Our early morning risers, a hearty Champlain CORE China Mojo group of eleven excited travelers, met at Burlington (International Airport) on Thursday morning, November 17. By 4:45 a.m. we were all assembled (go team!) and managed to get through all of our check in and security details in just under 1 hour. (Traveling with a small group of 11 is good that way). Close to 7.000 miles up and over the Arctic and 20 hours later, our Champlain College China Mojo group landed in Beijing on a beautiful Friday afternoon. “The Mother of All China Cities,” old Peking beckoned bright, sunny, dry, and warm, and we hopped the airport train, transferring to a busy Friday afternoon subway and into downtown to the Tianan’men East stop, where we disembarked and hoofed it to our Jade Garden Hotel.
Sheetz shoots the Great Wall of China.
Rob snarfs down some sheep penis in Beijing.
Talk about a fabulous location? Two blocks due east of the Forbidden City’s east gate in downtown Beijing, and surrounded by historical landmarks, historic hutong neighborhoods, and upscale shopping and resto joints, our HQ for the next week had big time appeal. After a quick Chinese dinner for our bleary-eyed travelers (yes, we ate bullfrog), everyone hit the hotel to settle in for the night.
Mel shreds the Beijing powpow with the Mojo boyz.
Jen sketches and makes friends on the Great Wall of China.
A few of us peeled of from the hotel to explore the Dongzhan night market one block east of our hotel. You can order up just about any meat under the sun here – squid, scorpion, urchin, cat, dog, snake, and yes, even sheep penis – and they have fruit and candied apples for the faint of heart. Welcome to Beijing!
Planet China's Beijing Airport - the largest in the world.
Our Beijing HQ - the Jade Garden Hotel.
Beijing bullfrog - delicious and nutritious.
I woke up Saturday morning at 4:30 am, too excited and jet-lagged to sleep. Having read about the daily “Morning with Mao” flag-raising ceremony at Tianan’men Square, I decided to pull the “hearty Vermonter” thing and go for an early a.m. run to visit the Square and the Forbidden City, to see if I could grab a photo opp and experience Beijing’s historic city center at dawn. Wearing only shorts and a short-sleeved tee in the frozen early morning weather (an outfit that provided endless amusement for the warmly-dressed locals), I arrived downtown just in time to see the PRC flag slowly flutter up the Tianan’men Square flagpole, accompanied by the “East Is Red” PRC national anthem. Hundreds of Chinese were also on hand, including dozens of tour buses of Chinese tourists who looked to be in Beijing for the week-end, and didn’t want to miss their morning with Mao. The Mao phenomenon continues to perplex. After reading extensively about Mao, and talking with Chinese and Westerners about his complicated legacy, I am still amazed at the Cult of Personality that surround him – such is one of many of the political paradoxes in Planet China.
After returning to the hotel for a shower and the morning cuppa – Stash Lemon Ginger tea with a generous dollop of Grade B maple (standard international travel comfort food) – I took a walk around our neighboring hutongs to locate the best breakfast street food options for our posse. I used to think the Chinese were bad at breakfast, having eaten my fair share of bad Middle Kingdom morning fare - hard-boiled eggs, bland buns, and pickled vegetables - at more than one Chinese hotel in more than one Chinese city. And then I met Chinese street food. Hen Hao! Beyond the tasty pot stickers, fried dough, and steamed buns, my favorite option is “jianbing,” a crepe-like pancake of grilled flour batter, an egg, and scallions seasoned with hot sauce. In his excellent memoir “The Last Days of Old Beijing,” author Arthur Meyer, calls jianbing “the Egg McMuffin of Beijing street food.” I’d say that jianbing is both tastier and healthier, and it is good to see my five yuan going to support an enterprising local entrepreneur rather than a giant transnational corporation that peddles crap and calls it “food.”
