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Published: April 19th 2009
Entrance to Forbidden City
Entrance to Forbidden City from Tiananmen SquareDay 1
Well we finally made it to Beijing!! This is my first entry because we have been too busy for me to have the time to sit down and write.
After our 16hr flight (13hrs direct from T.O) we landed safely around 5pm, and now had the tough task of navigating the streets of downtown Beijing without a map, not being able to read street signs and with no bystander able to help us with directions because of the language barrier. The only people that could speak English were the shady characters trying to give us a ride on the back of their jimmy rigged bikes that have seats in the back....yes I know it sounds strange! After turning down the rides because we feared for our safety if we had agreed. We decided to walk it instead finally finding our hostel after a sweet 3hr stroll with our 40lbs packs. lol Talk about being drained!!! After arriving to our surprisingly clean and comfortable hostel, which is in the heart of one of the main shopping districts Wangjuiing and 5min walk to Tiananmen square. We checked in without any problems and crashed at around 10pm. I only got
about 3hrs sleep on the flight over and with the 12hr time change our bodies were hurting.
Day 2
Tiananmen Square
Day 2 started with a pretty amazing wake up call at 4:30am to the wonderful sounds of a caged bird that resides outside our room screaming at the top of its lungs (we have since nicknamed him Jungle Bird). On top of being serenaded unnecessarily by jungle bird, we couldn't fall back to sleep because our bodies still were on EST and 12hrs behind. After failing to fall back to sleep we got up and headed out to Tiananmen Square at around 7am. What an amazing public square, the contrast of ancient architecture with modern buildings in the backdrop was remarkable. We walked the entire square before the serious crowds started to form, bare with me though, by serious crowds I mean there were already thousands of people already in the square at this point. It was interesting to see such a high police and security presence in the square. Even when entering the square you have to pass through a security check which I guess because we were white and apparently posed no
Zhong Shan Park
A park just off of Tianenman Square threat we were escorted around the baggage x-ray machine, metal detectors and hand searchers bypassing the whole line. We were pretty shocked by this treatment; however, we soon realized that every security check at each site we visited we were able to bypass these checks. Made us feel VIP and get more looks then we already do here. Apparently WE are the tourist attraction. LOL Unfortunately we weren't able to get in to see Mao's Tomb as the line had probably 1000 people in it and we weren't up for waiting 3 hrs to get in. So after walking the immense square for a couple of hours we decided to search out some food as we hadn't eaten since the shitty plane food the day before.
Olympic Stadium
Once we had put a little local food in our stomachs we didn't feel like going back to Tiananmen square to fight through the crowds to see the Forbidden City; figured we would see it another day. So we decided to attempt to navigate the subway system which was extremely easy and surprisingly clean. We took the tube to Olympic park to see the 'water cube' and 'bird's
Bird's Nest
Olympic Stadium where the opening and closing ceremonies took place nest'. Now prior to embarking on this adventure I had watched a documentary on the construction of the Bird's Nest and the ingeniousness engineering involved to construct it. What the documentary didn't prepare me for was how beautiful and impressive this phenomenal structure is in real life. When we ascended from the subway and turned to see the Bird's Nest we were stopped dead in our tracks to take it in. The Chinese definitely did what I believe was their intention, which was to construct a unique and awe inspiring structure which would act as a symbol of China's coming of age. With the stadium being the focal point of all the eyes around the globe during the Olympics and in essence their coming out party. I can't say enough about the design and engineering complications that would have arose when constructing it. We quickly found out we could get into it for 50RMB ($10CDN) so we joined the lines, bypassed the security check lol and went in. It really is a large interior and was neat because they let us onto the field even. After touring the inside of the stadium we quickly went over to the Water Cube,
which is where all the water events at the Olympics took place. Again the design of this building was pretty cool. It was obviously a perfect cube, but the exterior walls were translucent bubbles that actually protruded from the wall itself, giving it a water droplet effect.
Night Market
We then headed back to the hostel and hung out on the front stoop with some other backpackers and had a couple beers. I must say the beer was extremely expensive, a whole 3.50RMB for a 600ml tall boy...this is equivalent to .75cents hahahahhahaha its more expensive to get water than a beer lol After having a couple of these we got to talking with a Brazilian named Guy who was really cool. He took Jeremy and I to the night market....this was an experience and sight in itself. The street was lined with vendors selling every sort of hideous and weird 'food'...I can't even call it food imaginable. For example... starfish, live scorpions, squid, cockroaches, beetles, seahorses, donkey, dog, mutton, snake, prawns...needless to say it smelt pretty bad. Due to a little peer pressure from our new found friend Guy, we each bought a skewer of 3 prawns...shell,
Night Market
Vendors just line the street between 7 and 10pm head and all!! They deep fried it quickly for us and we took the daring leap and bit down. It was a weird taste and the shell made it a little difficult to swallow. After getting through 3 of these huge things, Guy then somehow convinced Jeremy to try a skewer of snake. It was a white water snake rapped around the skewer and deep fried...there was no way in hell I was going to try that!!! Jeremy took the first bite and admitted it wasn't all that bad, just squishy and very chewy, but after the second bite I think his commonsense kicked in and he was done with it. I must say I was pretty impressed he could even stomach the two bites! After that fun adventure we headed back to the hostel and called it a night.
