place with pink lights outside of it. Those are a common sign for special massages. When you want to get a haircut, they usually massage your head for free. But it is also very easy to ask for a happy ending when your haircut is finished. Everyone thought it was funny when someone asked our leader how much for a happy ending, and she simply said "It depends on the person!" This is probably a really taboo subject for most people, but it is probably good that we talked about this with our leader before we ventured out looking for anything. A Chinese massage is very well known for being inexpensive and thorough and we all really wanted to get one eventually.
Back to the story, Andrew and I went to get a haircut and thought we'd bring along our leader just in case. For my first time, I definately wanted a translator for this adventure. We found a place in an apartment building next to ours for only Y20 which was supposedly really expensive. (That is about $4). I've gotten my haircut in many different places but by far China is the cheapest I've ever seen. I got an excellent haircut, shampoo, and mini-head massage for Y20. Amazing. After the haircut, all of the 20 day volunteers got a call to head to Steve's apartment (the CCI director)to pick up an extra Olympic ticket. I got a ticket for the Men's Pentathalon the morning I have Men's Basketball Semifinals. That should be awesome.
When I got back to the apartment, everyone was pretty bored and we had nothing to do until dinner so we decided what the hell, let's go get a massage! We had talked about it the night before, but after our conversation at lunch we felt prepared to venture out on our own. Not to mention, we're all pretty stressed out around here, so what the heck. Me, Jimmy, Rachel and Kelly went outside and asked a gaurd where one was. He took us right to an apartment building across the street and on the first floor, through the back door, and down a dark hallway there was a massage place. 1 hour massage. Y68 ($11). Total awesomeness. We felt like new people afterwards. I don't really think I need to say anymore but yea. Imagine little Chinese ladies walking on your back, x10. It was great. They did my back, neck, shoulders, butt (which was a little weird at first but you just have to go w/ it), hamstrings, quads, calves, arms and hands. Feet cost a little extra so none of us did that. It was a good experience and it wasn't "special" so we think we'll have to go there again next week.
After the massage, we headed over to stuff our faces. We were really hungry after all that hard work. We sat down and ordered food. That night we decided to get a whole duck (not Beijing Roast Duck). It was really good and we had other dishes to compliment it. I ate the eyeball. It wasn't that great. Don't think I need to try it again either. By the time we were done with dinner it had already gotten dark outside. We decided to head back. Personally, I was done. I had walked around all day, was sore from my massage, and had been up since 7am. I had to wake up really early for beach volleyball the next day and I wasn't looking to have a big night. On the way back we became tourists and saw this dog that seriously looked like a lion. I don't know how to describe it other than it was medium sized, long red/brown fur, with a mane and everything. He sat just like a lion and he looked like a stuffed animal. The old man who owned it said that it was very rare breed. It probably isn't but we loved it anyway.
Random notes: I'm having a great time out here. There are too many times I think of people back home when we're out having fun and I wish I could remember all of them. But here's an embarassing moment. Giro has the habit of making friends wherever we go. He talks to the locals even though he doesn't speak Chinese and he entertains them by taking pictures with them and flashing peace signs. We were walking around our neighborhood to get Olympic tickets and there is this woman sitting on the sidewalk with tons of chihuahuas. Long haired and short haired all with brown, brown/red fur. He approaches the woman cautiously and doesn't want to scare any of the dogs that are laying down licking their paws and sleeping. He stops a few feet away and waves at the lady and looks at the dogs. The lady smiled back very friendly and Giro took another step closer to try and get to know her. Wrong move. It was like attack of the wolves. All of a sudden, the dogs get up as if an alarm had just gone off and it was WWIII. Imagine at least 7 ankle-biters barking like crazy and chasing after a screaming white guy from the states. It was hilarious. The dogs made so much noise that everyone else in the plaza stopped what they were doing to watch the scared guy run away. All of us were actually pretty afraid of the vicious dogs and we left the square before we caused any more trouble.
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| Tiananmen Square & Forbidden City |
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