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Published: March 18th 2010
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Hi everyone
Stuck with me as VV is doing CV/job stuff.
The last place we visited was Beijing. You want the good news or the bad news first?
--------------OK OK. BAD NEWS FIRST--------------
Officially the spitting and pushing capital of the world (and generally anything else they can find to piss people off from other "civilized" countries). The first thing we noticed about Beijing was how much they spit. And I mean really spit. I'm an open minded kinda guy that occasionally spits if he has excess phlegm and am used to pikeys spitting on the streets of the UK but this really takes some believing. I would say around 90% of people walking past you make a sound with their throat that's a bit like a thick piece of MDF wood being ripped in half, closely followed by a bird shit that comes out of their mouth in a small puddle on the floor. They do this on trains (our bags got covered in the stuff), the streets, restaurants and monuments etc. It makes the Indian Paan (beetle nut) chewing/spitting seem like bubble gum chewing. I tried to embrace this and tried to spit on as
many monuments and restaurant floors as possible (semi joking).
Anyone who hates the new laws in Europe and other countries regarding smoking in public places should move to China, or more specifically Beijing. People happily smoke a pack of cigarettes with the children whilst munching on crispy Peking duck and pancakes. They flick ash onto the tables the chairs and on the floor etc. Nice one!
The other annoying thing is shoving and pushing, especially on public transport. Waiting in a queue for a ticket for the train some "idiot" decides queuing is not a good plan and jumps to the front. Then there are the classic "subway train idiots". Your train arrives at a platform you want to get off, the door opens and before you have a chance to get off the train people get on blocking you from getting off thus forcing you to smash your way through. İt seriously pissed us off and I wouldn't have been surprised if after another week I would of been either kicked out of China or locked up for physically getting into some bitch fight with an "idiot". The way I dealt with it was imagining I was
in a computer game (Mario to be specific) and I had to smash into as many people as I could to gain enough points to finish the level or get to our destination. When in Rome İ guess. You would think me purposely banging (hard) into people would piss them off but it didn't even register on their pissed-off-ometer. I can only put my sensitivity down to the massive culture shock and being a posh Surrey boy.
Once we eventually got over this (OK we never actually did) we learnt to enjoy (tolerate) Beijing and set about seeing some sights.
--------------NOW THE GOOD NEWS--------------
We found a nice newly opened hostel quite near to Tiananmen Square and all the action and was met by a crazy 17 yr old-ish reception girl who we think must have had a screw loose. She gave us a massive welcome and set about remembering our names. Every morning we were greeted (or Vanessa was) with a high pitched shriek of "Veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Veeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!" and a big hug. Hilarious if you ask me but VV got a bit bored with it after a while. Still, it was a nice change.
The weather
First section of wall
Not that impressive but still nice on our arrival was freezing. Highs of 0 degrees and lows of...... well bloody freezing. Thick snow as well. Apparently it had warmed up a lot in the past month. We actually rushed to Beijing to get there for the end of Spring festival, commonly known as the Lantern Festival. I was fully geared up for seeing thousands of lanterns but we were a bit disappointed. It was basically the Chinese version of Diwali ın Indıa with loads of crazy kids and adults running down the streets planting fireworks near dumb unsuspecting tourists (us) and scaring the shit out of them. I was such a pansy I went back to the hostel to get ear plugs. Crazy but fun.
Our first day we decided to get straight out and see the Great Wall of China. I wont bang on about how amazing it was but will say it was up there as one of the highlights so far. We were lazy and got the hostel to arrange it for us and signed up to a "secret" wall tour (supposedly a part of the wall with no tourists - except our group). We arrived in the freezing cold and thick
snow and had the wall to ourselves - amazing! Look at the photos!
We also went to all the other usual places like the Forbidden City (good) and Tiananmen Square (the largest public square in the world - average). Tiananmen Square was actually closed off for a lot of the time we were there because of government meetings and stuff and there were ridiculous amounts of army police and security everywhere. Have a look at the picture İ took of a large greeny someone did on Tiananmen square floor with Chinese flags and monuments in the back ground. I'm sending that one into Lonely Planet!
Food wise I will say that unless you have a lot of money it can be hard to find really tasty food in China, unlike India and Nepal, and we're the kind of people who are happy looking for hours. That doesn't mean we didn't have some great grub though. You just have to open your mind and wallet and sometimes lower your standards. I say "sirloin steak" - you say "cow stomach lining". Here were a couple of memorable meals we had for anyone who cares:
Classic Crispy Peking Duck -
You cant go to Beijing and not have the city's famous dish. We nearly did but on the last night splurged - sort of. For around 9 quid you can have a whole duck cooked very nicely with crispy skin and have pancakes, sauce and cucumber and have a water to wash it down with. I would tell you how it smelt but 20 B&H comes to mind. We liked Peking duck!
Hot pot conveyor belt extravaganza - This was one of our personal favourites. Basically Chinese hot pot consists of a large bowl in the middle of your table sitting on a cooking plate with broth inside. You wait for it to get hot and order vegetables, meat and noodles to cook in there and eat and dip in sauces. Well, now imagine your own small bowl of broth cooking on a hot plate and all the essential meats and vegetables and noodles moving around on a conveyor belt and you just helping yourself - All you can eat style. AMAZING!!!!!!!! This idea needs to be taken back to the UK.
Silk worm fat maggot things - One night a French guy from our hostel came back
and sat with us while we were watching a movie. He had what he though were some meat sticks (like mini sausages on sticks) but on closer inspection he was second guessing his identification skills. I said "give it here" and tried some. The 'meat' was full of white mush and guts. Vanessa then tried some and confirmed we were munching on some maggot grub creature. These things were not small, did not smell nice and left lots of body parts in your teeth. They were horrible. The next day we went to the same market he went to, a famous street food market, and saw them (I took some photos - have a look). I gave them a miss and opted for fried squid on a stick. This food market had all the usual nasties consisting of sheep penis, goat testıcles, sperm shots and silk worms etc etc.
All in all Beijing was pretty good but for us way down the list of places we want to come back and see again. Saying that, it may be a different story in summer but we are not going back to find out anytime soon.
OK. So we booked
a flight courtesy of Aeroflot (apparantly Russias main airline?) and after much much debate over Russia, Romania or Turkey we went with Turkey which is where I'm writing this now. Read our next post but......... Istanbul is amazing. Must be saving the best for last I reckon.
Thanks
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Lisa - Leeeeeee leeeeeeee
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What stops someone sneezing into the Hot pot conveyor belt extravaganza? Reminds me of Sizzler ....