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Published: August 29th 2008
Well, all we have to say is that we're grateful to be in Beijing. Even though both India and China are usually talked about in the same breath when you hear about booming developing foreign economies in the business news, but they are leaps and bound apart. Perhaps it's all the preparations for the Olympics (which ended the day before we arrived), but the chinese are certainly doing something right.
Our flight from Delhi to Beijing was pretty uneventful, aside from the fact that we travelled on Ethiopia Air and survived. Actually, Ethiopia Air was not so bad. It was certainly no Etihad, but after the week in India, we would've taken anything with two wings and a working engine.
We arrived almost seven hours later in Beijing Aiport. We could immediately tell how spruced up things were for the Olympics. Every sign was in Mandarin and English, so we had no problems at all. There were information booths where we got free maps of the city and subway info. They even had huge flat screen TVs replaying some of the Olympic action. In this case it was one of China's Ping Pong ("Table Tennis" for those who
Beijing 2008
Is that Michael Phelps?think it's an actual sport) Gold Medal Matches. Its funny that, from what we've noticed, for all the gold medals they won, it seems the Chinese care more about Ping Pong and Badminton than the rest.
For the first time on the trip we were able to take public transportation all the way from the airport to our hotel. It was a 20 minute Airport Rail Shuttle (also with flat screens playing Olympic Ping Pong), and then transfer to the subway (and more Ping Pong) that put us smack dab at our hostel, the Beijing Central Hostel. As for the subway, it is very clean (as much of it is brand new), very convenient (almost everything is translated in English), and trains come by every three minutes ... no waiting!
Checking in, we found out that the price of a private double room with shared bathroom (quoted in our Lonely Planet guide book as 240 yuan, or $30) had risen to 750 yuan (almost $100) -- they were still running Olympic prices. Communist, my foot ... this is certainly capitalism at its best! We sucked it up and checked in since the hotel is new, the rooms spotless,
and the location is ideal.
We had a refreshing sleep, and I woke up to pay for another night. The front desk person was just about to take my 750 yuan again when the manager told him that the prices had dropped ... to 160 yuan ($20) per night. I immediately paid for the next two nights before they had a chance to reconsider.
For our first day, we walked straight to Tiananmen Square. For me, Aaron, the images of the protests in 1989 in Tiananmen Square are very memorable and made an impression on me at a young age. For Cosmina it brought back revolution memories from Romania and felt a connection between the two countries. China is in a different continent, has a differnt culture, but at its core the people wanted the same freedoms of speech and thought. Cosmina had been wishing to see Tianamen Square for many years and is now very grateful for the opportunity. Aaron always imagined it to be a large and fairly enclosed square (as it seems in news footage), but it is "open" at one end where a busy street runs right under the famous huge portrait of Mao
Zedong. You take a pedestrian tunnel under the street to access a second part of the square which leads to the Forbidden City (which we are seeing tomorrow). We strolled the smaller "inner squares" behind Mao's portrait, and taking a left, happened upon a beautiful little park. Probably the most beautiful park we've ever seen with immaculately clean grounds, flower beds and these covered wooden walkways with intricate chinese scenes painted on the inside and outside of them. It felt like what we expected Japan to be like. Beautifully serene, we hope the pictures tell the story. There was also a statue memorializing Sun Yat-Sen, one of the first leaders of post-imperial China at the start of the 20th century and leader and co-founder of the Kuomintang (it's all on Wikipedia!).
We enjoyed a relaxing couple hours in this little park and then strolled out to the main square where we observed the Great Hall of the People (China's Congress), Mao's mausoleum (where the preserved Chairman lies in repose for viewing -- still on our to-do list), and watched workers dismantling the elaborate flower-covered constructions erected for the Olympics. Then we stayed for dusk when they have a Changing
of the Guard ceremony and lower the National Flag that flies over the Square.
Some comments about the Chinese people. There are certainly some reminders that it is still a communist country: some people wear red political armbands, and there's still a very obvious military and police presence. However, it's definitely more free than we expected. The police who look so serious were very friendly to us when we asked directions once, and don't mind you taking pictures. People for the most part are friendly. We've had more than one smile from passersbys. One drawback, I'm not sure if it's a cultural norm or because we're Westerners, is that people cut right in front of you in line. Even when you are obviously in line, they'll walk right in front of you. We've experienced this a couple times in other countries with senior citizens (which is OK), but here you really have to belly up to the person in front of you and assert yourself.