Our group assembled at 9:00 am in the Jade Garden lobby, grabbed some steamed buns at a nearby local street food joint, and headed for the Forbidden City. Our China Mojo posse seemed game to do and try most anything, and everyone seemed more chipper after a night of rest in the wake of our epic airplane journey. Saturday had dawned bright and clear, but a crisp wind blowing cross the griddle-cake flat streets of Beijing made for a chilly but beautiful morning. We spent a few hours touring the Forbidden City, our Champlain’ers making great friends with a whole gaggled of Chinese tourists who wanted their pictures taken with us (and vice versa). I joked at one point that they could have paid their way to China by renting themselves out for photo opps, and it was fun to see our group’s attention to the Forbidden City’s many historic and architectural treasures competing with their interest in having some good times with fellow Chinese visitors to this incredible place.
China Mojo touring the Forbidden City.
China Mojo taking in the view at Jianshan Park's pagoda.
By noon, everyone in our group had climbed the hill at Jianshan Park (manmade – thanks, Chinese peasants) for the magnificent view looking south over the Forbidden City, and after descending for lunch at Grandma’s Kitchen (a surprisingly authentic American food joint in the shadow of the City’s east wall), we spent the afternoon exploring Tianan’men Square and the shopping district just south. At Tianan’men, we marveled at the Chinese government’s remarkable campaign of “perception management” in the wake of the pro-democracy movement of 1989, which we had encountered in the epic Longbow Group documentary film “The Gate of Heavenly Peace,” a three hour exploration of the event with extended interviews with key participants and observers. Now, the People’s Monument where students and workers had “occupied” Beijing for several weeks in spring 1989 before being driven from the Square with troops, tanks and bullets was cordoned off and guarded by military troops in uniform, and surveill’ed (as is true in much of Beijing) by an extensive network of security cameras. Two giant video billboards, meanwhile, flash a continuous stream of advertisements featuring scenes of the “New China” – Three Gorges Dam, the Bird’s Nest and 2008 Olympic vignettes, and a variety of eco-stunning tourist destinations all over the Middle Kingdom - along with the ubiquitous images of “shiny happy people” all “harmonizing” (the Chinese government’s favorite Orwellianism) with one another in the service of a new 21st century China on the go.
Fascinating. Such is life in the “New Beijing.”
The Cult of Mao in "New Beijing, China." Perception Management at Tianan'men Square.
After a few hours of shopping, our merry Mojo’ers returned to the hotel, tired after a full day of hoofing. We managed to corral six of them for a hot pot meal at Dong Lai Shun, a Muslim-owned hot pot that Beijing’ers say is one of the best in the city, found on the 5th floor of a giant shopping mall on Wanfujing Street, just a 10 minute walk from our hotel. Thinly sliced strips of beef, fresh greenery and vegetables – all served up in a traditional copper hot pot full of boiling oil and washed down with Yanjing beer. Delicious.
Mongolian Hot Pot! One of China's best eating options.
Has it only been 24 hours since we arrived? Hen Hao.
It’s all happening at the zoo. The Beijing Zoo, that is.
After a crisp early morning run north along downtown’s historic Ming Wall Park, I met our China Mojo’ers in the lobby at 9:00 am. For our second day in Beijing, the group decided to head northeast on the subway to the Beijing Zoo. We arrived at the zoo around 11:00 am, after a breakfast of jianbing and a leisurely stroll through the hutong neighborhood just north of our hotel, and down Nanchizi Street along the Forbidden City’s east gate. And our east Tianan’men subway stop One of the best ways to soak up all that China has to offer is to rise early, get out of the hotel, and experience street culture as a big city like Beijing is waking up. And so we did.
Our favorite "jianbing" street food vendor in Beijing.
China Mojo "groceries up" for our zoo trip. Note the dragonfruit at center.
Morning walk through the hutong - modern autos meet vegetable lattice'd garden.
