I'm packing for China now. Well, at least I should be packing instead of writing blog posts.
David had bought tickets in coach flying non-stop from Chicago to Beijing. I was not looking forward to that flight. The good news is that we got upgraded from coach to business! Yippee! And I have 28 hours of video on my iPad and enough Ambien to remain serene, sleepy, and entertained.
So now...what am I doing in China? I was on my won for five days in Beijing last year and I went over board as a tourist. I had crossed everything off my list from temples, to parks, to Peking Opera, to markets, to crazy Chinese medical treatments. I was even one ahead of David on the list of Wonders of the World because I made it to the Great Wall of China before he did. So I naively thought that I would repeat a lot of my successes from the past trip and take David around to my highlights of last year. Foolish Keith. I found a whole new slew ofthings to do:
The Great Wall of China and Ming Tombs - Yes, this is a repeat, but David has to see the Great Wall. Also, my tour guide gave me a terrible tour of the Ming Tombs so I feel like I have to go back. I don't think I even saw half of them. I never even went inside the actual tombs.
Tour of Buddhist Temples - We found a gay guide that suggested this tour. I had been to the Lama Temple and it's stunning. I'm happy to go back. I'm also happy that there are 7 other temples our guide will be taking us to.
Moxibustion - This will be part of my visit to a Chinese health clinic. I'll let this page explain it: http://acupuncturetoday.com/abc/moxibustion.php. The practitioner is also going to give me a "food energetics" session which will outline what sorts of foods I should be eating and which ones to stay away from to "remove the damp from my system" and promote the flow of Qi.
The Museum of Ethnic Clothes - This looks a great museum of old textiles and clothes from China.
Cooking Class - I'm not 100% sold on this one, but I may attend a class (spoken in English) on traditional Chinese home cooking. I was hoping for a hand made noodle pulling class, but I'm too late for that one.
So I feel like I'm ready to attack Beijing again like a rabid tourist, hungry for new experiences. And I'm with David this time, so I will have better meals than last time.
FYI - I never got around to posting the photos from my trip to China last year, so at some point you can expect to see a whole mess of China photos on the site.