Advertisement
Published: August 29th 2008
The wind is nearly out of my sails, and we're both ready to come home. Quite frankly, I'm tired of walking. I thought my shoes were great hiking shoes, but they don't last all day on the pavement.
CANTONESE LUNCH
We head across the street from the Park Plaza for lunch at the Sunshine Kitchen which boasts Cantonese food (a variety of Chinese). It's a place the professionals from the office building across the street frequent. The food is very good. Jesse has the best sweet and sour soup he's had yet in China. It's a little spicy for me (I can't seem to handle any spice these days), but quite delicious. I pick around the mushrooms. (Mushrooms are in everything here in China. Jesse thinks it because they're so easy to grow.) I have a mustard fried rice that was supposed to have bacon but comes with shrimp. The bbq meat platter includes pork pieces that are to die for, especially with the sauce they provided. Jesse finished up his meal with shrimp wantons, and I drank down my pear juice. We ordered nearly the right amount of food for once, and had few leftovers.
As we struggled
with buying Subway coupons, the stomach rumblings started for me. I don't know what caused it, but I was suddenly not feeling well at all. Jesse figures it was the pear juice. Guess I'll have to stick to pre-packed liquids in the future instead of fresh juices. Too bad.
We visit our room for a half-hour, and I'm feeling well enough to head back out and see the town.
SUBWAY SYSTEM
In the past few years, Beijing has invested in a wonderful subway system. We took the newest line (which runs up to the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube) and the oldest line which runs past Tian'an Men Square. The oldest one is starting to show wear, but line 5 still gleams. It was just opened within the past month or so. From my guidebook I had though there were few lines, but they know stretch around the city and even to the airport. We'll likely take that on Sunday when we leave town. I love traveling by subway. Jesse hasn't done it much, but follows my lead. Travel just seems so much faster when you do it at 80 kilometers per hour underground. Yeah, I know we
Lunch at the Sunshine Kitchen
The rice said it came with bacon, but I guess it was a translation error. It came with shrimp.walked forever to switch from line to line, but still, I think it was faster than walking on the street.
UNDERGROUND CITY IS CLOSED
The Underground City is closed -- because of the Olympics. Isn't that strange? You'd think that because of the huge influx of tourists this particular tourist attraction would be open and thriving. It's located in a part of town the city tried to gloss over though; maybe they didn't want it open. Indeed, a new wall has been built around the hutongs south of Tian'an Men Square. The walls are all freshly painted with dark grey paint. Looking through the corridors you can see the ruins of these 400-year-old neighborhoods. You can see that people still live in cramped spaces that seem to go ever deeper, away from the roads.
I was excited to get below the city, like I did in Edinburough, Scotland. There I treked underground and learned that the city is built upon a thousands years of buildings. They just kept building on top of the old. There are a myriad of old corridors and buildings beneath the city of Edinburough. It was fascinating. The tunnels in Beijing were built in
the 1960s under the orders of Mao Zedong during the Sino-Soviet rift. The vast network of bombproof tunnels were carved out to store weapons and large stocks of water and food; there were also rooms for hospitals. The subterranean hideaway was dug out by hand. Today, many of the passageways are blocked off or damaged, but old ventilation shafts and flood-proof doors can still be seen. Rumor has it that the tunnel once connected the Zhongnanhai, the Communist Party Headquarters, to the Western Hills, 12 miles west of the city, for the evacuation of China's leaders in an emergency. *Sigh* I really wish I could have seen the Underground City. As we rode past, a handwritten sign on the door said they might open by the New Year.
We had wandered for a while trying to find the right alley leading to the Underground City. There were few street signs. We were looking for Xi Damochang Jie, an alley southeast of the major thoroughfare Qian Men (which runs past Tian'en Men Square). A man pulled up on a motorized bike pulling a cart and asked if we wanted a ride and help. Feeling tired, we hopped on. When we
Wall hanging at Park Plaza
I think I could make one of these! asked his price, he held up 3 fingers. Jesse thought he meant 3 yuan; I figured 30. At the end of our trip he suddenly pulled out a rate card in English that asked for 300 yuan. Whoa.
BEIJING'S COURTYARD HOUSES
But it was a fascinating ride. We twisted through the narrow paths of the Hutong. Some seemed desserted, with tall weeds growing on the rooftops. With his broken English, our guide informed us that the wider the doorway, the richer and more important was the family that lived inside. Round stones on either side indicated fighters.