First built in 1906, the Beijing Zoo is a big tourist destination for both Chinese and international visitors alike, and the prize show animal, of course, is the panda, which the Chinese government has leveraged as an international symbol – “panda diplomacy” – over the years. We spent three hours exploring the zoo’s many exhibits, shooting photos, and interacting with other visitors. Highlights of our visit included the pandas (of course), whom are well cared for in large glass enclosures (indoors) with a fair bit of “roam around room” in their outdoor areas, as well. The rhinoceros gave us quite a show with her sidling about, and the red pandas (known as the “lesser panda) and monkeys proved a hit, especially for Rob, who has a thing for red pandas. The zoo grounds are beautiful, well maintained and easily navigable, with plenty of green space, beautiful willow trees, and curved walking paths. Our entire group expressed sadness at the treatment of the elephants and the big cats (lions and tigers of various descriptions) who were confined to small indoor cages that looked and smelled just like jail cells. Watching visitors yell at the animals to try and get them to “perform,” and seeing the animals ‘listless” fugue’like state, proved depressing.
Partying with the pandas at the Beijing Zoo.
Zoo lunch - fried rice, veggies, and cold Chinese brau.
After some street shopping on the way back to the Jade Garden, we commandeered three taxis from the hotel and headed to the Xinjiang Crescent Moon restaurant for Uighur barbecue. I had been to this place on my very first visit to Beijing for a phenomenal meal, and I could still conjure the taste of fresh veggies dipped in Xinjiang yogurt, Uighur beer, and lamb kebabs. After some drama arranging for taxi pick-up (rush hour, driver changeover, language barriers – we made sure that everyone had their room keys, passports, and directions to the restaurant written out in Mandarin), we all managed to arrive at the Crescent Moon, located deep in a hutong neighborhood northeast of our hotel.
The Uighur are the largest of China’s ethnic minority groups in the western province of Xinjiang, and their food is one of my favorite Chinese regional cuisines. The beautiful green-eyed and darker skinned waitresses, dressed in traditional Islamic embroidered Uighur outfits head scarves, quietly and efficiently set us up in a back room (so as not to scare the locals, no doubt) and we left no culinary stone unturned, ordering a wide variety of Uighur fare – fresh vegetables, yogurt, cooked sheep head (better than it sounds), lamb kebabs, and, of course, their famed nan bread and Uighur Sinkiang beer (which could give Vermont microbrews a run for their money). The Crescent Moon is unpretentious, a bit hard to find, and quiet – but well worth the effort to try some of the best Uighur food in Beijing.
Eating Uighur at Crescent Moon resto - so good.
A touch of Islam in Beijing - don't miss this fabulous Uighur restaurant.
The best part? Seeing our Champlain Mojo’ers dig in without reservation – our group is game for anything – even cooked sheep head. Mojo a’go go!
Is the Great Wall of China all that great? Oh yes.
No matter how many impressive statistics you cite about the Great Wall of China – 2,000 years of construction, more than 3,000 miles long, 1/5 the population of Chinese men building the epic structure (many of their bodies are entombed in the wall itself) – seeing the Wall for the first time is simply stunning. Today’s journey saw us visiting the most heavily tourist’ed sections of the Great Wall at Badaling and Mintiayu, what many refer to as China’s “Disney World.”
At 8:00 am, our China Mojo’ers hooked up in the Jade Garden lobby with a wonderful tour guide named Lily – vivacious, energetic and very knowledgeable – for a van ride to the Great Wall of China. Lily lives in a downtown hutong neighborhood “full of bars – the only one in all Beijing!” and regaled us with stories about Chinese history and culture on the way out of town (we bonded with her right away).
The China Mojo party bus, with Mr. Hao (our driver) and Lily our fabulous tour guide.
The China Mojo party bus - to the Great Wall, we go.
