Trip to Beijing - Part 1

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A couple of weeks ago I went on a business trip to Beijing - to take advantage of the opportunity I brought Jen, and we extended our stay for several days after my meetings so we could see the city and all it has to offer. We left Shanghai out of Hongqiao Airport, which is about a 20 minute cab ride from our hotel...a much closer drive than Pudong Airport, which was where we arrived when we first entered China (about an hour away). It certainly didn't have the more modern feel of Pudong but Hongqiao was reasonably clean and easy to navigate. While waiting for our Air China flight we stopped at several book/magazine shops to find a newspaper - unfortunately the only papers being sold were China Daily and Shanghai Daily. These are the main English-language newspapers sold in Shanghai (the former being national and the latter being more local in scope), and generally provide reasonable coverage of local, national, and international news. I always enjoy spending time with a coffee and a newspaper, and while the local papers are fine, I sometimes find myself a little skeptical about reading local news since I know who controls the media here. It's very difficult to find international papers here - the only place I can recall seeing them is in high-end hotels that cater to Westerners (and even those papers are usually at least a day old, presumably because of the time it takes to pass through the censors). There is a service here in Shanghai whereby Westerners can subscribe to international papers of their choice, but it is exorbitantly expensive and you're required to provide proof of international citizenship to sign up.

The flight to Beijing took about two hours. I'll admit that we were both a little leery about taking a local airline, but the plane was new and reasonably clean. There was some turbulence on the way but the service was fine and the flight was uneventful (just as flights should be!). So for those who are taking the train because they don't trust Chinese airlines, don't worry - it's fine. The flight attendants even gave us full pop cans for the beverage service, which is more than I can say for the measly provisions on North American airlines.

So when we first arrived in Beijing the first thing we noticed was the thick blanket of smog - far worse than anything we had seen in Shanghai. Thankfully the smog only seemed to last a couple of days, after which the air was in fact crisp and totally clear. Our second (and more lasting) impression was that this is truly the capital of a very ancient civilization. The airport was definitely the grandest and most impressive than I have ever seen. We didn't take photos of the airport since we had heard stories of travellers having their cameras confiscated, but I highly recommend readers do a Google search on the Beijing Airport's Terminal 3. As you'll see it's a real marvel of technology and architecture.

After a couple of days in my meeting at the Crowne Plaza hotel near the airport (great hotel, but way too far out of the city for tourists), we relocated ourselves to the "Luxury Serviced Apartments" hotel downtown. It was a little tricky to find, but once we arrived we found it to be reasonably clean with friendly staff and good security (you have to swipe your room card twice just to get to your floor). There was also a 24-hour 7-Eleven across from the main entrance where we could get basic supplies (e.g. drinking water). It took us over an hour to get downtown from the airport hotel as traffic was horrendous. While I'm told traffic is normally very bad, it was made even worse by the biannual Asia-Europe summit of world leaders that was taking place, prompting the traffic control officers to randomly block off streets for extended periods of time. Needless to say we were famished by the time we arrived at the hotel that evening and we decided to jump in a cab and find a restaurant. We ended up visiting a few different spots as the restaurant we wanted to visit was closed down, but in the process were given a decent tour of the downtown area.




Beijing definitely feels like a capital city - it is very well organized, with shorter, wider buildings and plenty of open spaces. It was a big contrast to the more chaotic and cosmopolitan feel of Shanghai. The other difference, predictably, was all the embassies and diplomatic residences, as well as the nearly ubiquitous military presence around the city. While I could count the number of soldiers I've seen in Shanghai on one hand, we could see dozens of them along the streets of Beijing, including on every street corner. Occasionally you could see a squad of 10-15 soldiers marching down the sidewalks. In general we found the soldiers to be non-imposing (it helped that they were unarmed and wearing dress shoes rather than combat boots) and in many cases were helpful in providing hapless tourists like ourselves with directions. They were a little more stern than the police officers but they never came across as being brutish or threatening. Some even managed a smile!

