A Small Glimpse of My Life

October first is China’s National day, which is basically independence day. Most people have a whole week off, which creates one of the biggest traveling peaks in the country. Everywhere you go you’d see tourists. Instead of seeing any of the sights, you’ll see a sea of people.

On this day, we headed into the city center to visit my sister-in-law’s parents. My brother’s new place is pretty much the suburb of Beijing, where the housing is still relatively affordable. We got on the 5th bypass road pretty easily, but traffic started piling up once we reached into the 3rd bypass, which surrounds the inner city. My sister-in-law’s parents live in a really nice, city center area. Her mom works in Zhongnanhai, where the government is located. So her work-given housing is very close to Tian’an Men Square, and the big shopping centers around there.

We got to their place after about an hour of driving. They prepared a really big lunch for us. I wish I took pictures, there were some interesting dishes. One of which was a type of shrimp that I don’t know how to translate to English, but I was able to find a picture of it online. Anyone knows? It was pretty good, they were steamed, and then the top skin was peeled off carefully because there were little spikes. The meat was finally dipped into a soy sauce, vinegar, chopped garlic and ginger mixture. It was pretty tasty.

My brother also bought fresh crabs, I think I ate at least four. They weren’t huge ones, but at least the size of my hand. I admit, I was pretty full after that lunch.

My parents and I walked over to one of the largest shopping areas in Beijing, the XiDan shopping center. I had to go for a walk because I really needed to digest my lunch. Once we got to the shopping center, I realized it was really not the best time to come out. It was so crowded. If you can imagine the stores in America during Christmas shopping season, or the morning after Thanksgiving, and multiply that amount of people by a couple of times, that’s what it was like. We bought a bit of food and that was about it. I wanted to look to buy boots, but the ones I liked were too expensive, similar to American price. And the cheap ones, well, they were cheap.

Next day afternoon, we went to a indoor hot spring resort. It was supposedly the biggest indoor hot spring in Asia. It was called Tian Long Yuan. It’s pretty close to the Ba Da Ling Great Wall and Ming Tombs if you ever go. This place was huge! It was the size of a huge hotel. We got in there and first went into the locker room to change into our swimsuits. The place provided slippers for walking around. We first went into the spa areas for different hot spring tubs. It was nice, but I don’t know whether they were really hot spring water. It felt more just like huge Jacuzzi, with different names and apparently different Chinese herbs infused in to make them look better. But it was fun to walk around and check out different spas. One of them was 42 degree Celsius, it got pretty hot for me after just a couple of minutes. They also had these hot stones where you could lie on top and take it nap. It wasn’t warm enough when I tried it, maybe other areas were better.

After the soak, we went to the wave pool. It was supposed to be a tropical ocean with waves, but the water was pretty cold. I got used to it once I was jumping up and down with the waves. It was almost like swimming in the ocean I suppose.

After spending couple of hours of soaking and swimming. We decided to get dinner before the show started. Yes, there was a show also. The place had shower stalls stocked with shampoo and body soap. They also provided pajamas to wear around the place. I haven’t showered in a public place in a really really long time. I forgot how weird it could be. I’m just gonna assume no one look at me and said, “look at how fat she is”.

The dinner place was big as well. We went to have buffet, it had a lot of choices. All sorts of Chinese food of course, but also sushi, and some western stuff as well. I’m really annoyed at myself for not taking my camera with me, it was quite a place to look at.

After dinner, we enjoyed a fully packed one hour show. It started with a little movie show projected onto a screen of water. It was quite impressive. After that, we enjoyed ice skating, ice dancing, underwater dancing, Latin dance and other entertainments. It was amazing, hard to believe it was put on by just a hot spring resort place. The entrance fee was RMB 158, which was about $20. It’s not that expensive by my standard. But it’s pretty expensive I think by Chinese standard. If you think of a family of 5 going there, with entrance fee, and money for food and whatever other spa service it could easily top RMB 1000, and that’s the monthly salary for some people. It was definitely a middle class kind of place.

Like I said, I didn’t take my camera there was me, so I got some pictures from the resort’s websites. I hope these pictures will inspire you to go there next time you are in Beijing.

Underwater Dance.

Lady coming down on a rope.

Dance.

Water Screen.

Wave Pool.

Spa area.