Introducing China, and the Neighborhood Where I'm Staying

Sandong F7 Liuli Paifang.
"Paifang" means "gateway," so let's start here.

The opportunity to travel to the People's Republic of China for 10 days, with a private guide, fell into my lap. And who am I to look at gift mǎ in the mouth, especially when it's in my lap? So here I am, in Beijing, China.

I am staying at the Crowne Plaza Chaoyang U-Town, which is much nicer than Crowne Plazas in the United States (which aren't bad). The flight was 11 and a half hours, having left Las Vegas at 1:00 a.m., and arriving in Beijing at 3:45 in the morning local time, the next day. So I wasn't sure how much energy I would have on Day One for tourism.  So I thought I would explore the neighborhood around the hotel.

China Surprise #1:  the streets around the hotel were relatively calm and quiet.  Of course, it's a Saturday and this is a business district on the periphery of the central core of Beijing, but I didn't expect quiet streets. I was expecting hustle, bustle, cacaphony, millions of bicyclists and moped riders, tons of cars.

A few cars. A few tuk-tuks. The only insane drivers seem to the moped drivers.

First stop, just about a 10-minute walk from the Crowne Plaza, was the Dongyue Temple.

This is a famous Taoist shrine.

It was packed with tourists. And we were the only westerners.

Let's come in, shall we?

That tree is a replanting of a tree that grew there about a thousand years ago.  One thing people do at the shrine is leave wishes, in the form of these red wooden blocks.

Write your wish and your name.  It was right around here that a Chinese language guide shushed our English-speaking guide for talking too loudly.

The pillars represent each of the Chinese imperial dynasties. They are not graves.

And speaking of graves, introducing the Eight Immortals, seven men and one woman, very important to Taoism.

And here are carved dog and camel:

We end our visit to the Daoist Temple with some ancient inkstampers:

Next, it's time to take a walk in the park:

Again, the streets were not the bustle of Beijing I was expecting.

Always time for a quick pic of a cool-looking building.  Then we got to the exquisite park:

Ritan Park.  We passed through the gate:

There is always a gate.  And there are always really really old trees:

This is the gate for the Temple of the Sun.  It was a cloudy day.  It was closed.

Actually, it's closed for renovation.  This is another several hundred year old tree:

And this is the rock-climbing wall in the park:

The little girl climbing the green wall was a star.  She was inspirational.

Another star was this young man who was the expert on explaining Chinese chess.  When our guide finally talked him into explaining the game, he showed himself to be an expert.

Dinner later that night was at the restaurant where Chou En-Lai took Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger to eat Peking Duck.

Seriously.  We had a private dining room, which apparently is not uncommon in China.

Here is the chef's assistant carving up are duck.  There was no reenactment of the Christmas dinner scene from "A Christmas Story" for us.

Lots of food.  Jet-lag setting in.  Time to go bad to sleep.