Beijing in 4 days: The hunt for the Great Wall and the almighty Peking Duck - Day 2

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Eventually I must have drifted off to sleep but am awakened again at 8am, then 9am and eventually decide to get up at about 10am. Thank goodness for earplugs and my ipod, which has drowned out the noise of the little boy who has been chatting and giggling away since about 7am. Overall I feel quite refreshed and probably managed about 6 hours sleep (a travelling miracle as usually I’m lucky to grab about 1 or 2). The original plan was to watch the changing scenery (part of the reason we booked the slow train), but actually there doesn’t seem to be much to see. We were expecting rolling hills and then barron dessert, but it’s mostly just fields with some houses and factories dotted along the way and it never changes so we give up. Instead, we head for breakfast and end up with a lovely ham (actually it’s spam - they love their spam here) omelette and its really tasty. We then try to sit and have a game of cards, but the waitress comes over and tells us we can’t play here. We indicate we are still drinking our coffee (plus there are several other tables free) but she is having none of it. Greg starts to argue with her and tells her ‘he can do what he bloody likes’ (white superiority syndrome anyone??) to which she gives up and walks away. But we can’t relax and enjoy our cards now that the card police are in force, so we drink our coffee as slowly as possible just to be petty and then we leave. I don’t think that counts as a victory but never mind, we feel slightly better.



The train arrives at Beijing exactly on time at 3pm, and the sun is shining with no smog in the sky, so we are even more excited. We negotiate the subway (which is HUGE but really easy to get around on, and only 2 yuan regardless of where you are travelling to in Beijing- what a bargain!) and find the stop next to our hotel. The only problem is we get totally lost trying to find the hotel (our navigational skills in full force as usual), and once again end up wandering around for about half an hour trying to find it. We ask at a nearby shop and they don’t know, we ask at the police station and they simply tells us “I think it's about two streets down that way” until eventually we ask at another hotel where they draw us alittle map which gets us exactly where we want to be. The hotel looks quite opulent and I’m glad we paid the extra money to get a nice hotel in a good area instead of just a cheap b & b in the middle of nowhere (memories of Chung King Mansion in Hong King will forever serve as a reminder). Our room has lovely views across the city, and it’s located right next to the main shopping street (Wangfujing Street) too. We work out our bearings and then head out in search of some food and initial sightseeing. About 200 metres from the hotel just off the main street, we come across a street with rows and rows of street food stalls selling anything and everything from crabs on a stick, noodles, dumplings, to candied fruit and sweet rice served in empty melon shells. It’s a culinary orgy and straight away Greg sets sights on a huge fish on a stick, whereas I choose some dim sum with a chilli and soy dressing. They are both fresh and delicious and if this is a taste of what Beijing has to offer food wise then I am going to be very happy indeed. As we are happily munching away on our snacks, a blind tramp being led by his tramp wife (i'm really not making this up) come up to us asking for money. Instead of giving them money, I instead offer them one of my dim sum which the wife greedily takes from me. With a sneaky glance at her blind husband, she scoffs the lot without offering him a bite, and he's non the wiser!



We wander further down the main street (which looks like a bigger and more Chinese version of Buchanan Street) and then follow signs towards Tianamen Square. It seems we walk for miles before eventually seeing that all famous picture of Chairman Mao. It actually looks a lot smaller than we expected, but it’s really impressive to see. There’s crowds of people gathered at the side of the road, and also in front of the square which is currently closed off along with the roads. We’re not sure what is happening so try and get a closer look, assuming someone important must be arriving. I blurt out it might be Barack Obama who I know is touring Asia at this moment, but then I immediately realise that 1) he isn’t visiting China and 2) there would be a hell of a lot more people and security around if he was. It actually turns out to be the guards doing a nightly changeover, and a few minutes later the square and the roads are reopened to let people by. We get an even better view of the square as the lights come on and darkness falls. What a great start to our trip!



For once I’ve done my research of Beijing, and had stumbled upon information on a little Warung area filled with lots of little shops, restaurants and bars. It’s not well signposted but I manage to find the location on a map and am quite confident I can get us there, so suggest to Greg that we go on a little mission to find it. He’s game, so we jump on the subway and attempt to find what could be a needle in an 11 million people haystack. As you can imagine and without having to go into too much detail, it doesn’t quite go to plan and we do get very lost. But after a chat with a worker in a nearby KFC who draws us a map on a napkin (there seems to be a theme developing), we manage to eventually find it and I don’t look like I’ve just made the place up. It’s a quirky little alley which is indeed filled with souvenir shops, restaurants, street food stalls, little trendy bars and tea shops. We are really hungry again, so rather than wandering about aimlessly for hours in search of somewhere, we pretty much stop at the first restaurant we find. This turns out to be a great decision as the food is epic – huge lionhead meatballs with an amazing gravy sauce, mince with fried aubergine chips and vegetable stuffed tofu with a hoisin dipping sauce. Plus 4 beers for only just over a tenner for the 2 of us (so now you can understand why we moan at the price of some things when we know we can get a huge meal plus drinks for two for such a small price). We don’t want to stay out too late without knowing how to get back, so we head back to the hotel and have a few more beers whilst watching a movie.

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