Day 2 begins with a trip to Jingshan Park in the center of Beijing.  The park includes a large hill with temples at the top.  On a clear day, all of Beijing can be seen, in every direction.  It wasn’t clear today, a combination of mist (there have been hints of rain and clouds), and pollution.  There are several areas where people are dancing, and enjoying the comfortable morning air.  We also found an area with about 40 singers, a keyboard player, and a conductor, singing folk songs.  We’ve heard impromptu singing groups around town like this before, but none were quite this good.

The view from the top of Jingshan Park, looking at the back of the Forbidden City.

Some of the dancers in Jingshan Park behind us.

Our next stop is the “Disappearing Hutongs” tour.  This is a specialty of Stretch-a-Leg Travel, and the reason they were featured on CBS Sunday Morning in May 2013.  The brief (4 minutes) feature can be found at their website:  www.stretchaleg.com.

Jonathan walks us through some narrow back streets, discussing what used to be courtyard style homes, built for one family.  Since 1949 and Mao’s rule, the courtyards now have has many as 50 families, crowded into small rooms constructed inside the original structure, most with no running water.  Besides describing the evolution of the hutongs, Jonathan shows us some places where the original buildings walls and roofs are still in place.

Jonathan, giving us some of the history of this particular hutong. Judy is obviously thinking through how she might reorganize the area.

One of the walkways in the hutong area.

A propaganda wall painting, describing the the “good soldier”, and people doing good deeds, inspired by him.

 Lunchtime is at “Lost Heaven”.  They specialize in Yunnan style cooking.  We’re getting a visual, as well as “foodie” tour of Beijing.  The fruit plate at the end of the meal is really creative.  The building is in the Legation Quarter, at the site of the old US Embassy.

After lunch, we tour the Lama Temple, the largest active Buddhist temple in Beijing.  It contains a huge Buddha, and many small temples offering worship and incense burning sites.  A few blocks away, we walk through the Confucius Temple, another important site for the Chinese emperors hundreds of years ago.  Our last tour stop is the Drum Tower (of course, with Brad and Glenda along).  It’s a tall tower, centrally located in Beijing, with huge drums used to signal different times of the day.

The Big Buddha from the Lama Temple

Confucius statue.

The Drum Tower

Drum Tower stairs. It’s a serious climb

A performance in the Drum Tower. They weren’t performing today, so I posted a pix I took back in the fall.

We have the driver drop us at the apartment.  We tour the kids around, and then order pizza from Kro’s Nest.  It’s a relaxing evening catching up on activities back in DFW, and talking about Beijing, now that they’ve seen it.

Our whirlwind tour of Beijing starts today. Judy and I taxi over to the Courtyard Marriott where the kids are staying. We meet at 9:00 am in the lobby with our tour guide, Jonathan, from Stretch-a-Leg Travel. They specialize in custom tours. Judy traveled with them with a school group during “BISS On the Road”, back in late September, and loved the way everything was handled. We all climb into our Mercedes van (this is the way to travel in a small group), and off we go!

We took this pix of the CCTV building last night while we drove around Beijing.

Our first stop is Tiananmen Square. It has to be seen and walked to appreciate the vast size. At one point, while we’re listening to Jonathan talk about some of the history, we turned around, and Judy was in the middle of a picture-taking session with a Chinese family. This happened to all of us (except me) at some point during our tours today.

Tiananmen: Monument to the People, and Mao’s Mausoleum in the distance

Tiananmen: It’s a big area, supposed to be able to hold 1 million people.

Forbidden City Gate, looking across from Tiananmen.

Then we walked over to the Forbidden City. IT’S HUGE! Again, it has to be experienced to appreciate it. Everyone enters under the big Mao portrait at the front gate, and then you wander through, all the way to the back. It’s not a straight shot. Lots of jogs left and right, through various rooms and temples until you cross the moat at the rear.

Forbidden City: It’s big! This is just a small section of the front half.

Glenda having her picture taken with a Chinese family.

Our driver is waiting for us at the closest point possible, and we load up, headed to lunch. Jonathan has set up lunch at a traditional Chinese restaurant. The food is great, and we get to try lots of different dishes.

After lunch we drive over to the Temple of Heaven. It’s another huge complex of temples and gardens. Jonathan has great information about how the complex was used. Walking it makes it even more meaningful and real.

