可爱的加拿大姑娘超激动中国游：第二天：历史冰冷的脚趾

Up at 6, but not needing to meet the group until 830, I bundled up against the elements and went for a walk around the block.
百般折腾之后，凌晨6点我终于起床了，但是我们的团队要等到早上8点30分才集合。我把自己裹得像个粽子，以抵抗外面的恶劣天气，然后去周围街区散步。

I love mornings like this in a new city, getting to see the place wake up, as the working class hits up the food carts for their bag lunches to go, and parents walk their kids to school.
我爱这样的早晨，在一个全新的地方，看着整个城市慢慢醒来，上班族到热气腾腾的早餐车处买早餐，然后把食物打包带走，父母送他们的孩子去学校。

I feel invisible, but that’s a good thing, as I don’t get the standard cheezy tourist treatment and can just enjoy the everyday life of this great place.
在这里我就像一个隐形人，没有人认识我，也没有人关注我，但这是一件好事情，因为这样的话，我就不用被那些俗气的游客待遇束缚，可以尽情享受这个伟大城市的日常生活。

Beijing was dawning beautiful and sunny, and the hustle and bustle was there, but still not the craziness or the crowds I had prepped for. Instead it was just comfortable, and being comfortable in a place is a huge, huge factor for me. When I, as a single woman, can walk around a city and just relax and enjoy it, that is the best sign that a city is going to be fantastic.
北京朝霞美丽，阳光明媚，车水马龙，熙熙攘攘，但仍然远未如我想像的那般疯狂和拥挤。相反，它给人一种舒适的感觉，在一个地方如果身心都能感觉舒适自在，这对我而言，是非常、非常重要的因素。我，作为一名单身女人，能够漫步于一座全新的城市，真正放松自己，就这样享受它，那就是最好的迹象，表明这座城市将是非常美妙的。
After a giant breakfast at the typical Asian “everything you could possibly imagine – fish and pizza and congee and Cocoa Pops” hotel buffet (they always have Cocoa Pops. Every country I’ve ever been in. Go figure. For this sole reason they have become my strange vacation obsession), we loaded our gloved and scarfed selves into the minibus and headed for Tianamen Square.
我们吃了一顿丰盛的早餐，典型亚洲特色（所有东西你都可以想象得出——鱼肉、披萨、白粥、可可麦片粥）的酒店自助（他们总是提供可可麦片粥，每一个我去过的国家都这样。你可以自己琢磨下，看是不是这么回事。因为这个原因，他们已经成为我奇怪的旅游强迫症），我们戴上手套，把自己塞进迷你巴士，然后朝天安门广场进发。

Our adorable guide Jimmy – if keeping him in our luggage had been an option, we would have kept him throughout the whole tour – paraded us around carrying a bright red fabric fish on a telescoping pole, which, despite the fact it looked ridiculous, was amazingly easy to see in a forest of tour groups whose leaders were all carrying identical flags.
我们可爱的导游吉米——如果在吉米和行李之间二选一，我们肯定会毫不犹豫地选择吉米，整个旅行中，宁要吉米不要行李——在我们面前挥舞着一面有伸缩杆的醒目的红色鱼尾旗，这看上去确实滑稽可笑，不过令人惊奇的是，你很容易发现自己置身于旅游团旗帜的森林，所有导游几乎都拿着一面差不多的旗子。
There were thousands of people here, and everyone was with a tour group, all moving in little flocks through the vast expanse of the square. If you turned your back on your group to take a picture, you had to be careful that when you turned back you were still with the right people, as it was so easy to get swept up with another group and before you knew it you were on the bus with a bunch of Israeli tourists.
这里有成千上万的人，每个人都跟着一个旅游团，大家在巨大的广场上分成一小撮一小撮，慢慢地挪动着。如果你转过身拍照，背对你的旅游团，那你再回过身的时候就一定要小心确认是不是还和自己人在一起，因为稍不注意就会跟错团，否则等你回到旅游巴士上，看到一车陌生的以色列游客，你才会惊觉自己走散了。