The neighborhood began as a few courtyard homes. Walls surrounded the property. A small courtyard was next, followed by another dividing wall. These walls not only gave the residents privacy, but kept out evil spirits. Past that was the large courtyard which let in sunlight. Buildings lined the outside of the wall and the far wall; the number of halls and courtyards indicated the granduer of the residence. Entrances were always in the southeast corner as prescribed by feng shui. Over time, as space became more and more of an issue in Beijing, more buildings were added and the courtyards
Tian'an Men Square
Line #1 comes up here when you get off at the Qianmen stop. disappeared.
The tallest buildings we passed used to be brothels. Some of the buildings have been converted into hotels and hostels today. They would be fascinating to stay in, although I'm not sure I'd ever be able to find my way to and fro. None of the paths were straight, and they were just large enough for a Golf or two bikes pulling carts.
Many of the government-owned homes are but a room or two, according to our guide. Thus I was surprised to see any cars at all parked along the paths. About ever block were new toilets, one for men and one for women. I got the feeling that the homes did not have bathrooms. It smelled around these toilets, but for the most part it wasn't smelly in the neighborhoods, not like most parts of Chinese cities. (My super sniffer has not been happy over here. Jesse doesn't notice as much.) Perhaps because the homes are so small, many residents brought their stools out to the street and gathered in groups. We passed some men engaged in checkers, and children playing with hula hoops.
As Beijing has developed, many of these old courtyard neighborhoods
New street
Some of the hutongs were removed to install this new street and shopping district south of Tian'an Men Square. Most of the buildings are still empty. have been torn down to make room for high rises and shopping malls. You can't fault the Chinese for not valuing 400-year-old neighborhoods. In America we'd sooner tear down and build new too.
IN SEARCH OF A BATTERY
We were in search of a computer battery today. Jesse lugged around my laptop all day -- and it's not light. It was hard to figure out just where a store would be. One online news story said that a flagship Apple store was being built just south of Tian'an Men Square and would be opened in time for the Olympics. Once in the area, we asked at an Olympic volunteer booth and were told no, it's not here. I guess it didn't open - either on time or won't be opening at all. They told us there was a computer store along Wangfujing, the street we explored the night before. We headed back there to check it out. All I found was a store selling iPods.
The Apple homepage was no help to us, as anything about stores in China was written in Chinese. Please, think of the visitors facing emergencies and the Expats! So frustrating. I wish I
Underground City
The Underground City is closed -- until the New Year. So disappointing. knew the language.
We headed back dejected to the hotel. Jesse was dying to unload the backpack, and I needed to get off my feet.
ICE CREAM TREAT
As a girl, my family dropped in at McDonald's for ice cream every Sunday. Here in Beijing, I've headed to McDonald's whenever I need an ice cream treat. The roadside stands have ice cream, but they are a grainer type, and of weird flavors like red bean and green tea. Sometimes I just want chocolate. So we hit up the huge McDonald's on Wangfujing and asked for the English menu. Jesse got his chocolate sundae, but for some reason all they had were vanilla cones. I don't do vanilla. I head out unsatisfied with a chocolate shake. Once out the door, we head south and see right next to the large, sit-in McDonald's one of those small McDonald's stands. This once has the chocolate and twist cones. Can you believe it?! I still don't understand why the Chinese teller didn't let me know I could just walk outside to the little walk-up window and find my ice cream there...
JAPANESE FOR SUPPER
I wasn't going farther than a block
One room, one family
This is one of the homes in a traditional Hutong under renovation. One family will live in this one-room home. for supper, so after hitting the next-door ATM, we headed over to the Japanese restaurant across from the hotel. It leaned towards the expensive, with Japanese Kobe steak at 900 RMB, but the noodles were just 30 RMB. Jesse got a platter of various sushi, liking every one but the item that still had its scales on. I stuck with the ginger-flavored pork. It was to die for. Seriously, seriously delicious and tender. I don't know how they do it, but the meat over here is always so very tender. You never need a knife. The fried cheese balls came drizzled with raspberry jam -- the first raspberries I've found here. Yummy! The noodles scared me. Instead of coming on a platter with vegetables, they were a soup. It tasted weird to me, with traces of seafood. Maybe I was scared off by all the mushrooms. Jesse thought it was delicious. We were both full though, so it mostly went untouched. Once I get it in my head that I don't like something, I can't for the life of me keep eating it.
We spent the rest of the night in, reading and watching movies. I'm getting old and
boring, but I really don't mind.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.051s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 9; qc: 21; dbt: 0.0278s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
wind
yongang.lee
About the Hutong
I noticed that you wondered how could they afford owning a car while living in these old hutong. Actually, these buildings are worth alot of money in beijing, as I know, one middle sized siheyuan ( coutreyard?) worth more than 30,000,000RMB, that's almost 5,000,000 us dollars. People live there are rich .