Advertisement
Published: August 25th 2007
Edit Blog Post
I touched down early in the morning on the 17th August 2007 with 2 hours delay. Beijing seemed to be a very hot, humid and misty looking place. I got through customs, collected my trusty back-pack and hoped to God that the taxi I had arranged would be there to collect me. Low and behold, a little Chinese man was there holding a sign "JOANNA LORENTE" so I made my way to him with a sigh of relief. He spoke no English, I spoke no Mandarin so we smiled, gestured as best we could to make a little small talk.
I finally arrived at the Red Lantern Hostel at around 9 something to find that after hardly any sleep on the plane, I had to wait until 12ish for my room. Exhausted, I sat there chilling to hear the familiar sound of Spanish voices...2 guys who I promptly started chatting to in the hope to make some friends to have a beer with later...I had a mooch, found the cheapest and local internet to kill time until I got into my room.
As soon as I lay my head, I fell asleep and the next thing I knew it was 7pm.
I got up and ready, met the Spanish boys and went out for some food and drinks... wow I thought, I love this place already...taxis cost a quid or two, a huge beer is about 20p...whole meals are a couple of pounds - lovely!
The next day, the lads invited me to the Forbidden City so we all got up early and headed there. What a place.... it was absolutely massive although in the heat, it made walking around quite hard work.
The next day, I decided to head to the famous Tiananmen Square. I made a new friend, so he tagged along with me. I thought the squares in Spain were impressive, this one is like nothing I have ever seen...so immense in size. After that, we made it on the subway to check out the Silk Market. Loads of stalls in an indoor type shopping centre thing, people trying to sell you stuff. I got some comfy sandals and was happy... so we made our way back to the hostel and booked ourselves onto the Great Wall trip the following day although we were informed that we would be setting off at 6am - ouch!
The next morning
Summer Palace
View of the lake we were all ready and off we went. 5 other people had also booked and as we got going it turned out we all got on very well which made the whole day so much more fun.
It felt amazing to think that I was visiting one of the 7 wonders of the world. We arrived, got our tickets and started the climb we were told would take 40 minutes up the winding stone stairs. We did it in 15...not bad. I now know why we got there so early...no people and not as much heat. Unfortunately, it was quite misty so long distance visibility was poor...We walked from one end to the other, climbing up and down the steep stairs. We also took a cable car up and down to see the aerial view and went down on a really long toboggan slide....that was so much fun!
That evening, we went out for Chinese hot-pot. This is like a huge bowl of stock with herbs and spice (spicy or mild/ or half and half - which is what we had) then you order all of the ingredients you want in the pot. The big bowl goes on a hot
Poo
A note on one of the toilet doors, made me giggle plate and is constantly boiling...when your raw ingredients come, you put them into your hot pot until they cook and eat them! YUM! Although I managed to get everything down my top...not bad considering this is all with chop-sticks! I am now a pro!
Unfortunately most of the new friends were leaving that night or the next morning, but it was fun! The next day, I took it fairly easy and made my way to the Summer Palace. An amazing grounds set with a huge lake in the middle. This was built (as the name suggests) in order to spend summers, so the Emperor/ Empress would move from The Forbidden City to the Summer Palace. It is a very peaceful and tranquil place. I found a nice spot by the lake and just stared out quietly for a while, chilling.
The next couple of days were taken up visiting the Lama Temple and Temple Of Heaven. Beautiful buildings... this place has so much history and a lot to offer.
All in all, I found my time in Beijing to be very enjoyable. The language is quite difficult. I learned the odd word here and there, to try and get by
Buddha
One of the Buddha's in the Lama temple but I was quite shocked to see that so little English is spoken. One night I went to dinner on my own, I had been recommended a nice place for Peking Duck. Off I went... to find no one spoke a word of English, the menu was ALL in Chinese.... the guy at the table next to me spoke a few words so he helped me with my order. The smallest portion was half a duck so I went for that and some water. When the waitress came with a glass of boiling hot water I wondered what was going on... so the guy said to me, you asked for water... I wasn't going to bite his head off when he had just helped me so I just thought "go with it, no big deal". The waitress then brought me a huge glass of ice to cool the water down with. I managed to get it to drinking temperature. My duck came....they must have thought I was crazy, only eating panckes....one after the other - about 15 or something. The next thing I knew, the waitress brought over a bowl of complementary Chicken and Tofu soup. I ate as much
Olympic Mascots
These are the little mascots for the Olympics, sweet! as I could, paid the bill and left feeling rather satisfied with myself. Many simliar things happened, where you just have to get by with few words. A bit like Lost in Translation....you feel like it's a massive achievement when you get where/ what you want! ;-)
The people I found were lovely. Hugely curious, staring at you all the time as we look so different to them. If you smile and say hello, they do the same. They ask you for photos etc etc - strange but nice.
After a week in Beijing....it was time to move on. I arrived safely in Tokyo yesterday and have already been out and about. I will write about that in the next installment.
I hope you are all keeping well. I am thinking about you and missing you. Loads of love. x
Advertisement
Tot: 0.106s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0426s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Ang
non-member comment
Bring me back some olympics tat!
Hi Jo Sounds like Beijing is an interesting place, loved reading your blog. Bring back some thing with the olympics characters on them, you'll make a bomb on ebay! Heh. Just curious to know how they would know if you had 'pooped' and also where you ARE meant to poop if you couldn't in the toilet!? Intriguing. Well done for cramming so much in so far... enjoy! Love ang xxx