We ended up at a great middle-eastern restaurant called 1001 Nights. It had a great menu of authentic cuisine, belly-dancers performing throughout the restaurant and - for those who wanted - plenty of sheesha on hand. In planning for our next day we decided to visit the Forbidden City, since we were too tired to get up early for a bus ride to the Great Wall (which was our planned way of getting there....more to come on that later). The next day when we arrived at the Forbidden City we were dropped off in an area just nearby which had a shaded street off of which you could see dozens of small "hutongs", where locals have been living for - to my understanding - hundreds of years. You could see some really old architecture in these hutongs and get an appreciation for the way that many locals have been living for generations. I understand that with all the modernization in Beijing a controversy has been created by the bulldozing of many hutongs to make way for newer buildings - so I was happy to see these places before the transition was completed. We walked over to the entrance of the Forbidden City, which almost anyone would recognize as the large picture of Chairman Mao on a very long red wall overtop the entry to the City. Mao's picture faced over Tiannamen Square, which was a truly vast public gathering place, bordered by various state-owned buildings. It was a level of majesty that I think can only be compared to Trafalgar Square in London - it feels like the very heart of a civilization. The difference, of course, is that on looking over Tiannamen Square I couldn't help but think of the events of 1989 and wondering how many locals actually knew about what happened.

The Forbidden City was an experience neither of us will ever forget. It was a series of concentric squares, where you enter through an outer wall into a vast courtyard, only to pass through the next wall and see yet another courtyard. It reminded us of the Palace of Versailles in France, except the Palace itself was a very small part of the overall land area on which it sat. At the Forbidden City, buildings and walls were everywhere. It took us about 3-4 hours to get from one end of the palace to the other, and that was only from exploring some of the main buildings and exhibition halls. There are a total of 9,999 (and a half!) rooms in the entire Forbidden City, with the half room missing since only heaven can have 10,000. The weather was perfect for our visit - several degrees cooler than it was in Shanghai, and the air was much more dry. The crispness in the air and the sound of crows in the background was actually a very refreshing feeling - almost reminded me of home. The real marvel of the Forbidden City though is its sheer size and the contrasts between vast open spaces and innumerable small alleys along the sides of the city that boast beautiful archways and smaller structures that may be more modest than walking directly up the central axis of the place, but are much less crowded and make for some great photo opportunities. There is also a great gardens area further towards the back of the city where you can see some ancient trees and lovely gazebo-style structures among all the plantlife. Once you exit the Forbidden City you end up along a street with plenty of taxis but plenty of street hawkers and non-registered drivers offering to take you to the destination of your choice. For getting around the city we've always used registered taxis with a meter - there are plenty of of people who will try to solicit rides from you but we're leery of either getting ripped off or put in some kind of danger so have never used them.

After the Forbidden City we decided to go check out the Olympic Park, as so many of my colleagues had urged me. As you can imagine all the Olympic imagery and iconography is still ubiquitous in Beijing and the Chinese view the Olympic games as one of the more important recent events in China's rapid development. The Olympic Park was a bit of a drive from the Forbidden City (20 minutes?) and we didn't stay long, but it was very impressive to behold the Bird's Nest stadium live. It looks impressive on TV but when you see those massive beams of twisted steel live it really gives you a sense of its magnitude and the genius of its construction. So again back to my theme of contrasts in this blog entry - we went from seeing one of the greatest feats of architecture from about 500 years ago to one of the more recent ones. After a quick look around the place and some photos of the stadium and the watercube we jumped back in the cab and headed in for the day. That night we went to an Italian restaurant at the St. Regis hotel in Beijing which was a great meal, even though security getting into the place was a little tight (we had to go through a metal detector and put our bags on a conveyor belt). We assumed it was because of all the VIPs in town for the Asia-Europe summit. We took some great shots on the walk to the place and I'll attach them to this blog.

As I look back over this blog I think I'll have to split up my description of the Beijing trip into two separate entries. My next entry will cover the Temple of Heaven, the Great Wall, and some great Indian food. Stay tuned!

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Photos

Photo 2
These squat toilets are everywhere in China, but more common in the "less Westernized" areas.