The square itself is pretty plain, a big white expanse of concrete with some cool statues on one side, the Mao’s portrait-clad entrance to the Forbidden City on another, and the giant queue to see the refridgerated body of Mao on the other. The lines were too long, we missed him on this trip, but I’ll get it next time…
天安门广场本身漂亮平整，白茫茫一大片，用混凝土浇筑，一侧有许多很酷的雕像，另一侧是挂着毛主席肖像画的紫禁城入口，还有一侧是毛主席纪念堂，人们排着长长的队伍等待瞻仰毛主席遗容。这条队伍实在太长长长了，我们这次旅行只能错过他了，但是我下次一定不会错过的……

We found out after the fact that there are a lot of plain clothed securirt patroling the square and the Forbidden City, but you’d never know it, it feels so open and friendly. Got some great pictures, the cloudless blue sky made everything look spectacular, but once again it was really cold and windy, so we spent a lot of time huddling together and trying not to die.
我们发现，在天安门广场和紫禁城其实有许多便衣警察在秘密巡逻，只是你可能永远不会知道，这让人感觉非常开放和友好。我们拍摄了一些很棒的照片，澄澈如洗的蓝天使一切看起来都很宏伟壮观，但我不得不再提一次，这里真的好冷啊，寒风刺骨，我们大部分时间都挤在一起取暖，以免自己被冻死。
You’re going to notice a trend in these blogs – that we were freaking freezing. The whole time we were in Beijing it stayed subarctic, and, despite the fact that some of our group were from tropical cities like Halifax and Calgary, we just could not get warm.
你肯定会注意到这些博客文章里的某个发展趋势——那就是我们快被冻结了。我们在北京的这段时间，就像呆在亚北极，尽管我们当中的一些团员来自热带城市，比如哈利法克斯和卡尔加里，但我们还是没有得到什么额外的取暖福利。

The wind permeated everything, and before going to the Great Wall we were even warned to really bundle up so to not loose toes to frostbite. There’s nothing more comforting than that. It got to the point that our drivers, who spoke no English, knew the words for “crank up the heat!!!!” by the time we were done with them.
寒风仿佛能贯穿一切，在去长城之前，我们甚至被警告说必须严严实实地把自己裹起来，以免冻掉脚趾头。没有什么比这更加令人无语泪流。还有一点就是，我们的司机，他不懂英语，但跟我们相处的这些天他学会了一个词“crank up the heat!!!!”（取暖基本靠抖，抖起来！！！）

Then through the underpass to the Forbidden City. This was the first of many surreal moments on the trip, seeing in person those iconic red buildings and carriageways we’ve all seen on TV a million times. It’s more like the Forbidden City within a city within a city, as you would pass through one massive gate to a giant plaza, explore that, then pass through another massive gate into a larger version of the exact same plaza, with a more gigantic courtyard and even grander building.
然后，我们穿过门洞去紫禁城。此次旅程中有许多超梦幻的时刻，这就是第一次，这些标志性的红色建筑和通道我们早已在电视中看过百万次。紫禁城就像一个城中之城，你穿过一道巨大的门，来到一个巨大的广场，继续探索下去，你接着穿过另一道巨大的门，就会到达另一个视野更开阔的巨大广场，庭院更加庞大，建筑更加壮观。

One of the things that really surprised me here was how 90% of the tourists were Chinese. I had expected the standard flocks of overbearing white people (ourselves included), but practically everyone was Chinese. That’s actually a really amazing thing, though, as so often we forget to visit the awesome treasures in our own country, and these sites are definately once in a lifetime, bucket list places.
有一件使我感到吃惊的事情是90%的游客都是中国人。而我预期的是，这里有成群结队的傲慢的白人（包括我们自己），但实际上这里几乎都是中国人。这确实使人惊叹不已，因为我们常常忘记去参观欣赏自己国家的珍贵遗产，这些地方一生之中值得去一次，值得写上遗愿清单。

