Day 2 in Beijing: Lamasery, Confucius Temple, Broken Bicycle, Temple of Heaven, and Street Fair
Today was a fun day.
Morning
I woke up at 9AM this morning just because I haven't had a chance to sleep in this entire trip. I woke up with no plans in mind for the day. That is the great part about backpacking/travelling alone. All you really need to do is plan for yourself whenever and however you feel like it. If you just want a relaxing day, you can do it. If you want to walk miles and miles, you can do that also. You don't need to try to satisfy other people's needs. It's actually very relieving.
So I woke up and just sat in bed for the first half hour reading my travel guide and plotting out my day. I decided today would probably be a good day to rent a bike and ride up to the Tibetan Lamasery (the Great Firewall of China strikes again, I can't view that wiki page), The Confucius Temple (hmm..seems like all of wikipedia is blocked...I don't think it was yesterday..strange) -- both about 2 km north of the hostel and across the street from each other. I was also very ambitious and planned to hit up the hill overlooking the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven which are pretty far south in the city.
I went down to the lobby and rented a bicycle. It was insanely cheap. 10 RMB for 4 hours and 20 RMB for 10 hours + 300RMB deposit. ($1 = 7.57RMB -- so basically for $2.64 I can rent a bike for the entire day. It was later that I found out why it's so cheap.) We go out to the courtyard and I got to pick out a bike. The guidebook mentioned to check the bikes before you take them because they tend to be pretty crappy. I picked out the cleanest/newest looking one. The hostel operator goes, "Are you sure? The new ones tend to get stolen." I decided to press my luck. I mean, worse case, I lose out on 300 RMB ~ $39.63. Before you get too excited about it, these aren't your Tour De France high-tech racing bikes. These are all single gear with a mesh basket and barely usable brakes.
This is the first time I've been on a bicycle since the 5 Borough Bike Tour and immediately, my ass had memory pain of the soreness I had then. It is actually quite an experience riding through Beijing on a bicycle. I mean, majority of the people bike around this city plus the bike lanes are huge. That doesn't mean that huge city buses won't creep up on your in the bike lane though. It seems like the bike lane is used for: bikers, pedestrians, and city buses. For some reason, all I could think of were either the Queens song "Bicycle Race" or Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. I literally was singing, "I want to ride my bicycle..." all the way through Beijing. Hey come on... I have to entertain myself somehow. Plus, how can you not feel Dorothy-esque with a mesh basket in front and a little bell on the handlebar. (For the record, it was a blue bike... I opted against the pink one.)
Tibetan Lamasery
So an hour later (with a stop for breakfast), I get to the Lamasery. It was quite an interesting place. There were a ton of people there. It wasn't as bad as the Forbidden City. (Really, I don't think anything is as bad as that.) Most of the people here were families with bags and bags of incense to offer to the temple, Buddha, and the Lama. The highlight of this place was the 3 story tall Budha that was carved from a single tree trunk. It was quite awe-inspiring. I wished they had better lit the place though. Buddha was left in the dark.
In one of the temples, there was a large marble throne. When I say large, it's Large. About the size of a building large and 2 stories high. I came in through the back entrance and was just walking around marvelling at the thrown before I realized that there was someone sitting on top of it. He was in a large golden robe with a Manchu haircut. I really couldn't tell if it was just a wax sculpture were a real person. He seemed really really real though. He just sat there staring straight ahead unmoving.
Confucius Temple
After the Tibetan Lamasery, I rode my bike over to the Confucius Temple. I noticed that my left pedal was a little wobbly. I wrote it off as poor Chinese manufacturing and went back to singing "I want to ride my bicycle..." The Confucius Temple was nothing too exciting. Most of it was closed for renovation. It was later that I realized that I had missed out on a section through the side entrance. Either way, it was drizzling and starting to come down harder so I decided to trek on.
I Want to Ride my Bicycle...
So the next stop on my bike tour was to the park overlooking the Forbidden City (I don't remember the name of it offhand). As I'm riding down one of the large streets in Beijing, I feel my left pedal wobbling a little more. I wiggle it more and it kept wobbling more. As I crossed this large intersection (remember, intersections are like 10 lanes across here in Beijing), my left pedal fell off. Yes, THE PEDAL FELL OFF THE BIKE!! I mean.. WTF! The pedal fell off the bike! I turned the bike around in throngs of oncoming bike traffic and quickly grabbed the pedal that was on the ground in the intersection before the light changed. I pull over to the curb and tried to find a way to fasten the pedal back on. Some of my ingenious plans (mind you, I went to engineering school) were: use a band-aid (literally... it was the only thing of use in my bag), ride with me kicking in the pedal after every stroke, ride with only one pedal (near impossibility), and eventually walking the bike.
[I'll continue this post later]