We decided to try public transportation for the first time. Taxis are very cheap, but the clogged streets mean it can take a long time to cross town. Beijing buses are perhaps the worst way to travel -- dirt cheap but really crowded and slow -- so we headed for the nearest subway station about 10 minutes from our hotel. Our walk to the station was always interesting; we passed street-side food stalls, makeshift bike repair shops set up on the sidewalks, small restaurants, and barbershops. On one block there were two shops side by side that sold nothing but toilet paper. They had dozens of varieties, and they'd proudly stacked some on the street in front of their stores, trying to lure in customers.

The stations in Beijing are poorly marked, but we could always recognize them by the enormous tangle of bikes parked outside. Tickets are cheap, just Y3 ($.40) per person to go anywhere in the city, and the trains are relatively clean and uncrowded. Much cleaner and easier to navigate than, say, the Paris Metro. The primary drawback is that the system here is somewhat limited. One line circles the central and northern areas, and another runs east-west right through the heart of the city. We took the loop line as far south as we could and got off near Tiantan Park, our first destination.

Tiantan Park is an ancient site that the emperor would travel to once a year to pray for bountiful harvests. Inside the walled park are several colorful temples connected by a long raised walkway. The Temple of Heaven, I think it's called, is a beautiful circular building, maybe the prettiest we saw in Beijing. It's more graceful than the hulking structures of the Forbidden City. The park has a few other temples, including an echo wall that supposedly carries sound so well you can hear your partner whispering from halfway around. We didn't get to try that, of course, because the place was mobbed with screaming hordes of Chinese tourists. Tiantan was a nice visit and I'm glad we went there, but I don't think it makes my "must see" list.

We hopped in a taxi for the short drive up to Tiananmen Square, and on the drive we witnessed another unusual Chinese phenomenon. The Chinese group their shopping streets by the kind of thing they sell. Rather than strolling down a street and passing a bookstore, then a clothing store, then a hardware store, they'll have a street for each. This drive, we passed a section that was 4 straight blocks of nothing but power tools. Every single store for block after block after block sold exactly the same thing, using the same display cases. At other times we've passed pager streets, bookstore streets, butcher streets, and more.

We got dropped off at the Great Hall of the People, the Chinese Capital building. It's a huge beast of a building set on the west side of Tiananmen Square. As you walk up the front steps and enter the main gallery, you're immediately struck with how much marble and granite went in to building it. Every single inch of floor is beautifully polished stone, as are most of the walls, ceilings, and pillars. We walked through the standard route, dodging in and out of massive halls and smaller meeting rooms. The signs were in Chinese so we missed out on the details, but I think one room was labeled something like "The Nixon dinner people's reception halls." That was a big room, nice stone, but it felt a little dated and it had a battered wooden stage on one side like a 50's high-school gymnasium.

Many of the rooms were smaller and tended to have large overstuffed chairs laid out in concentric circles. In the middle were 8 or 10 big, plushy chairs with lace doilies over head and armrests. Behind them was a ring or 18 or 20 smaller chairs, and on the outside of those were even more, plainer chairs. It was pretty easy to picture the party chiefs sitting in that inner circle, flanked by rings of lesser comrades.

We were really disappointed that we couldn't see the great hall itself, the chamber where the hundreds of local delegates cheerfully endorse every Party proposal. That was the main reason we'd taken the tour, but the doors were shut tight. However just as we were leaving the building I saw a janitor head for the center door of the hall. I stopped and craned my neck to see. He only opened the door a small ways, but I caught a quick glimpse of a giant Mao painting giving me a strange look from the front of the hall.

The next afternoon we hit a somewhat overlooked temple right in north-central Beijing. It's called the Lama temple and it's an actual working temple, the seat of Chinese-sanctioned Tibetan Buddhism. After touring sterile, empty, historical sites for several days it was really neat to see the monks, smell the incense. It made the buildings themselves come alive. Even without the monks it was a spectacular site including gorgeous buildings and the Largest Buddha Carved Out Of A Single Log (as the official Guiness Book plaque read).

Recently, when the Panchen Lama (the no. 2 lama behind the Dalai Lama) died, a controversy erupted over who his reincarnation was. The Dalai Lama and most of the monks claimed it was a young Tibetan boy, while the Chinese government insisted their spiritual sources pointed to -- big surprise here -- a young Chinese boy. Well, in apparent response to this controversy, the government has installed a special "exhibit" at the Lama Temple that outlines the "special relationship" between China and Tibet and traces the lineage of the lamas, again showing how China has always governed Tibet and been the spiritual source for Tibetan Buddhism.

