Beijing: March 31st to April 3rd, 2006

I’m back from Beijing and back to the regular HKUST life in Hong Kong. The trip was too short but nonetheless it was utterly amazing! In summary I saw so many cultural and historical sites: Summer Palace, Forbidden City, Tianan’men Square, THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA, The Ming Tombs, The Chairman Mao memorial… The sites were amazing and it was extra special for most of us because this was the first time seeing these sites. We went with a Chinese tour from Hong Kong and in total there were 13 of us and the rest of the tour were a much older crowd. They probably hated us because we were late in waking up a few days and we couldn’t really catch up with the tour when we were at Summer Palace. It was funny cause you would think the younger crowd would be able to catch up… but we were too busy taking pictures! I originally had probably 300 pictures but my memory card couldn’t hold that much so I had to delete some… so now I have 262 pictures of our 4 day and 3 night trip in Beijing. The worst part of the tour for some of my friends was the fact that instead of maximizing time at the better places like the Great Wall… we were stuck at medicine stores, silk factories and jade markets. Lynne and I had to remind some of the people that the reason why the tour is so cheap is that the company makes commission off of these places so they have to take us there. I don’t really care because I just look around and talk with the people around me. We were lucky because our trip was made easier as 4 out of 13 of us knew fluent mandarin. The last night we went to a 5 star hotel and the card wouldn’t work and we were stuck outside… if my friend didn’t know mandarin our clothes and everything would still be in that room. They kept talking to me in mandarin and I just laughed or shrugged my shoulders. Knowing the phrase, “I don’t know mandarin” would have been a very useful phrase.

The food in Beijing is very oily but I still ate it… it came with the tour and it was decent…some people were scared of the bird flu but I still ate eggs and chicken…thinking about it, I guess that was a bad idea but the western breakfast at the hotel was so good and I really wanted a fried egg with my toast so I could dip the yoke in the toast! Anyways, the first night we went to a street full of food vendors and they had some very yummy snacks and some very repulsive ones. For example, seahorses, caterpillars, scorpions, grasshoppers, worms… they had bubble tea too but the thought of being sick from my last one repelled me from buying it.

The worst part of the trip was the foot massage (included in the package). It’s a long story but it’s quite funny; though not funny at the time… anyways I sat down like any other foot massage and it was my 2nd foot massage during the Beijing trip because the day before we had free time and I went into a salon and got an hour foot massage: my best mandarin is saying “Foot massage, One hour.” Hahaha thanks to my aunt she made me a pro. Anyways, the lady was talking to me in mandarin and of course I couldn’t respond and I really hate conversations during my massage so the language barrier was to my advantage. My friend James was there in case because he is fluent in mandarin. So as she was massaging my left foot she said my nail has some contagious thing on it that most athletes have (I did notice before HK that my nail was funny looking). James translated that this cream which is exclusive sold at their place could cure my nail problem. I kindly asked James to tell the lady that I will look at my nail when I return to HK. I realized that this foot massage parlour was just another way for the tour agency to get more commission. She then started to pressed hard on one part of my right ankle and I said in Cantonese that it hurt and I made those “OW!” noises which seems universal to me. She became gentle but later on kept pressing hard on the same part… again and again I told her that it really hurt. She told my friend James that she was hardly pressing and the reason why it hurts me so much is that my shoulders and my back are weird and that there must be problems with them… once again I know this already. She tired to sell me more medication but I refused and started to get really pissed off because the more she talked, the less she was focusing on the massage. She kept pressing to show James an example of what she was talking about and I yelled in pain again. I told James that I was getting quite frustrated with her and that I wished she wouldn’t talk so much and just massage my feet. She once again pressed hard to show James another example and I had to star down at her and point my finger at her to finally get her to stop. She said that if she keeps pressing it will help my back. James further told me that she mentioned that I could possibly have some type of hormonal imbalance and some problems with my reproductive system… and I thought to myself, “Can she really know all about my health by touching my feet?” James and I laughed and I tipped her less than what was suggested by the tour guide and I told the story to my friends who stayed on the bus because they refused to get a massage in such a shady place. I was so upset at that lady because after kindly telling her I was in pain she still persisted on pressing me. Moreover, she kept talking about me to her friend beside her and looking at me…I told her I was from Canada (another somewhat useful phrase that I learned in Mandarin class) and I heard her say the word Canada a view times … if you want to talk about me, fine, but please don’t make it so obvious. When I got on the bus I was so upset and I told my friends, I want to call my mom and tell her what happened because I don’t like people telling me that there is something wrong with my reproductive system, NOT COOL at all!

Other than that, the trip was amazing!