The second half of the Forbidden City, the residential area, definately has more character and less pagantry than the first half. Smaller spaces, the details still ornate, but more homey feeling, cute little courtyards with trees, and a beautiful garden with gazebos and giant limestone rocks.
紫禁城的后半部分是生活区，比前半部分相比，多了些特色，少了些巍峨恢弘。空间变小了，细节依然华丽，更有家的感觉，树木成荫的可爱小庭院，美丽花园里有凉亭、有石灰岩假山。
After the grandeur of the Forbidden City, it was time for the first of many massive Chinese meals. The drill goes like this – you sit in a private room, because they clearly don’t want us in the general population, around a big table with a giant lazy susan in the middle. There’s unlimited tea and one small class of water, beer, Coke or Sprite. Waiters just bringing giant plates of food and you eat whatever you want. Sometimes you don’t really know what it is, so you make an educated guess.
游览完雄伟的紫禁城，是吃中国大餐的时间。整个流程是这样的——你坐在一个包间里，因为他们显然不想让我们和普通市民坐在一起，大家围坐着一个大桌子，桌子中央有一个巨大的转盘。茶水不限量，但是水、啤酒、可乐或雪碧都是小杯小杯的。服务生不时端上巨大的菜盘子，你想吃什么就吃什么。有些时候你实在不知道自己吃的是什么，可以做个有根据的猜测。

Normally most of the dishes are a variation veggies and some meat, not really spicy, there’s a bowl of egg drop soup, one bowl of plain rice, and dessert is always either watermelon or oranges. At this point in the trip, it was all new and exciting food, and we all went to town, so much that only 2 out of the 10 of us even bothered to have dinner that night.
通常大多数的菜肴都是蔬菜和肉的变化搭配，不是很辣，还有一碗蛋花汤，一碗白米饭，餐后甜点要么是西瓜要么是橘子。在旅程中，中国大餐是新奇并令人兴奋的食物，我们海吃胡塞，肚子滚圆，除了极个别吃货，大家都撑到甚至吃不下晚饭。

Today was one of those “but wait, there’s more!” days, because everywhere we went there was always another stop on the itinerary, and they were all great. From Lunch we walked through Tientan Park and saw the awesome Temple of Heaven. Lesson learned, everything is bigger here than it looks in pictures. Especially on the nice sunny day we had, it looked really spectacular, and you nearly forgot that the chaos of Beijing was just meters away.
今天是一个“等等，还有更多精彩”的日子，因为我们每去一个地方，它都是旅游攻略上的另一站，并且它们全部都很棒。午饭过后，我们步行去天坛公园，欣赏了壮丽的天坛。友情提示，这里所有的一切实物都比图片要大得多。尤其是在这种阳光灿烂的日子，它看起来真的非常雄伟壮丽，这种静谧肃穆的环境让人几乎忘记北京城的喧嚣吵闹与自己只有一墙之隔。
An hour commute (which in Beijing commuter minutes is a really short drive) brought us to the Summer Palace. I had always thought this was outside of Beijing, as when they say in the guidebook it’s more than an hour from the city centre, you assume it’s out in the burbs. But as I was coming to learn, Beijing is so expansive that to get to the burbs you have to practically get to Korea.
一小时车程之后（在北京一小时车程真的是非常短的距离），我们到达了颐和园。我一直以为颐和园在北京城外，因为看到旅游指南书上说颐和园距离北京市中心有一小时车程，你肯定会理所当然地认为颐和园坐落在郊区。但当我真正来到这里的时候，我发现真相只有一个，那就是北京的规模大到超乎想象，如果他们对你说一起去郊区吧，你完全可以设想自己要去韩国了。