The exhibit was such over-the-top propaganda that it was actually funny. For example, when discussing China's brutal overthrow, rape, and murder of the Tibetan people in 1950 they showed a picture of a few dejected looking monks surrounded on all 4 sides by people in Chinese military attire with this caption:

Mao Ze-dong and Zhou En-lai cordially received representatives of the Dalai Lama to sign "The Agreement of Central People's Government and Local Government of Tibet On Measures for Peaceful liberation of Tibet."

After going to the Great Wall at Simitai on Saturday (dispatch to come), we spent our last day in Beijing at the Summer Palace. We woke to bright sun, our first and only sunny day in China so far. Every other day has been thick, murky clouds and drizzle. It was good to have some sun.

The Summer Palace is about as close as you can come to a "pretty" site in Beijing. It's yet another of the emperor's former residences and it's set on a large lake in extreme NW Beijing, tucked at the feet of the mountains. Most of the buildings climb up the hillside on the north side of the lake, and on this sunny day (did I mentioned we actually had a sunny day?) you could catch a pretty nice view out over the city. It was a pleasant day spent strolling along the lake and up onto the hills, and we even snuck in a quick boat ride on the water. The crowds were still all around us, but the holiday was over and it was more manageable than our previous few days.

My favorite part of the Summer Palace is the great names they've bestowed upon the various buildings. Too many to list on this site, but here are some of the best: "House of Lingering Interest," "Hall of Listening to Orioles," "Jade-like Firmament in Bright Clouds," "House of Fragrant Herbs," "Fresh-Embracing Pavilion," "Garden of Harmonious Pleasures," "Hall of Embroidered Clouds." There's more, but that's already more than I was going to list. I love those names. Maybe I should re-name this site "The Website of Lingering Interest." Would that keep you here longer?

Sadly, the Summer Palace also includes the downside's of your typical Chinese tourist destination. It begins when you step off the bus or taxi at the front gate. You are immediately mobbed by a crowd of people yelling "Hello," selling everything from maps to postcards to guide services to mini-terrecotta warriors. Say "No Thanks" as many times as you want, the mob will keep following you. Next you step up to the ticket counter and see a sign in Chinese that includes "Y15." After battling your way to the window, the woman behind the glass shakes her head "No" and points you somewhere else, towards a sign that says "Entrance for Foreign Guests." Strangely the price there is twice as high. You get your ticket, always a colorful ornate thing, side-step the people taking pictures at the front gate, and go inside.

You get inside the gate and realize you weren't given a map (you never get one) and that there's no map posted. In every direction you see small snack and film stands. These little shops are everywhere in China. You can't go more than 15 feet without seeing one. They're like espresso stands in Seattle. All sell the same things: Ritz crackers, film, batteries, bottled water, postcards, bowls of instant noodles, soda, beer, Chinese sweets, and strange packaged meat. Another version of these stores is the trinket shop, which is almost as common. They sell drinks as well as postcards, picture books, cheesy Chairman Mao little red books, guns that shoot bubbles, ornamental figurines, etc.

Back to your predicament. . .

You're standing inside the gate and you don't know where to go. From the stench, you smell that there's a bathroom to your left so you decide to go right. Immediately you're stopped by a crowd waiting for something. You start to fight your way through the crowd and then -- up ahead -- you realize why there are film stands everywhere. You see, Chinese people don't consider they've actually visited a place until each person in their group, individually, gets a picture of them self in front of every statue, every temple, and everything else inside the compound. We're not talking about a quick family snapshot in front of Mt. Rushmore. We're talkin' every friggin' ten steps there is someone posing like a bad catalog model in front of a gate or rock or whatever. The other family members beat back the crowd and yell at anyone who tries to walk in between the camera and the model. You literally can't walk anywhere in China without constantly being stopped and re-directed. Worse, they're always taking them in front of the best sites, so you never get to look at them in peace.

This constant stopping and starting is far more annoying than the crowds themselves. Sarah and I made it about a week being courteous, but now, evil Americans that we are, we've made it our mission to get ourselves into as many pictures as possible as we walk through the frames.

In fact, they've taken this picture-in-famous-places thing to a whole new level. You can pay some outrageous fee to dress up in an elaborate costume and have your picture taken in an historical setting. These aren't the cheesy US stick-your-head-in-the-cutout-of-the-bodybuilder pictures; they've seriously undertaken silk robes and guilded carriage type things.