People in China wear what they want. Especially the 15-25 year olds who dye their hair, wear short skirts, even pierce their noses. So some sort of personal expression is certainly tolerated. Another
surprise was that, in the wake of the Olympics, there were certainly several chinese we saw wearing jerseys of other countries: a few Italy, one France, one Brazil (but no USA). Certainly not something we expected at all. Another thing that came as a surprise was Chinese athletes advertising for American companies. You see advertisements everywhere of Yao Ming swigging a Coke or Liu Xiang tearing into a Big Mac. We really wonder if China is still considered a communist country.
In regards to pollution, there certainly is none on the ground (speaking only for Beijing, of course). As soon as a piece of garbage hits the ground, a worker hustles over to pick it up. There's virtually no garbage on the ground from what we've seen. However, you still can't drink the tap water, though our hostel offers dispensable boiled water. Smog is definitely visible, but odorless. Most of the day, we couldn't tell where the sun was.
For dinner that second night, we took a recommendation from the guide book on a "hotpot" restaurant called Xiabu Xiabu near our house. The restaurant (right in a mall) has several counters with electrically-warmed soup pots built right in.
You're shown to your seat, select the types of meat you want, the spice level of your broth, and your drinks. For us they brought out thinly shaved steak, piles of greens, tofu, and mushrooms, dumplings and noodles. You dunk it in the boining broth until cooked and then dunk it in a peanut sauce. Delicious! The whole filling shebang (with beers) cost us the equivalent of $7 total. You just can't beat that. We just went back tonight for more.
The next day we slept in and took a long subway ride out to the Olympic Area. Unfortunately, after a twenty minute walk, we realized that the 1/4 mile radius surrounding the Olympic park is closed off to the public. Workers were rearranging the gardens and probably preparing for the Paralympic Games next week. We were still able to get a few decent pictures of the Bird's Nest and Water Cube and take a good look at them from a distance. No fireworks for us!
We got some sleep, because next morning we got up early to join a tour group we signed up with for the Great Wall. A bus took us the three hour drive
Beautiful Painted Walkway
In the park near Tiananmen. to a particularly scenic section of the Wall and we'd hike the 6 miles from Jinshangling to Simatai. It was a hot and exhausting hike. That Great Wall really is hilly ... but, wow, is it beautiful! You can't take a bad picture of it, and we never tired of the view. Some areas of it are crumbling and in need of a little repair ... so much so in a couple of places that they have you walk around sections. But those were few and far between.
Also, there was a small swarm of ladies who claim to be farmers from nearby villages (true or not, we don't know) carrying tote bags filled with souvenirs to sell. Their strategy is to follow you and follow you (knowing how hot and tired you are) until you buy something. One trick they use is they come up to you and ask if you want to buy something. You say "No." They say, "Maybe later?". You say, "OK, maybe later" thinking they will leave you alone. But that is really just their cue to start following you. They're VERY patient. One lady walked with us. She was very nice and talked
to us for a thrity minute stretch, helped Cosmina over some crumbly stretches, taught us some Mandarin phrases. Never asked us again if we wanted to buy something. Finally, we decided to buy a paper folding fan (it was hot after all), and she thanked us. The Chinese peddlers, as opposed to in other countries we've been in, always try to sell you two when you just want one. They finally break you down and you agree to buy a t-shirt for 25 yuan and they take out another shirt and say "Two foh feeftee!". Geez! It's all in fun though, and they need the money, so you can't fault them.
It was an exhilirating and exhausting day, but we feel we conquered the Wall and deserved a good rest. We got up, sore, at 11:30am and took our time eating lunch in the stalls of Wangfujing Snack Street, and then went to the "Lama Temple" where there are a series of beautiful Buddhist shrines (including one with an amazing Buddha in it carved out a single piece of wood that reaches 26 meters (about 75 feet) high. Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures within the shrine, but took pics
of the equally beautiful outsides and just soaked it in. We finished the day with some more delicious hot pot at Xiabu. Tomorrow we hope to explore the Forbidden City and expect to blog once more before leaving China for Tokyo on September 3 (our second anniversary!!!).
***Don't forget to click on the second page of photos***
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Brad
non-member comment
written beautifully!
"Communist, my foot ... this is certainly capitalism at its best! " I can not help laughing. you know, as an average chinese located in china I can not agree any more. so interesting to hear a foreigner's conclusion. btw, you photo reallly well.