This begins my description of our trip to China, beginning with Beijing and the Great Wall.
The Great Wall was fantastic to visit. As you drive out of Beijing towards the Great Wall you enter mountainous country; about 10 miles away we started to see sections of the Wall high up on the mountain tops.
The only really downer about the Great Wall: they have set up loudspeakers all along this section of the Wall we visited (called Badaling) and played music incessantly, interspersed with talking. So you never really go to sit and listen to the wind, birds, etc. They also have a huge sign (leftover from the Olympics) saying one world one peace, which manages to be in most of your photographs.
The air pollution in Beijing was awful, and there was quite a bit at the Great Wall site we visited. In Beijing we visited the Olympic site (the Birdnest) and the air pollution was so bad that you thought you were in a pea soup London fog.
While in Beijing we visited the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. It was so cold that our first purchases upon entering the Square was hats and gloves. Our guide, Michael, had been a witness to the student uprising at the square in 1989 and it was interesting to hear his description of some of the events (he was no longer a student at that time, but he would bike out to the square to see the protests; he was close by the square when the army opened fire; he could hear scattered gunshots, at which time he rode furiously away; two people he knew were wounded by gunshots).
We only spent three hours in the Forbidden City; a full day would have been wonderful, so you could just wander around. I was surprised at the number of Chinese tourists; Westerners were definitely a minority.
Also in Beijing we went to a Hutong (one of the old neighborhoods; there used to be 13,000 such neighborhoods, now only 400). We rode around the ancient lanes in a rickshaw, and then entered a family home for a home-cooked meal. Our Host looked like Jackie Chan, if Jackie had spent a great part of his life drinking sake. He was a very genial man, ready to share sake at a moments notice. His wifes family had owned the home for 100 years; when he married into the family he quit his job at the factory and they opened the house to these lunches. I quite envied his life of leisure, since his wife did all the cooking while he played genial host. The Hutong was marvelous to walk about; small grocery stores everywhere, small parks where old men sat and played Mong Jong, and street vendors chasing you down the street to sell you chopsticks.
I was quite surprised that the Chinese food we were served (both at the Hutong and at restaurants) was exactly like we get at home. I thought it would be more spicy, or just different in some way. The Chinese tend to eat family style. Our group would sit at a large round table (there were ten of us), which had a large lazy Susan. The waitress would periodically bring out a large basis of food, which we would then pass around. We usually had about 10 different types of food, virtually always including chicken and broccoli, sweet and sour pork, moo goo gai pan, etc. Interestingly, a big bowl of French Fries was often served. Our most interesting food was jellyfish (quite tasty) and chicken feet (not much meat on a chicken foot at all). The table would have both chopsticks and knives and forks. I always used the utensils, while my wife always used the chopsticks (she had been practicing at home for months).
Watching the Chinese eat with chopsticks was interesting: a person would either lift their plate of food up to their mouth and then start shoveling food into their mouth with the chopsticks, or else lower their head to the plate on the table and start shoveling. Of course, some foods, such as rice or noodles, simply does not lend itself to elegantly picking up a strand with chopsticks and lifting to the mouth.
We stayed at the Sheraton Great Wall; it was not close to the Great Wall, but was in Beijing. I believe it was the first Western hotel to open in Beijing, in 1984.
Interestingly, at the hotel I met a Swiss businessman. He told me he had last visited Beijing in 1988 and that at the time there were no taxis and few cars. He rode rickshaws around town. Now, twenty years later, he was astonished at the huge number of taxis and cars, and the utter lack of rickshaws.
Indeed, I was not prepared for the number of cars on the road, while the taxies were all new-looking (mostly Volkswagens). Our guide pointed out that the people had started owning cars and driving just ten years earlier, with thousands more joining the road everyday, which is why the cars all looked so modern. Indeed, when we hit Shanghai I was impressed by the traffic jams. When I got back home to Fort Worth I noticed that, even during our rush hour, traffic seemed absurdly light.
Chinese drivers are something. Each day on the road was a rather harrowing experience. However, I never noticed any road rage. Cutting off other drivers seemed to be an acceptable practice. It was like a huge, intricate dance that outsiders could not understand. One of our drivers thought little of traffic lanes, and would weave from one side of the four-lane highway to the other without fanfare or signals. He would give a honk of the horn if he were going to perform some particularly outrageous driving stunt, to give fair warning to others.
Michael pointed out that many of the drivers we saw had, more than likely, never driven a day in their life until that very day. He said that it was not unusual for a person to have spent their life riding bicycles or motorbikes, then have saved up enough to buy a car; purchase said car, and be on the road the next day. Michael said that at first such people, who had been used to shooting the gap on their bike or moped, would believe that their car can go through the same small openings.
Speaking of mopeds: our guide said that they cost around $300.00. I am not talking about cheap-looking mopeds, but Vespas. Of course, the bicycles with small engines on them were also quite common.
Our last night in Beijing we had the Peking Duck dinner. The chef brought the cooked duck out to our table, cut it up into ridiculously small pieces, and then placed it on the lazy Susan for us to enjoy. You would take a small piece of duck, roll it up in a small pancake (like for Moo Shi Pork) add some sauce, and enjoy. They also served French Fries.
I do have photographs on a Kodak gallery. I shall provide the link soon.
My next installment will be about Xian and the Terra Cotta Soldiers. Hopefully it will not be as 'rambling' as this piece, but we shall see.
One of the women in our group had spent a year studying in China, and she loved to try new food, the weirder the better. She speaks fluent Putonghua, and so she was easily able to order us some special delicacies. 
Some of it was very good and some must be an acquired taste.