The rock we’re standing on was considered by the emperors to be the “center of the universe”

The Temple of Heaven – main site of worship for many emperors.

We get dropped at the hotel and apartment around 4:30, with plans to meet later for dinner. We settle on Indian food at Taj Pavilion in Lido Park, near the kids hotel, walking over around 6:30. Shannon and Dom are waiting for us. We have a fun dinner with Shannon and Judy recounting Beijing stories and recollections from BISS. We head home around 9:00, and sleep happens really quickly. We’re beat and there are two more heavy days of tours ahead.

We sleep really late, and then take care of some final travel and school loose ends before the kids arrive. We taxi over to the Marriott Courtyard and check in to make sure the rooms are ready. Then Judy and I taxi to Sanyuanjiao train station to catch the Airport Express. We’ve never had the chance to try it out, and we’re curious how convenient it is.   It’s really quick and easy, about 15 minutes to Terminal 3, the terminal for international flights.

We kill some time at Starbucks, waiting for their flight. The flight is a little early, and about 30 minutes after their arrival, Courtney, Brad, and Glenda come walking out. It’s great to see them. They are showing signs of fatigue from their 13-hour flight from Chicago. They had a four-hour layover in Chicago after their 2-hour flight from Dallas, which left DFW at 6:00 am. They didn’t go to bed the night before the trip. They could probably sleep standing up right now, Our driver is waiting (we hired a van so we could all ride together, taxis will only hold 4 riders). We get them to the hotel and up to their rooms, giving them about 90 minutes to unpack and freshen up before we go out to eat.

Our van arrives and we head out for Sanlitun. It rained hard earlier, but stopped before we arrived. We walk around the area a little, and then have sandwiches/wraps at Moka Bros. café. After dinner, we have the driver take us to the Tiananmen Square area. The Forbidden City looks great at night with the lights. Then we head to the Olympic Park area for a night view of the lights at the Bird’s Nest Stadium, and the Cube. The kids are sleeping while we drive, but we wake them up for the highlights. Back at the hotel, they bail out and head to their rooms. The driver takes us to our apartment, and it’s not too long before we’re knocked out, ourselves.

We spend much of the morning taking care of final details before Courtney, Brad, and Glenda arrive tomorrow.  There’s a pretty strong chance of rain when they get here.  We were planning on taking taxis to eat dinner, but getting a taxi in the rain, at Sanlitun is a nightmare.  We start scrambling trying to get a van to take us around, and maybe even drive around and see some of the lights of Beijing after dark.  I also have to pick up my Chinese visa. It’s been at the passport office for three weeks. Then Judy and I go over to Metro for some grocery shopping.

We get back in time to meet Deb and Graham. They’re giving us their bikes (which were given to them). We’re excited to have them. It should make some of our local travel a little less daunting. Lots of things we do in the area requires a pretty long hike, but too short to justify a taxi.

The four of us taxi over to Sanlitun, where we’re meeting a group at Luga’s, an Italian/Mexican/German food restaurant. The Mexican food is really good, and, as so many things in Beijing, the “set lunch” special is really cheap.

We enjoy a couple of hours eating and visiting, and eventually say our goodbyes, and depart. Deb and Graham are off to Cambodia, via Bali. They “adopted” us when we arrived and took us around to lots of great restaurants. They also specialized in finding good “street food”. I’ve enjoyed eating in some really interesting places with them. They’ll be missed!

Judy and I head to the Marriott. I’m get in a swim session, and Judy walks over to the Lady Street Market. She needs to get some kind of curling iron for Glenda. It’ll keep Glenda from hauling one from home, and possibly burning it up on the current over here. Converters are not much good on items that create heat, we’ve been told. She finds a good one, and has fun bargaining the price down.

We get home in time to message the kids back in the US. They’re at the airport, and boarding has begun. We’re excited!  We’ll see them in 21 hours!

SATURDAY, 6/14/14

Judy heads off to school for what turns out to be a half-day of meetings, and final check-out.  She and Shannon start off for Lily Nails after the teachers are dismissed, but they get detoured to “The Local”, a popular watering hole for many of BISS faculty.  It specializes in sports TV for Australian/New Zealand expats.  Judy has a slight gaffe when she describes the game playing on all the televisions as part of the World Cup (innocent enough) to one of the Chinese teachers who’s hanging out, and knows nothing about soccer.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t the World Cup.  In fact, it wasn’t even soccer.  It was a rugby game.  An understandable mistake, since it was a bunch of guys running around in shorts, chasing a ball.

