Case in point: As I write this, just a bit after midnight, I am sitting in Daxing Airport south of Beijing. We are heading to Almaty, Kazakhstan, but by way of Tashkent, Uzbekistan. That's a bit less than direct. However, the real savings come from the fact that our flight departs at 2 AM and we have a thirteen hour layover in Tashkent.
This meant that today (or, technically, yesterday) was our last day to enjoy Beijing. We got tickets to see the Forbidden City in the afternoon. We did have to check out of our hotel, but they kindly let us keep our luggage there.
The Forbidden City is massive. I had seen its outline on a map, but that didn't prepare me for how big it is. As we were entering, so we several hundred other people. There had to be thousands of people inside that complex and yet it could have easily fit a thousand times as many people. Yes, the buildings are large, but the courtyards, gardens, and open spaces are gargantuan.
In addition to being vast, the Forbidden City is quite beautiful. There are dozens of buildings with arched roofs crowned in tubular tiles atop highly decorated wooden beams over red walls with intricate doors. Some of these buildings sit on a foundation with multiple levels, like terraces cut into mountains for farming, but the levels here are bounded by finely carved stone pillars. It is impressive.
That being said, there comes a point such that when you see your nth large building with arched roof and all the fixings, it has less impact than when you saw the (n-1)st such building, and that impact was less than the (n-2)nd one, and so on. You get the idea. Even grandeur can become ho-hum.
I did particularly enjoy the Imperial Garden. Not only is it full of beautiful trees and flowers, but also many ornamental rocks. Some of these rocks are like jungle gyms. How they were transported to the palace, I don't know. But what makes me more curious is the question of how they were found. Was there some guy whose job it was to go out into the mountains, look at big rock formations and say, "If we could haul this back to the Forbidden City, the emperor would plotz!"? (Probably the Chinese didn't use the word "plotz", but they must have had some word with a similar connotation.)
After the Forbidden City, Alrica found this delightful noodle shop. They make handmade stretched noodles. Mine came with a beef soup. Alrica's came with a sectioned plate, like a Seder plate, with different toppings and vegetables she could add. These were some fantastically tasty noodles.
We returned to the hotel to get our belongings and hung out there for a bit. Then we took a train to the airport. All of that was fine. But the real "fun" came after.
I have never been to a security checkpoint with this level of scrutiny. After stepping through the metal detector, each passenger gets a thorough (and I mean thorough) pat down. The woman who handled my pat down touched me in more places per minute than anyone else ever has, including my wife. She was tugging at my belt and lifting my shirt. Alrica told me that when she got her pat down, it seemed like the woman wanted inside Alrica's bra.
Plus, both of our bags got flagged during screening. Mine ended up getting screened four times with the agent unpacking more and more of it each time. When it was finally through, I had to sit on the floor and repack.
But we did get through. If nothing else unexpected happens, in about nine hours we will be in Uzbekistan. With a thirteen hour layover (and probably no sleep) we hope to see some of Tashkent.
But don't worry, I think we can stay in budget.
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