90 minutes later, we arrived at the Badaling section of the Great Wall – the most popular section of the entire Wall for both domestic and international tourists. The parking lot was crammed with visitors already, mostly Chinese bus caravaners who had been up early to see the “Morning with Mao” 7:00 am ceremony at Tianan’men and were making the tourist rounds. Lily explained to use that this section of the Wall was still considered to be a part of the city of Beijing, and after walking through dozens of tourist shacks selling everything from roasted corn to “MaoBama” Tees, we hit the wall for an hour of hiking. The morning dawned beautiful – bright and clear – and our China Mojo group took full advantage of the day to capture some fabulous photos and experience the epic nature of the Great Wall of China firsthand.
The Great Wall @ Badaling - the most visited portion.
Lily ran an excellent tour, keeping us moving without being pushy, and excited about sharing China with us. We dropped back towards Beijing for a 1 hour stop at JuYong Pass, the strategic defensive position built to try and keep invaders at bay (with mixed success), and then toured the largest Jade factory (and showroom) in all of Asia as part of our lunch stop, where we learned how Chinese jade is obtained, manufactured, and finished, as well as receiving a lesson on how to tell real jade from fake imitation (hint: looks for jade’s cloudiness when you hold it up to the light, and listen for jade’s high-pitched timbre when you tap it with a metal rod).
A delicious Chinese lunch of chicken, pork, meat, veggies and dumplings, washed down with some Yanjing beer, and we were back in the van for a snooze and our second visit to the Great Wall at Mutianyu.
My first visit to the Great Wall of China was at Mutianyu several years ago, and I remembered the steep mountain drive and the 1,000 stairs of climbing it took to even access this section of the Wall. Looking at my watch, I knew we would be racing the darkness to get up to this section of the Wall. Fortunately, Lily had thought ahead. Can you say “ski lift ride to the top of the Great Wall?” Oh yes. I knew you could. And even better? An Alpine Slide ride down to the bottom, after 1 hour of exploration along the Wall in the late afternoon light – a bit hazy, but beautiful nonetheless.
Jen sketching with friend at Mitianyu.
The Great Wall of China @ Mitianyu.
The last highlight of our daylong tour saw us visiting the 2008 Olympic Center for a photo shoot of the “bird’s nest” and the “water cube,” stunningly lit up in the fading light of early evening, and a 20 minute tea ceremony at downtown Beijing’s “Dr. Tea” establishment. Tea is one of China’s great gifts to the world, and our beautiful and articulate hostesses gave us “Tea 101” in a humorous and accessible way – the perfect way to end our day. Ask ‘em about “Pee Pee Boy.”
2008 Olympics Site - the "Water Cube" sports center.
Dr. Tea's traditional 20 minute tea ceremony, complete with "Pee Pee Boy."
Back at the hotel, Mojo split up for various dinner strategies. Catherine, Katrina and I grabbed Hunan for dinner at a place Lily recommended near our hotel - spicy chicken, beef and beans, paired with scallion’ed egg pancake bread and Chinese beer. Hen Hao!
The Beijing day dawned cloudy, so I decided to run around the Forbidden City’s perimeter, leaving at 6:30 am from the Jade Garden. When I reached the southwest corner, I ran into Catherine (almost literally) out doing the same thing. Together, we ran into the Forbidden City, laughing at the two old Chinese guys playing tennis on the Forbidden City grounds (what would the Emperor say?) and out through the East Gate – nice to have an impromptu Beijing dawn patrol running partner.
Today was an “open day” for our China Mojo group – and everyone made plans to explore the city in their own way. Melanie, Katrina, Catherine and I met our tour guide Lily in the hotel lobby at 8:30 am (she had a day off, and kindly offered to show us around downtown), and headed north on the Beijing public city bus (a 2 yuan tour – cheap and fun) to the famed Bell and Clock towers – two historic Beijing landmarks located on a feng shui-driven vertical axis due north of the Forbidden City and due south of the 2008 Olympic Center.
Beijing's historic Bell Tower - featuring (of course) the world's largest bell.