Judy and Shannon eventually made it to Lily Nails.  Afterwards, Dom, Shannon’s husband, and I meet them at Homeplate BBQ in the Sanlitun area.  We enjoyed a fun evening of food and conversation.  As we were leaving, around 9:00, in walked a big group of faculty from BISS.  They had just left “The Local”, around the corner.  They are definitely making a night of it.  It’s a mix of “leavers” and “stayers”, and most of the group is leaving town tomorrow, for very scattered destinations.

SUNDAY, 6/15/14

Judy suffers today from post-school year-syndrome.  She can’t get motivated to do anything but read.  We have a very relaxing morning and afternoon, discussing our summer plans.  Judy’s heard it all before, but she hasn’t had time to digest everything that’s about to happen, and it begins Tuesday.

We manage to make ourselves presentable in time to walk over to the neighborhood “Duck Restaurant” (I don’t know the real name).  We meet a group of 14 BISS faculty for a big dinner.  Again, there’s a mix of “leavers” and “stayers”.  We eat and talk and eat some more, for about three hours.  The cost for the two of us was $22 USD.  I still can’t get used to how cheap it can be here.

The chef is working on one of the Peking Ducks ordered for the group. They do the trimming near the table. It’s part of the tradition and experience!

There are several tearful goodbyes.  Everyone knows it will take a trip to an exotic (by my standards) destination to ever see each other again.  We’ve spent quite a bit time with these people, outside of school, enjoying their company, and absorbing their stories and culture.  There will be new faces next year, but we’re definitely going to miss the old faces.

Judy has the regular end-of-school regimen of check-off sheets and turning stuff in that occurs at every school throughout the world. It’s one of the “joys” associated with teaching. To add to some of the confusion, several of the forms haven’t been updated, and items on the check-off list don’t really have to be checked off. It would have helped to know that before she started chasing around the campus finding the person in charge needed for the sign-off.

I decide to go the TT club, but instead of walking, or taking a taxi, I take the train. It’s not as easy as it sounds. I know my destination, but when I come out of the station, it’s midday, and I can’t tell east from west, or north from south. I can’t read the street signs, and even then, it’s confusing. The club is on Hepingli West Street, which runs parallel to Hepingli East Street (several blocks apart). Connecting the two is Hepingli North Street, and somewhere nearby is Hepingli South Street. My iPhone map saves the day. I had to start walking down the street a few hundred feet, and then check my progress on the map to determine which way I was going.

I eventually found the club and had a great morning of TT. I played several different people, and spent lots of time with one guy who could speak a little English. He had some really random questions. We had to stop playing several times to reference a translating app.

Around noon, I catch a taxi back towards the apartment. I detour the cab towards the Subway sandwich shop for lunch. It’s jammed with a lunch crowd, so I settle on a burger at Bluche, a few doors down. After lunch, I walk to the Marriott for a swim session, and then eventually make my way back to the apartment for a nap.   Life’s rough when you’re retired.

I join Judy at BISS around 4:00. A big tradition at many international schools is the “Leavers Party”. Most of the activities are organized by the “Stayers”. There’s a meal, a video, and a presentation by the “Head of School”.   It’s a nice evening, and lots of goodbyes. We won’t see many of these faces again. They’re scattering to destinations all over the world.

Someone set-up a laptop with Photoshop and some “accessories” at the entrance to the “Leavers” party.

Deb & Graham – headed to Cambodia next year.

Shannon and husband Dom

Today is the last day with students at BISS. The morning is a series of student parties, followed by an awards assembly, and the dismissal around noon. Now comes the fun of finishing all the room prep for painting this summer, etc. There is lots of packing and stacking to be done.

Seemed like a good time to post a picture with a rainbow. This was taken from our apartment.

Earlier this week, BHSFIC sent an email asking if I could teach one more day, and today is the day. It’s an easy day with only one class. I hang around afterwards, and enjoy talking with everyone during lunch. I’m reminded that one of the Chinese teachers has a wife expecting their first (and only) child this summer. I ask if he knows if it’s a boy or girl, and he talks for a while about not having a preference. I saw later in the newspaper a report where several medical clinics had received severe fines for revealing the sex of babies before they’re born. Apparently a few years back, it was fairly common for a family to terminate a pregnancy if it wasn’t a boy (since families only are allowed one offspring). There were a few years where many more male babies than female babies were born, so the government had to make an adjustment.

