Our Beijing and Chengde Trip Journal

An idyllic-looking rural village in the mountains north of Beijing, as seen from the train on the way to Chengde.

On October 15th, 2002, Mei-O and I, along with our good friends Feng Kow-pay and Kuan Dah-yang, left Rochester, Minnesota for an 11 day trip to China. While we were going to spend the majority of our time in Beijing, we were also planning to spend three days in Chengde, about 200 miles north of Beijing, the site of a Qing Dynasty Summer Palace and numerous temples which were scattered about the city. We had signed up with a tour group, which made airline and hotel reservations a lot easier, though we only planned to stay with the group the first two days in Beijing. This is a journal of our day-by-day activities during the amazing 11 day trip. The notes I jotted down each day were very sparse. Much of what follows was filled in from memory.

Many of the links on this page are to pictures which can also be seen on this site's main picture pages, although there are also many that are not there and can only be viewed from here.

So here we go!

• Day 1 - Tuesday, October 15th We got to the Rochester airport around 9:30 AM, having been driven there by our friend Linna Lin. Around 10:50, we boarded an RJ-85 four-engine jet for a short ride to Minneapolis. We didn't experience any security hassles - we were off to a good start.

  We landed in Minneapolis at 11:35, had lunch in the food court, and departed on NW19 for Tokyo at about 3:10 PM. The captain announced '...11 hours, 52 minutes flying time....' We had a pretty good meal, rotisserie chicken, roasted potatoes, green beans, and a dessert, then I watched four movies; Clockstoppers, Crocodile Hunter, The Cat's Meow, and About a Boy which really helped pass the time.
  
  

• Day 2 - Wednesday, October 16th I slept about a half an hour, waking to a breakfast of scrambled eggs and sausage. We were getting close.
  
  We landed at Narita Airport in Tokyo at 3:10 AM our time, 5:10 PM local time. After going through another security check, we boarded NW85 to Beijing at about 6:35 PM, departing at 7:25 PM Tokyo time. We watched Spiderman and had another pretty good meal.

  With about five minutes of Spiderman left, it was turned off as we landed in Beijing at around 9:15 PM local time (about 22 hours after leaving Rochester). We met our tour guide in the airport, and, after meeting up with all of the other members of our tour group, we took a 30 minute bus ride to the Jinglun Hotel. We got settled into our very nice 7th floor room and fell asleep around midnight.
  
  

• Day 3 - Thursday, October 17th We both woke up about 4:00 AM, jet lag messing us up just as expected. Around 7:00 AM, we headed to the hotel dining room for a bad Western-style breakfast. After breakfast, we met up with the rest of our tour group and our guide in the lobby and headed for Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. We ate lunch at a fancy restaurant, then went to the Summer Palace in Beijing. Everywhere we visited with the group, we were rushed by the tour guide, making it very difficult to enjoy the various venues.

  Upon retrurn from the Summer Palace, we walked a few blocks down the main street in front of our hotel (Jianguomenwaijie) to the Xiushui Market, a very popular shopping district for tourists. Mei-O bought a very realistic knock-off of a Burberry purse for $10 US.

  Later that evening, we took a taxi to the Tianhecheng Restaurant where we ordered way too much food. But it was all good (and amazingly cheap), and we ended up returning to this restaurant several more times during our stay in Beijing.

  We got back to the hotel at 8:30, everyone extremely tired, just as some pretty strong thunderstorms began to well up. We went straight to sleep.
  
  

• Day 4 - Friday, October 18th We had another crappy Western-style breakfast in the hotel's restaurant, then, around 8:30, headed off to the Ming Tombs and the Changling Emperor's Exhibition Hall. On the way, we stopped at a jade shop. (On all of these arranged tours, the group is always taken to many high-priced tourist traps where they hopefully will buy whatever's being sold. On the tours we've been on, we've seen many of the members spend a lot at some of these stores.) It was raining lightly as we walked the tomb grounds, so we didn't stay very long. We reboarded our bus and went to walk along the Sacred Way in the rain. Just outside the entrance to the Sacred Way, we bought a couple of umbrellas for $1 each.

  After the walk, we went to lunch at one of the many Friendship Stores and were left there to shop for over an hour. Again, many in our tour group purchased a lot of expensive souvenirs, while we just walked around browsing the aisles and aisles of high-priced items. Finally, at the appointed time, we all boarded the bus and headed to the Badaling section of the Great Wall.

