Monday June 29 - The Eastern Qing Tombs

Today we are visiting the Eastern Qing Tombs, but first breakfast in the hotel. It was Y10 for dumplings. Not our favourite, so we decided to investigate the small village beside the hotel. Just outside the hotel grounds we met Su Mei and Emily who were also looking for something exciting to eat for breakfast. It was Su Mei who noticed the street food; and we ended up eating a delicious breakfast. We bought it from a woman who had a circular propane burner attached to the back of a scooter in a small 3-sided hut thing. She cooked something like a pancake mix spread circularly over the hot plate, then she broke 2 eggs over that; once that cooked she turned the pancake over and painted a sauce mix on the pancake; then she sprinkled chillies, onions, coriander, and a tasty crispy biscuit thing over the pancake, folded it up, put it in a light small plastic bag, and off we went, munching on the pancake/omellette like mixture, changing it from hand to hand because it was so hot. It was also so good! We sold a couple of the other Truck group on it too before we left to visit our first tomb. The Eastern Qing Tombs are a royal graveyard containing the tombs of 5 emperors, 74 empresses, and 136 concubines. We saw 3 or 4 of the tomb sites in the area including Cixi's. This maybe wasn't as elaborate as some of the emperorors' tombs but the floral displays at the tomb were beautiful. Some of the tombs were plundered by the military and others around the 1920s. Also interesting was the avenue leading to the tombs which was lined with stately lions, elephants, horses, and camels as well as various Chinese military personnel. The underground "palaces" or "tombs" were spectacular and I think everyone really enjoyed the morning. We ate lunch at the hotel, then set off for Beijing, stopping outside one of the gates of the tombs for Truck pictures. Then it was a serious drive into the chaos of Beijing. We noticed a number of "dump trucks' racing down the streets of the towns just as crazy as they do in Uxbridge; and we noticed crazy drivers driving on the inside lane, the opposite way, on a wide 4-lane road! We also noticed numerous "fender-benders". To say the Chinese are horrible drivers, is an understatement!! They are, generally speaking "awful". The energy level in the Truck picked up as we neared the city centre. Beijing, on a "drive in" impression is a fantastic, modern city with huge highrise apartment blocks, wide treed avenues, and colourful shop signs and billboards. Our hotel, the Huguosi Hotel is fabulous, and as we discovered when we went out investigating, in a fabulous area which abounds with musical instrument shops, hair dressers, and restaurants. It's off a tiny narrow street (hutong) with metal tracks where the cars ride (I think they are doing work on a subway line underneath the street), and is buzzing with activity. We had dinner in a neat little restaurant just around the corner on the main road for Y42 for both, about $6 or $7, and were in our bed, sweating profusely, despite the A/C by 10:30 p.m.