Instead of spreading up, like so many major metropolises, it spread out, and as far as the eye can see from the highest point you can get to, it’s still central Beijing. Back to that “everything’s bigger in China” thing. It’s hard to wrap my brain around just how giant this place is, and how many people are here, but I’m trying.
不像其他的主要大都市，北京城不是聚拢而是摊开，站在你能找到的至高点上放眼望去，目之所及皆是北京市中心。好吧，回到“北京的一切都比图片所见要大得多”的话题上。很难在脑子里形成清晰认知，这个地方到底有多大，到底有多少人生活在这儿，不过我在努力。

The Summer Palace, the tranquil garden escape of the “Dragon Lady”, is incredible. She may have been domineering and ruthless as she took over the Empire, but she did build a pretty sweet garden oasis. The fifteen foot stone walls really do keep the outside world out, and if you didn’t see the telecom tower in the background, you’d think you really were away from it all in another world.
颐和园，“龙女士——慈禧老太”度假用的宁静美丽的花园，十分不可思议。她掌管帝国的时候也许是专制并残酷的，但她建造了一个漂亮可爱的花园绿洲。15英尺高的石墙将喧嚣尘世隔绝在外，如果没有看到远处的电信大楼，你一定会觉得自己远离凡俗，身处另一个世界。
Vast, beautifully landscaped, with a giant lake, rolling hills and pagodas lurking off in the mist more classical buildings and pedal boats that would be a fun way to explore if it had been warmer.
颐和园规模宏大，风景优美，一个碧波荡漾的巨大湖泊，连绵起伏的丘陵和佛塔在烟雾中若隐若现，拥有无数古典建筑，湖里还有脚踏船，如果天气暖和的话，泛舟湖面将是非常有趣的游览方式。

The highlights here are the sprawling riverside corridor covered hundreds of detailed paintings, each one different, and the marble boat, a gaudy, immobile boat used for the sole purpose of sitting in and sipping tea. The ultimate display of self indulgence. Personally, I would have added a slide.
这里的亮点是沿湖岸逶迤展开的长廊，廊上画着成百上千幅精致的彩绘，每一幅图都各不相同；还有石舫（清晏舫），一条华而不实、不能动的船，唯一的用处就是让人坐在里面品茶。这是自我放纵的极致展示。就我个人而言，我会增加一张照片给你们看。

At 5 we were deposited back at the hotel. It had been a long day of sightseeing, but an incredible one, and we were all more excited and energetic than tired, bouncing around like caffinated hamsters. I set off for a little shopping, as I had an hour and a half to kill before meeting with the local Chinese sales rep I deal with all the time, and a giant shopping mall to explore.
下午5点我们回到了酒店。今天去了好几个景点观光，这真是漫长的一天，但令人难以置信的是，我们大家都更加兴奋，表现得精力充沛，没有疲态，就像被咖啡因刺激的仓鼠一样跳来蹦去。接着我动身出去小逛一下，购购物，在和我一直以来联系打交道的中国本土销售代表见面之前，我有大概1个半小时可以消磨，还有一个大型购物商城可供探险。

Moving as fast as possible I hit up all the stores, only to discover China doesn’t carry my shoe size except in Men’s, at Sephora it’s easy to have an entire conversation with a sales clerk using nothing but hand signals to bridge the language barrier, and that I love tacky souvenirs so much that I chose to save my cash for them rather than spend it here on any of the actual functional stuff.
我以最快的速度逛遍所有商店，唯一的发现是在中国鞋店没有我的鞋号，除非我到卖男鞋的地方去，在丝芙兰和售货员进行一场完整的对话很轻松，不需要其它，打手势就能架起沟通的桥梁跨越语言障碍，我太爱俗气的旅游纪念品了，所以我决定为它们留住我的小钱钱，而不是花在这里买任何有实际功用的东西。

Now that’s what I call a good day. Tomorrow, the Wall!
以上就是我所说的充实精彩的一天。明天，长城！