  The rain stopped as we arrived at the Great Wall, and we started up the more difficult (steeper) section (the same way we went last year.) After a short distance, we all decided we'd rather climb the easier section where we hadn't been before, so we turned around and headed the other way. The fall colors were gorgeous, and the climb was exhilirating. We spent several hours on the Wall, leaving at about 5:00 PM. Unfortunately, we were in traffic all the way back to the hotel, and it took over two hours to get there. This would be our last association with our tour group. Throughout the rest of our stay, we would be on our own.

  After a quick freshening up in the hotel, we took a $2.50 taxi ride to a small out-of-the-way shuijiao restaurant where we ate shuizhuyu, a fabulous fish and hot red pepper dish, along with several varieties of shuijiao. The four of us ate quite well - the total bill was $9.50! On the way back to the hotel, we passed the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square which took on a whole different look in the darkness.
  
  

• Day 5 - Saturday, October 19th After the same junky breakfast (it was included in the package, that's why we endured it every morning), we hopped in a taxi for a ride to the Beijing suburb of Shangdi to visit a friend of Kuan's who worked for IBM, Beijing. The ride was long but provided many opportunities to see much of the non-touristy side of life in Beijing. After visiting Kuan's friend and her husband in their IBM office (there were quite a few people there this Saturday morning), we took them to a nearby popular goose restaurant for lunch.

  After lunch, they took us to Tsinghua University, also nearby, where we walked around the well kept, scenic grounds for about an hour. Leaving there, we stopped at a popular student shopping district to look for VCDs and DVDs, then headed back to the hotel. Kuan and Pei wanted to rest, so Mei-O and I went out to a nearby noodle restaurant for some niuroumian, then caught a taxi to the Wangfujing Shopping District for a walk and some window shopping. We got back to the hotel around 9:00 and turned in for the night.
  
  

• Day 6 - Sunday, October 20th After breakfast, we all went to the Panjiayuan Market, which is only open on weekends. The outdoor market was filled with all sorts of fake antiques for pretty good prices. We spent a lot of time browsing and finally bought two fake Chinese scroll landscape paintings for $11 (for both). Kuan and Pei bought a few things, and we all eventually went back to the hotel to drop off our stuff.

  We headed over to Wangfujing for lunch at the Goubuli Baozi Restaurant and some more VCD and DVD shopping. When we were all shopped out, we went to the Beijing train station to buy our train tickets to Chengde on Tuesday, then back to the hotel to rest a while.

  Around 4:00, we walked over to Xiushui Market where Mei-O bought a nice, big hardshell suitcase for under $30. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to drop it off, then took a taxi to a houguo restaurant for dinner. It was near the Wangfujing shopping district, so we walked over there when we were done. On the way, we passed a night food market where there were dozens of food stands that sold everything from fried scorpion on a stick (three or four to a stick), starfish, goats' testicles, and snake (all 'on a stick'), and other not so exotic snacks. We got back to the hotel about 9:30.
  
  

• Day 7 - Monday, October 21st Mei-O and I woke up early and took a taxi to Tiananmen Square around 5:55 AM to see the flag raising ceremony that took place everyday at sunrise. We got there a little late, as, although the ceremony hadn't started yet, there was little room left where one could get a good view of it. There were quite a few people there on this very cool, dark morning, packed five and six deep in the viewing area across from the flagpole. We wandered over to one side where we were able to see OK, although not very close up.

  As we were waiting, military marching music started playing and, from the huge main gate of the Forbidden City, a military color guard started marching towards the flag pole accompanied by a marching band. They stopped at the flagpole and we watched as the silhouetted flag climbed the pole to the top. When it was over, the crowd dispersed around the now dimly lit square. We took some pictures, then returned to the hotel. We later found out that we were quite lucky in our choice of days to see the ceremony. Only on the 1st, 11th, and 21st of each month is there a 'fancy' ceremony, complete with color guard and marching band, which explained why there was such a large crowd there.

  After breakfast, we went to the Hongqiao Market, a several story building housing literally hundreds of small shops inside selling everything: electronics (CD and DVD players, computers, boom boxes, TVs, etc.), clothing (knock-offs of name brands were particularly popular), jewelry (a whole floor devoted to pearl shops), antiques (real and fake), and many other items. We bought a bunch of stuff (some fake Rolex watches, a bunch of beautiful pearl necklaces, a (fake) Northface jacket for me and a (fake) Fendi jacket for Mei-O. Kuan and Pei also bought a lot of stuff, so we had quite a load to carry as we went to one of Beijing's most famous Beijing Duck restaurants for lunch. The lunch was pretty bad, but we later found out we went to the wrong place. The restaurant had two separate sections: a fast food section (where we mistakenly went) and the main, more formal restaurant (where we were supposed to go.)