What a day! We went for a 1 hour rickshaw ride through historic hutongs, took in the famed bell and clock towers, playing a fun game of Chinese hacky sack on the square there with some of the locals). After a fast food lunch (delicious rice, dumplings, pork and chicken), we then visited the largest lama temple outside Tibet (with the world’s biggest Buddha – at 29 meters, Siddhartha is a monster), and cruised through the imperial summer palace before jumping on the city bus for an epic rush hour tour south to Tianan’men and our hotel. Lily proved an engaging and fun tour guide yet again – and I’ll let the photos and video speak for themselves.
Rickshaw ride in downtown Beijing.
Hanging in the hutong.
The lama temple in downtown Beijing - home to the world's largest Buddha.
The imperial summer palace in northwest Beijing.
Back at Tianan’men, I caught the subway over to the northeast embassy district for a Yunnan dinner at a funky resto called “In&Out” with some Vermont friends – Piper and Jim Stover, who are doing some remarkable professional work around renewable and green energy in China. Nice to connect with some familiar faces in this city of 20 million. After returning to Tianan’men by subway, I finally located the famed Emperor Hotel, whose restaurant views are legendary – I might have to return with our China Mojo group for the 67 rmb green tea tiramisu before we depart, and hear stories of how other Chia Mojo’ers spent their day today.
If the Badaling and Mitianyu sections of the Great Wall of China are Beijing’s equivalent of “Disney World,” with their people movers, toboggan runs, lift operations, and endless shops, the Gubeikou to Jinshanling section of the Wall is a real gem for hikers and Great Wall enthusiasts looking for a moderately challenged day hike along one of the Wall’s most stunning neighborhoods. Chairman Mao was reputed to have said to his countrymen that they must hike the Great Wall to be “a true Chinese hero.” Somehow I don’t think he had tobogganing in mind. Today, for China Mojo, is the real deal.
China Mojo hikes the Great Wall of China.
China Mojo hooked up with Lily early, and left the Jade Garden at 8:30 am in our Champ bus. By 11, we had met our hiking guide at the Gubeikou trailhead and started up the ridge towards the Wall. The day dawned clear and sunny, though fairly cold, even without much wind, and we were well-layered up for our ascent. The day proved epic – the light cast on the wall and the surrounding high desert landscape made for phenomenal views and photo opps, and Mojo took full advantage of both. We made some time to shoot our “We Are Champlain” video, with the help of “Ryan Sheetz – International Man of Media Mystery” Productions,” who had recovered nicely from his bout with food poisoning (we think) the day before. (It is always good to have some digital video majors on a trip like this – Ryan has proved an endless source of photographic wisdom for everyone.)
Katrina and Melanie atop the Great Wall of China.
China Mojo up on top of the Great Wall of China.
One of the highlights of the hike, oddly, was a detour we took off the Wall (to avoid a Chinese military outpost – top secret) and down into a working farm landscape, featuring terraced irrigation hills, corn fields that had been stripped for the winter, water cisterns, and sheep flocks grazing in the distance – a good reminder for our students that the high rolling Beijing mojo, particularly in downtown, is not the way most (800 million, give or take) rural Chinese live. We ended our hike by 2:30, in time for a delicious Chinese food lunch of dumplings, beef, pork and veggie plates, heaping bowls of white rice, cold beer, and hot tea (particularly nice, given the chill of the day). Back on the bus for our obligatory post-hike nap, and back to Beijing by 6:30.
Our post-hike lunch - Chinese food never tasted better.
My friend Steve Wilmarth, an educational visionary from New England who has set up the first iPad classroom program in China at a prestigious public high school in the city of Wuhan (our Champlain students spent 2 days in Wuhan with Steve and Chinese host families during our China Mojo trip last March), had just flown in to Beijing on his way back to Hubei province. We was gracious enough to hoof his way out to our hotel during his layover, and we all sat in the bar together over drinks and dinner while Steve explained the nature of his educational project and shared his many insights on China with our group. After spending a magical day on the Great Wall, it was good for our China Mojo posse to get grounded again in the realities and complexities of this rapidly-evolving and influential country, and few are better at painting this picture than Steve.
