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Published: January 18th 2009
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Me on the Great Wall of China
This is my wow moment! Spectacular! Wow. My first post! Slightly exciting yet terrifying - am feeling the pressure to be witty yet informative when I am neither. I just rant and make-up words. BRING IT.
I almost ran out of the plane as soon as we hit the tarmac, I'm not particularly a plane-friendly/trapped inside a tube kind of girl. Touch down is heaven. And I'm in Beijing!! I'll be spending exactly 30 days in the awesomeness that is China, beginning here in Beijing and then following the Silk Road to Kashgar with Intrepid Travel. Yes, I am travelling with an organised tour, I'm slightly new to the whole independent travel scene and am scared of being alone. I have been planning a massive year long travelling-all-by-myself trip sometime soon so this is my baby step to backpacking. Paying someone to do the hard work for me. Brilliant!
Anyway, I'd planned my route from the airport to my hostel and was feeling particularly brave at being miss independent in a different country so decide to take public transport to my hostel. Yeh, real smart. I headed to the wrong side of the airport and had to trek back to the right side to get
onto the airport train to transfer to the metro. Got off at the right stop - Tianenmen Square. Got off the train but ended up on the wrong side of the road - hey there's the Chairman! No time for photos of my first Chinese icon as my backpack was making my back hunch over and I looked slightly retarded and was sweating like a pig. Headed to the other side of the road and found the road that my hostel was on! Hoorah! Now, it never occurred to me before how distances on maps can be deceiving, it looked like a relatively short walk to my hostel. 45 minutes later I had walked the entire distance of the road and hadn't found my hostel. I was now dripping with sweat, face bright red, and clearly looked a sight as I had a bunch of Chinese students come up to me wanting their photo taken with me. I managed a truly forced smile as I left with them laughing after me - how awkward. I'm sure that's up on someone's Facebook now. Anyway, nearly 1 hour after leaving the train, I saw a small yellow International Youth Hostel sign! YES!
Checked myself in and upgraded myself from an 8 bed dorm to a private single room with ensuite. Hmm, I still had a lot to learn about being a budget traveller.
So I spend the next 2 days walking around Beijing, getting completely excited about befriending a lovely Chinese art student (I was imagining my emails home about making a Chinese friend on my first day because I am so cool and social) and happily oblige to seeing her artworks in a store, because that's what friends do. After about 20 mins of herself and another shop assistant trying to get me to buy 16 different artworks, I realized I'd been duped. Dammit! After further explorations, being duped by a further 3 so called 'friends', and a near desperate search for Communist propaganda, I was sooo looking forward to meeting my tour group team and doing some serious touristy sightseeing. They all seemed lovely, there were only 7 of us, thank goodness (I did Contiki in Europe and there were 45 of us: does not make for subtle travelling.) So our first touristy sightsee? The Great Wall of China. YES! We headed for the Simatai section of the Great
Wall, which, according to Lonely Planet, is also the most exilirating and
challenging of the sections. So considering I am completely unfit, I think I completed the slowest climb of the great wall in recent history. But I did it. And it was so worth it. Three of us ate lunch at one of the towers looking out and over the great wall snaking its way around the hills, and I had my first
wow moment of the trip. It's moments like this why people travel. And I don't think I have ever, or will ever again have lunch in the most awesomest of all awesome locations in my lifetime. Fantastic.
We detoured through the Olympic Park on the way back to our hotel, managing a slight glimpse of the birdcage through the gates and the hordes of people.
The next day we walked through Tianenmen Square with an awesome local guide Wendy, who curiously changed her history retelling whenever some random Chinese man walked up and joined our group. Could they be policing the local guides making sure they are telling history the way they've decided it should be told?
We followed hundreds of other tourists walking under
Chingrish Take 1
My first Chingrish spotting! Hoorah! the ever present stare of the Chairman and walked into the Forbidden City. And then it poured. Of course I was wearing a short sleeve top with no jumper. I was cold and wet, and all I had with me was a bright blue plasticy all purpose fold up and fug raincoat my mum made me take before I left. I had no other choice. I had to wear it. Embarrasing much? We quickly made our way to a few different rooms, one I remember was the Concubines quarters. Now Wendy had some great stories about the titillating tales of Emperor and Concubine, and truly they were fascinating, I just don't remember what they were. I've clearly got to work on paying more attention.
That night we were treated to one of the greatest spectacles in all of China. The Silk Market. It's like an amusement park, every step you take there's a sales girl whacking her shoe/bag/chopsticks/insert various other souvenirs yelling multiple greetings such as "lady lady you beautiful lady i get cheaper for you you like prada i have prada bag maybe gucci how about adidas shoe i have heels too lady lady looka ohh why don't you
The birdcage
Yes, not sure what kind of pose this is, but it somehow seemed right. buy from me you no like me but i give it cheaper please lady looka i have what you want!" WOW. And let me tell you it worked on me, I bought and I bought up big. I'm a Customer Service Manager back home and I'm seriously considering training my staff with these tactics. Cos it works.
Beijing was amazing, a great start to my awesome China trip. I'm loving the people, the food, everything. And tomorrow we head for Xian for more crazy adventures.
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