Day 4: Beijing

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Gabe here again. Check out photos on flickr!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42585283@N08/sets/72157622406670628


I am too lazy at the moment to post any pictures on travelblog, but eventually we will put some of the best up. For now you have to sift through the masses on flickr.

On our first full day in Beijing (saturday), we started by renting bikes from a place nearby and exploring the area. Our first mission was to find a place to stay for Sunday night. Our lonely planet book didn't have a huge selection, but I found a bunch of hostels using google maps. Then I took a picture of the results, and tried to use my camera as a map. This turned out to be harder than I thought. A lot of beijing is hutongs, which are basically alleyways except they do not follow logical straight paths like most cities. I think maybe the whole city used to be like that until they added the larger roads. Anyway a lot of the hostels are back in hutongs that are not well marked, and hard to find by looking at the pictures in my camera. EVENTUALLY we got to one called the Happy Dragon, which had good reviews (and now that I am here I agree with the reviews).

The rest of Saturday was spent at the forbidden city, which is in the center of beijing. It is awesome. It was the home of many emperors and dynasties - a lot of history there. You could spend a week going into each of the buildings, many of them had their own exhibits. It was like a complex of 100 museums. But after walking around for 3 hours we had had enough and took it easy for the rest of the night.

Sunday we got up early and walked to Jingshang park, which is just north of the forbidden city. There is a mountain on the park which was made from the land they excavated to make the moat for the forbidden city back in the day. The park was LOUD, full of locals doing various organized activities. People were ribbon dancing, singing, acting out plays, doing excercises... I don't know if it was a sunday thing, or maybe something to do with the upcoming 60th anniversary, but it was definitely something else. I tried to take pictures but it just didn't capture it. We hiked up to the top of the hill and got some good views of the forbidden city. Well worth the trip.

Later we rented bikes again, and with our recently gained confidence proceeded to cheat death by riding amongst the traffic and other bicycles. We passed by Tienanmen square but decided not to park the bikes. It is the biggest public square in the world, which is cool, but it is basically just a huge parking lot where no cars are allowed to park. So we kept moving. We ended up biking maybe 10 miles... we went around the forbidden city counter clockwise, then north up to the Drum and Bell towers, which were kind of neat. On the way up there we went through a bunch of hutongs and passed by a lake. That part was nice because we weren't near the traffic. Plus the views were pretty sweet. Finally we made it back to the Happy Dragon and got settled in our room.

We felt we still hadn't crammed enough into the day, so in the evening we took the subway up to the olympic park, mainly to see the birds nest. The subway system is actually really easy to use, partially because they revamped it in preparation for the olympics. It only costs 2 yuan (about 30 cents) to go anywhere in the city, unlimited transfers. We rode it to the south end and walked the length of the olympic green, which was WAY further than we anticipated. Not much to see at the southern end, but the birds nest and swimming cube (whatever its called) were pretty spectacular. We got some good pictures and eventually took the subway back to the hostel. All the biking and walking had taken it out of us so we crashed before 9.

That brings us to today, which was another jam packed day. On sunday I had booked a trip to the Great Wall - being the mandatory attraction in china. So today we got up at 6, got to the hostel at 7 for breakfast, and got on a bus to the great wall. There are actually many section to choose from - we decided on the Mutianyu because supposedly it was one of the most picturesque but not too touristy sections. I don't know if it was the best, but it was definitely amazing to say the least.

What they don't tell you when you book the trip is that the bus drops you off at the bottom of a valley, with the great wall along the top. To get to the top you have the option of walking up over 1000 steps, or taking a cable car up. I probably would've pushed for the stair option except you get to take a toboggan on the way down, which looked super fun, so we paid the 55 yuan each to take the cable car and toboggan. Once on the wall we decided to hike the longer of two possible legs because it would give us the best view from the top.

The wall really is something else. It is amazing how much rock they moved up to the top of these mountains. As we walked along it you could also see other guard towers and sections of wall in the distance that were not open to the public. I think I remember hearing that at its peak, 1/3 of the population of china was working on building the wall. The hike itself was pretty intense, lots of stairs up and down, but the views made up for it. Not to mention it was perfect temperature and the first sunny day we'd seen since we got to china.

The toboggan ride down was also really fun. It is 1.5 km long, made out of polished sheet metal, banked on the edges like a water slide. The toboggans have a hand brake to slow yourself down. When we got on our toboggans the people in front of us were going really slow, so we decided to stop for a while in a place where the workers couldn't see us (there are "no stopping" signs all along the course) to let the slowpokes get further in front of use. Then we put the pedal to the metal and took the toboggans down super fast. There were workers posted every so often for safety, and they were yelling at us to slow down, but we kept the speed up until we got to the bottom. Good times.

The next destinations are Datong, and then Xi'an. I actually had a hard time getting train tickets on short notice, so in the future we'll have to plan ahead a couple days (gasp!) so we don't get screwed. I flip flopped a few times as to wether or not we should go to Datong to see Yungang caves, but I waited too long so the train ticket options chose it for me. Maybe its a sign that we needed to see the Yungang caves. I haven't told stephanie yet, but we will be taking a 16 hour "hard sleeper" from Datong to Xi'an. That should be interesting.

Parting notes: So far China is great, but it is more expensive than I hoped. Beijing is supposedly one of the the most expensive places in china so maybe it will get better as we head west. We may cut our China portion shorter so that we can spend more time in cheaper areas like Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. At the same time though, we can't let money drive the course of the trip too much so we are trying to stay positive and see everything that we want to see.

Thats all for now, don't forget to check out our pictures on flickr, link's at the top.

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