Day 3
The Great Wall of China
The next morning at the amazing time of 6:30am we were awoken by that asshole Jungle Bird. It was time to go see The Great Wall of China. So we quickly got changed and headed out to the grocery store to grab some breakfast and snacks to bring with us. We
had been told that we could take a bus from a random bus station and it was only 12RMB ($2.40). After an 1hr search for the proper bus stop and confusion of where we buy the ticket for the bus, we were on our way to the Wall. It only took an hour to get there. We apparently went to the section with the most tourists, but we couldn't justify paying 280RMB to go with a tour bus on a 3hr journey each way to a remote spot that didn't even include a tour guide, just the ride. As far as we were concerned it didn't make a difference that there were a lot of other tourists. Standing at the bottom of the mountains once we disembarked the bus we were in awe at the magnitude of it. We walked along the wall for a few hours, and I must say this was not easy at all!!! It was ridiculously steep, basically mountain climbing without the equipment. Standing on top of the wall sent chills down my spine and gave me goose bumps....what a view!!!! I still can't fathom how they even built it. Even though we were standing on
The Great Wall of China, we were apparently THE attraction, as we had about a line of 8 Asians asking us if they could take their picture with us hahaha We politely obliged; but after the 8th person and more still trying to get in photo op with the crazy looking Caucasians we got out of there. After descending the wall and heading back to the bus stop, we passed several stalls where we honed our bartering skills, and I must say we weren't too bad for being novices as far as I’m concerned. They start at 80RMB for one souvenier, I reply with 20RMB, them 60, me 20, them 40, me 20, them 20, me 2 for 20 pulling out the money, them snickering pissed off snatch the money and give me my two souvenirs hahahahahha From there we grabbed some Mutton, which was a bad choice... it was a little weird and at the time we weren't even sure what Mutton was. We later found out it was baby domestic sheep.... that could be why it wasn't tasty lol Once we got back we just lingered around the hostel for the rest of the night after being extremely exhausted from the previous days hikes. My feet and legs haven't hurt so much in my life, backpacking through Europe has nothing on this.
Day 4
Pear and Silk Market
Today we awoke at a late 7am (Jungle Bird shut his mouth and finally let us sleep a little for once) were we went to grab some breakfast with Guy and just lay around reading for a couple hours in the morning letting our feet and legs recover from the beating they endured over the past 3 days. Once we got tired of lying around we jumped on the tube and headed to the Silk Market. Basically 7 floors of absolute mayhem of vendor stalls one right after the other with young girls yelling at us, grabbing our arms and throwing merchandise in our face every time we passed. If we even slowed down at all to glance at anything we would be physical dragged in their stall. For the first 30min we were pissed off at this, I mean it wasn't the first time we encountered this selling technique because every where we go they do the same thing, just not in such a large scale. However, after the first 30min we set into it and started to have some fun, putting our honed bartering skills to the test. Dropping prices such as 400RMB for a t-shirt to 150RMB for 2, 380RMB shoes each to 230 for 2, glasses 300RMB each to 100RMB for 2...it was extremely fun to barter and each purchase we made was executed better and more efficiently, we would even pass other tourists trying to barter and help them out to the shigrin of the vendors. The vendors were none to pleased with our tactics of sticking with a really low price and not budging at all, and when they finally match our price we then say for 2 hahaha But once they say 'No' and we say ok and walk away they start grabbing us and yelling at us, and then finally give in hahaha Kind of hard to feel bad for them because we know they are still making at least 100%!p(MISSING)rofit margins. Either way it was a fun experience and left there with a new pair of lacoste shoes, Tag Huer watch, Prada sun glasses and an Emperio Armani tshirt all for the high price of $65CDN couldn't really complain..but I do believe I should have been able to get it all for cheaper, I just need to keep fine tuning those bartering skills. LOL
Tonight we are just taking it easy and will obviously be getting woken up at an unnecessary time of between 4 and 6am by Jungle Bird. We plan on checking out The Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven and then take an overnight train to Xi'an to see the Terracotta Army
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Paul
non-member comment
JUNGLE BIRD!!
As if the Jungle Birtd followed you guys all the way to China. I thought they only existed in the dirty south. I have to say that's one hell-of-a blog sirs!! Kudos to Jeremy for being a man and trying the snake....MUTTON is delicious. CHESSSSSSSIR. Keep posting, enjopyed the bartering. Pretty funny the "for 2" at the end, I was dying picturing you two haggling the market. I would be taking pictures with you too. Hope to see some updates soon, sounds like u guys are having fun. Love you!!!