  After lunch, we headed to Liulichang, an upscale shopping district known for its preservation of old style Beijing architecture. The buildings were impressive, but the shops were all too expensive. Kuan and Pei went back to the hotel (and took all our stuff back for us), while Mei-O and I spent a couple of hours walking around Liulichang window shopping. Mei-O found a music store where she bought a couple of hard to find VCDs, the only thing we bought there.

  Back in the hotel, we started rearranging our luggage, preparing for our trip to Chengde the next day. We were going to travel light, and, since upon our return, we would be staying at the same hotel, we were going to check our luggage for a few days. Halfway through the rearranging, we left for dinner at Tianhecheng, then returned to the hotel, finished our rearranging, took our bags down to the lobby and checked them, then turned in for the night.
  
  

• Day 8 - Tuesday, October 22nd After picking up some boxed breakfasts from the hotel restaurant, we left the hotel at 6:30 AM to catch the K711 train to Chengde, departing at 7:20. The train was pretty clean, very roomy, and comfortable, and the sights I saw out the large window during the four hour ride fascinated to me. We arrived in Chengde at about 11:30, hopped in a taxi, and, with the assistance of our female taxi driver, proceeded to find a hotel.

  We settled into our not-too-bad rooms in the three-star Yunshan Hotel, then grabbed a taxi to the Xiaoqianlong Restaurant for lunch where we had a pretty good selection of shuijiao. The taxi driver, also a female (we were told 50% of the taxi drivers in Chengde were women), said she'd pick us up in an hour and take us to the first temple we planned to see, the Puningsi Temple. Sure enough, when we were done eating, we walked out front and there she was, waiting for us. As she drove us to the Puningsi Temple, we contracted with her to stick with us the whole day and pick us up when we were done to continue taking us around town for more sight-seeing.

  We spent several hours on the grounds of the Puningsi Temple where, amongst other things, we saw a 97 foot high carved wooden Buddha statue (hence, the alternate name for the temple, the Big Buddha Temple). When I entered the room to see it, I didn't immediately notice it. It's in a very small (though very high) relatively dark room, and upon entry, I looked around a little before realizing I was staring at the monstrous statue's feet. Looking up, way up, I finally realized what I was looking at! It was quite memorable.

  Upon leaving the temple, our taxi driver picked us up out front. You can read about what happened next here.

  For dinner this night, we went to the Xiaofeiyang huoguo restaurant, where we had an excellent, unique style huoguo. No sauces were provided (usually an important part of huoguo), the taste being provided by all of the stuff boiling in the water, including a lot of large cloves of garlic!

  Upon returning to the hotel, Mei-O and I went down to the first floor karaoke bar and spent about $7.50 (30 RMB each) to sing some songs and listen to some other customers sing. It was an interesting experience. We went back up to our room around 11:00 PM and called it a day.
  
  

• Day 9 - Wednesday, October 23rd After a good, well-needed sleep and shower, we had a so-so breakfast in the hotel's restaurant for under $2.00 a person. About 8:30, we took a taxi to the Qing Dynasty Summer Palace (Bishushanzhuang), Chengde's major attraction and the one I was most anxious to see. It was a cool October morning, but not cool enough to make it uncomfortable. We would be walking outside most of the day.

  Shortly after we entered the Summer Palace, while walking in a courtyard outside one of the residences, it began to snow - a large-flaked, fluffy, soft, wet snow! It was really beautiful and quite magical and really added to the idyllic setting of the palace grounds. We spent a cool, sometimes rainy morning walking around the 1,400 acres of the palace, climbing up to hill top pavillions, crossing foot bridges across lakes and rivers, visiting residences and official chambers of past emperors, and trodding along paths where emperors and officials had walked hundreds of years ago. The whole morning was an amazing adventure.

  Upon leaving the palace, we went back to the same shuijiao restaurant we ate at yesterday (we weren't familiar with any Chengde restaurants, and, there being few tourist guides available, we figured we'd play it safe.) Our next stop was the Putuozongchengmiao (Lama) Temple, a model of the Dalai Lama's temple in Lhasa, Tibet, only much smaller. We spent the entire afternoon on the temple grounds, eventually climbing all the way to the top for a fantastic view of the temple grounds below and the surrounding countryside.

  We left the Lama Temple and headed over to the Chengde train station to buy our tickets back to Beijing tomorrow. We got back to the hotel at about 4:40 PM for a well needed rest.