Tomorrow is our last full day – and we are seeking to shop at the Dirt and Pearl Markets, and enjoy a Peking Duck dinner to celebrate Thanksgiving. And, oh yes, the sheep penis – that’s also on the agenda.
How did China Mojo spend their last full day in Beijing? We all agreed that we must have a Thanksgiving dinner together to celebrate our trip, and Peking Duck, China’s signature national dish, seemed like the obvious choice for a Thanksgiving meal.
Downtown Beijing's Wanfujing Street - shopping mecca.
After a dawn patrol run to the top of Jianshan Park for an early morning Forbidden City photo opp, I met our Mojo’ers @ 9:00 in the lobby for one last day of shopping and exploring. After stocking up on steamed buns, fruit and snacks, we headed south to the subway, heading southwest to the 3rd ring road and off at Panjiayuan Antique Market (also known as the “Dirt Market), Asia’s largest outdoor antiques extravaganza. Skateboarders Colin and Ryan brought their trucks with them, riding, jumping and flipping their way downtown, to the bemused stares of the locals, while many of our Mojo’ers confidently navigated the Beijing subway with their new downtown street savvy and nifty maps – they’ve come a long way in this city of 22 million in just a few days. The day was cold and hazy, typical Beijing winter weather, but our Mojo’ers proved to be aggressive in the haggling department despite the chill, departing the Dirt Market with vintage Mao’s Army backpacks, Tibetan singing bowls, jewelry and works of art, and even an antique Chinese sword (go Anya, go!). Of all of our Mojo’ers, Katrina Mott wins the “most aggressive/successful haggling” award hands down – her success has become legend among the group.
Yak tongue for Thanksgiving lunch in downtown Beijing.
From the Dirt Market, we split up for the afternoon. I headed north by taxi with a mojo posse to try Tibetan food at a place called Makye Ame, which proved difficult for our taxi drivers to find, despite its central location just off of Jiangguomen Jie. Lunch was well worth the hassle – tsampa, yak tongue, grilled yak with potatoes, yak butter tea and Tibetan beer (not quite as flavorful as Uighur, but cold and frosty). Our Tibetan server, James, even sang for us after lunch with his drum, telling us of his dream to be a pop star and showing his record on his iPod. Jen and I caught a cab back to the hotel, while the rest of he group headed on to the Pearl Market for more shopping and mayhem.
China Mojo eats Tibetan at "Makye Ame" for Thanksgiving lunch.
After a two hour Dragonfly full body massage (“Xie Xie,” Beijing) at an upscale therapy treatment center down the street from our hotel (I’d been looking forward to it all week, buoyed on by stories from fellow Mojo’ers visits), I met our Mojo’ers in the lobby and we got lost one more time in the upscale APM mall trying to find the fourth floor Quan Ju De Peking Duck resto – the perfect meal to celebrate our Beijing Thanksgiving together. Over dinner, our Mojo’ers all shared stories of what they were most thankful while downing delicious crispy duck skinned meat, liver, kidney, and head, accompanied by a wide variety of veggies, Jello-like dessert sides, steamed rice and Yanjung brau. Once more to the night market for – Hen Hao! – sea urchin, starfish, centipede, bird’s nest, and YES, sheep penis.
Skyler shares some starfish.
Jen eats sea urchin.
Rob snarfs sheep penis.
Note the horrified stares of the onlookers in the photos. And then, one last celebratory drink and dessert at one of Beijing’s most famous expat hotel bar restos – the Emperor’s Palace, known for its rooftop view of the Forbidden City and downtown Beijing.
China Mojo a ‘go go – and the perfect way to spend Thanksgiving in Beijing.