Comments

[Chinese Websites]

It's very difficult to find international papers here - the only place I can recall seeing them is in high-end hotels that cater to Westerners (and even those papers are usually at least a day old, presumably because of the time it takes to pass through the censors). --------------------------------------------------- If you know Chinese, you will know that the main Chinese news websites react very quickly. For example, they gave a live broadcast about US presidential election.

[OJ]

Yes the coverage of international news is very good in the Chinese media. China Daily and Shanghai Daily are good for that. However in terms of covering domestic Chinese issues one does notice a difference between local state-owned media and the foreign media. I've taken to reading both local and foreign media because in the former, you get a pretty good idea of what the government's position is on various issues since that's whose voice they represent - generally speaking.

[There are some progress--still long way to go.]

You are right, the gov controls the direction of medias to some extent. But there are some progress, for example, the medias reported yestoday's demonstration in Shenzhen. But I don't think what the gov did are always wrong(China is too complicated). But the western medias also are biased against China(actually a lot of news are not based on the truth, even the fake news). "Don't be like CNN" is new phrase of this year. And I also found the western medias usually keep blind in western human right issues. I just do not understand why they do not clean themselves firstly when they want to blame China (If China does sth wrong, it should be blamed). I just do not understand. May be due to the political or commercial interests. Hope the world be better. Enjoy China.

[OJ]

I agree! Thanks, I'm enjoying it and hope you're enjoying my blog.

[beijinggirl]

We didn't take photos of the airport since we had heard stories of travellers having their cameras confiscated The new airport is really grand and nice. You can take photos everywhere as you like there. I have seen a lot of photos on the internet took by overseas travellers. What you heard is just "stories". Just like "Foreigners cannot take Bible to China " and so on. Hope you enjoy your trip!

[AirChina]

Airchina
Air China is among world's largest airlines with a younger fleet of Airbus and Boeing. And it's not even the largest airline in China. Air China also holds one of the best safety records....I think you mistook it for China Airline, which is based in Taiwan and considered as one of the dangerous airlines... Anyway, when I was traveling in China, I had very good experience with the 'local' airlines(they are actually NOT local at all with intensive services to EU and N.A, I later learned). I noticed their employees have a much better attitude towards work and passengers than their western peers. Flight attendants are proud of their employers and showed great enthusiasm for what they are doing. And they are cute as well;)

[OJ]

No I didn't mistake it for China Airlines...it was definitely Air China that I flew and I think we're agreeing rather than disagreeing here. And as I said, the flight was fine and the plane was modern (as you point out they have all the newest Airbus and Boeing jets....ours was a Boeing 777). Great service too, and yes I agree that Western airlines could learn a thing or two from them in terms of customer service. I've heard Asian airlines in general are very strong in this area but I haven't flown other Asian airlines so don't know first hand.

[ttfe]

It is always an interesting experience to find how an ordinary foreigner, not someone from the so called objective western media looks at China. From your description, I find some wrong impression your media has implanted into you about how China is. I always wonder why westerners, even some ordianry westerners like you look at China with this bias. The soldiers you saw are mostly in the embassy area, to protect foreign embassys.(they are called armed police.) ----I guess it reminds you what your media told you about Chinese army----it is wrong. And believe me, we know what really happed in 1989 on the square. and what's more we know what role U.S.A had played in it. I often read your media, you know what, they are more focusing on finding the wrongs and ugly things of China. China is not perfect, but it is not as bad as some western media describes.

[OJ]

Hi ttfe - if you read back into some of my previous entries you'll see that we are in fact in agreement about the way that China is often portrayed in the Western media. You will also see in my latest entry that I've said the soldiers are not threatening at all and most of them are unarmed. In fact it was nice to see that most of them would smile and were more than happy to provide a foreigner like myself with directions to my destination. No, China is not perfect, and neither are Western countries. My experience so far is that to really understand a place you have to visit and speak with the locals yourself rather than depend on the media. I think if you would read what I wrote more carefully you would find that we are actually in agreement about most of what you have written.

[Ace]

I loved China. I'd move there in a second. Glad they have a new airport in Beijing too!! The old one was looking pretty dim.