Back home, I had lots of plans about swimming and TT, but the couch called and I celebrated the end of my teaching year with a long nap. Judy gets home around 7:30. She has many loose ends to tie up, and won’t be able to go back next week and finish (family is coming to visit). Normally she would plan on 3 or 4 full days of getting everything put away, and planning/organizing for the 1^st week of school next year.

Lots of year-end activities are taking place at BISS. Today is the last full day with students.

I walk over to the park to play table tennis. Afterwards, I enjoyed lunch in the local noodle shop, then walked over to the Marriott for a swim. After the swim, I taxied back to the apartment and begin work organizing my thoughts and ideas for my class at BHSFIC. Monday, I received an email asking if I could come back and teach one more day, on Thursday. Since the only thing on my schedule seems to be table tennis or swimming (or eating), I agree. Of course, I’ve packed everything away for the summer. I have to go digging around, making sure I have all my materials ready, as well as necessary cords and dongles for the computer and projector. There isn’t a chance to go back home and get something if it doesn’t get packed in my backpack.

Today is birthday #29 for Brad, and #61 for me. I start out the day with all kinds of plans for table tennis, but as I go out the door around 9:00 to go over to the park, I notice it’s raining. Since the tables are outside, we can’t play in the rain. Later in the morning I go for a swim, planning to eat and play TT later. Thwarted again! More rain! It’s hard to complain about rain since Beijing has been so dry this year, and the pollution disappears after a rainstorm. I drowned my disappointment in a large pizza at Kro’s Nest.

Now my plan is to go home, take a nap, and play later this afternoon. Nope! More rain! I actually get so bored, I start working on ideas for travel for next year. So many dream destinations, and so few holidays, available.

Judy’s year is winding down, and she’s using every spare minute to prepare her room for the end of the year. It’s “girls night” at Pete’s Tex Mex. She feels pressure (her own, not mine) to stay at school and work, or come home and celebrate my birthday. Thankfully, she chooses to join the group at Pete’s. This will be the last chance for them to get together. They’re scattering all over the world. Some will be coming back next year, but many will not be returning. Chances are pretty high she won’t get the chance to see them again. There’s a strong sense of “family” that develops in a small school, especially in an overseas setting. It’s hard to watch quality teachers and individuals leave, knowing we won’t cross paths again! It’s all a part of the “international school” experience.

Judy leaves for school, slightly dreading the day ahead. This last 9 weeks has been really tough. Her daily schedule has been packed with classes, with little time for planning, or recovery. The elementary classes require so much energy to keep them focused, especially the Pre-K class. She’s worn out every day. She’s ready for a break!

I, on the other hand, can’t figure out what to do with my time. After visiting with family back in the states via Facetime, I head over for a swim session. After swimming, I walked home, stopping at Subway. This is the first time I’ve tried a Subway sandwich in Beijing. It tastes just like a sandwich in Arlington. I guess I thought it would be a little different.

Later in the afternoon, I went to the table tennis club for an afternoon of ego “beat-down.” As I walked in and headed down to the far end of the playing area (where the “lesser” players are), someone yelled at me, offering to play. I tried to explain I wasn’t a strong player, but my lack of language prevented any clarity. We ended up playing right at the entrance of the club, and since I seem to be the only westerner, there were way too many casual observers. As with most of my visits, it takes me a while to adjust to a different style of play, and when I began to get slightly comfortable, I get handed off to another player. The 2^nd guy hit with the most spin I’ve seen since I’ve been playing in Beijing. I could barely keep the ball on the table. An onlooker gave me a couple of pointers, and I began to adjust with some success.

Player # 2 went to a nearby table and got someone else to hit with me. Player 3 just hit it back to my backhand, over and over, and over and over. I think he was told to drill me for while. Finally, some other guys took a turn at the table, and they look like Olympic players, with balls flying everywhere, crazy spinning serves, and unbelievable returns. I enjoy watching the play, but I especially enjoy watching the interaction between everyone at the club. It’s so similar to being around a golf course and watching all the “regulars” interact. There is definitely trash-talking going on.