Wednesday June 16 – Forbidden City Fell asleep last night with thunder, lightning and rain and this morning it was hot and muggy again so I guess it didn't clear. We found a porridge kind of breakfast (big bowl for $0.15) and some kind of steamed buns. Caught the Metro to the Forbidden City, paid the entrance fee (60 RMB each, about $9.90) and made a day of it. The hawkers are working overtime and they remind me of black flies that just will not go away. Every trick in the book to sell you a tour, flags, water, books, post cards, you name it. Jake calmed me down and got me through the gauntlet and into the City.
The Forbidden City is kept up pretty well but has it's share of blistered paint and dusty exhibits. Still it is enormous and beautiful and important to the people of China. China's history boils down to this as far as I can figure it out (Excuse me ahead of time if I am way off base). For thousands of years they lived isolated from the world and had what they needed to get by peacefully, minus a dynasty turn over from time to time. Then starting in the 17 or 18th century the outside world started picking at it, trying to take advantage of it economically. After a couple attempts at repulsing the west, it sort of lost, the emperor thing ended in 1911 and the west set up shop and took control. China tried on this new modern suit for awhile but kept getting taken for fools and after WWII, Mao started the revolution and took control, I think with his heart in the right place, but unfortunately he thought China could make the Soviet model of central control work. That didn't work out exactly as planned so after Mao dies, China still was using central control but started pushing the free market system on a local scale, and keeping the big decisions for the central government. So what I see on the street in China this week is little guys making and selling stuff to each other, and business people setting up business and getting relatively wealthy. So it's like they dropped this western style Porsche engine economic model into a rickshaw, and it is going like hell. They build 50 stories apartment buildings next to 50 story offices and huge factories, and laborers pour in from the countryside and work for cheap. I did see an English language newspaper say that labor prices are rising 15-25% after strikes at factories, so I think the price of Chinese goods is going to rise.
I may be way off base, but that's my uneducated take on what I am seeing.
So Forbidden City has an endless number of ornate buildings that have different museum-like displays. Not sure how we did it, but we blew almost the whole day there.
So Jake thinks he sort of remembers approximately where there might be a good pizza place and the evening's adventure begins. We take a subway to about where he thinks it is, and after asking directions and running out of breadcrumbs several times, we find a hip, happening neighborhood on a lake called Houhai. This lake is full of foreigners and bars. Lots of neon, lots of good western bar music acts, karaoke in half of them, and not so cheap prices. Actually exactly what you would pay back home, but really expensive compared to $2.00 meals (including a 600ml beer) normal folks eat. So after a loooooong hike, we are standing on a small bridge and Jake is searching for signs of said pizza place and he points at a little dingy unlit sign that says “Hutong Pizza” on a brick wall. Mind you, this is not the place but only an indication you are somewhere close. So away from the neon strip, down some back alleys and another little sign appears over a door, and we are there. How anyone even knows this place exists is beyond me, but it must be one of the hidden secret spots. A couple French girls were ordering calzones (and smoking thank you very much), and a trickle of Europeans and maybe an American or 2 come and go. We order a good old American veggie pizza (with green olives, oh well) and a couple of beers. Like the hamburger, I think my system needed a rice and noodle purge, and this did the trick.
We had a harder time getting out, and finally a police guy sent to the bus stop, and Jake figured it out from there. So back for a quick shower to get the salt off after a hot day of endless walking.
Tomorrow we do the Great Wall...
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