  Around 7:00, we took a taxi to the Tebiete Restaurant for a pretty fancy 'going away' dinner, this being our last night in Chengde. We returned to the hotel at 8:30 and called it quits for this most memorable day.
  
  

• Day 10 - Thursday, October 24th About 7:30 AM, Mei-O and I went out for a walk on this a clear, cool October morning. We crossed the long bridge which spanned the river that ran in front of our hotel which took us, quite unexpectedly, to a busy morning market. People were shopping for all sorts of items, but mostly winter clothes. Mei-O bought some knitted gloves for 25 cents a pair, some oranges, and some shaobing, and we both bought some nice leather gloves for $1.25 a pair.

  After walking around for a while, we spotted a really 'local' (i.e., non-touristy) noodle stand which was basicaly set up in a tent, and popped in for a bowl of niuroumian (beef noodles) for breakfast. Each bowl was about 37 cents - it was really good! Mei-O had some good conversation with a few of the locals eating there. Afterwards, we walked back to the hotel. The vendors of the early-morning market were already beginning to pack up and call it quits for the day.

  When we got back to the hotel, we joined up with Kuan and Pei who were now up, and took a walk into downtown Chengde. We did some more VCD and DVD shopping, and, while they hit more and more stores, I stood outside and watched the city go by, taking a bunch of pictures out on the street. We walked back to the hotel, getting back around 11:30, in time to prepare for our 12 noon checkout.

  After checking out, each couple took turns sitting in the lobby watching the luggage while the other couple went out to eat lunch. Mei-O and I found a crowded street filled with a lot of hungry lunch hour workers trying to decide between numerous already very busy lunch stalls. There were four noodle stands right next to each other, all in open tents with red and white striped canvas walls and roofs, with long tables already filled with customers and busy steamy kitchens. We chose the one with the shortest line, and, after a short wait, grabbed a couple of seats at a long wooden table with eight men who were already enjoying their bowls of noodles. We ordered a single bowl of noodles and an order of shuijiao and, while we waited, Mei-O engaged our fellow diners in converstaion. Our food was quickly served to us, and after finishing, Mei-O asked how much our bill was. Our host formed the character for '10' on his left palm with his right finger, which, since we knew from talking to others at the table, was way out of line. (He didn't want to say 'ten dollars' out loud because he didn't want all of the customers there to know how 'scummy' he was, trying to take advantage of us.) We probably didn't eat much more that 4 RMB worth of lunch, and Mei-O was really upset that the owner was trying to rip us off. She got in a heated argument with him, even at one point threatening to call the police, and finally settled on 5 RMB (62 cents) which she shoved in his hand as we stormed out. Whew! We headed back to the hotel where we sat and watched the luggage while Kuan and Pei went out to find a place to eat their lunch before we departed for the train station. They went to a more 'formal' restaurant and didn't encounter any problems....

  At 2:40 on a beautiful, sunny October afternoon, we left Chengde on the K712 train for Beijing. The four hour ride was again just as fascinating as I kept my eyes glued out the window watching the rural scenery as it passed by.

  We arrived in Beijing just before 7:00 PM and took a taxi back to the Jinglun hotel. We got our checked luggage from the bell staff and settled into our new rooms, then went to Wangfujing for our final meal in Beijing. Tomorrow we would be leaving China and heading back home.
  
  

• Day 11 - Friday, October 25th On our last day in Beijing, we awoke at 4:30 to shower and do our final packing prior to check out. We picked up some boxed breakfasts from the hotel restaurant and left the hotel at 5:30 for the half hour ride to the airport for our 9:15 AM departure on NW 86 to Tokyo. We were the first ones in line when the ticket counter finally opened. We had all of our luggage opened and searched, but no problems were encountered. Because the flight to Tokyo was oversold, we were upgraded to business class. As we waited at the gate to board our flight, we ate our boxed breakfasts.

  At 8:55 AM, we said goodbye to Beijing and boarded our flight. It departed at 9:40 and landed in Tokyo two hours and forty minutes later. We left Tokyo after a two hour and twenty minute layover, arriving in Minneapolis at noon local time. Processing through customs and immigration went smoothly for Mei-O and me, but Kuan and Pei had their luggage searched and Kuan had a full body search by security.

  At 3:20, we left Minneapolis, arriving in Rochester just 10 short minutes later. Linna was there to pick us up, and we finally arrived home at 4:20 PM! And that was it - a smooth trip home to mark the end of an exciting, adventurous, and definitely memorable trip.