Beijing

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After a short break from our travels, to spend time with family in Barbados and also in Vancouver for the 2010 Olympic Winter games (with a quick a surf trip on Vancouver Island), Dana and I once again continued on our journey, this time to Asia.

We booked our ticket (cheap and last minute) to China 3 days before we left and picked up our Visa’s for entry to China (phew) the day before we left.

CHINA

Flying over Beijing as we descended for landing was quiet unremarkable. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but what we saw was a smoggy city with normal looking buildings and roads. Even when we were walking around the first day I was surprised by what I saw. It was nothing like the China I had imagined with bright lights and red lanterns, traditional buildings mixed with huge apartment buildings, millions of people on the sidewalks and constant traffic jams. After my first glimpse I didn’t see this at all. Instead, China was a lot less chaotic and the buildings were just regular apartments, the only thing that really seemed different was the language. But this was just the first day. I soon began to see that China really is a different world.

For our first stop in China, Dana and I wanted to try out couch surfing. For those of you who don’t know, couchsurfing.org is a website where people offer their couch or spare bedroom for free to complete strangers. The notion is that then when you, yourself, are travelling, other people will let you stay with them. In Beijing, we stayed with a young American couple studying/teaching at a Beijing university and their roommate, another American who was teaching English. We stayed on their couch and blow-up mattress in their living room. We had such a great time with them. Our first day, John took us to get subway transit cards (like a speed pass - we need to use these in Canada, so great), and walked with us through the older, more traditional, neighbourhoods. He taught us a few basic words in Mandarin, oriented us to the culture and city, and took us to some great spots to eat. This is why couch surfing is amazing. Not only do you have a free place to stay, but you have instant friends and they can tell you what to do in the city, and give you all the insider information.
There are so many things I want to describe about China and it’s hard to know where to start. At first I was a bit disappointed with China when it seemed to look so similar to the Western world. But after walking around for a bit I began to see what makes this country so different and incredible. The culture is really unique. I loved how ‘together’ everyone is. There may be a lack of privacy, but instead you have a sense of family even with complete strangers. No one’s business is personal, but you are never alone or isolated either with everyone being so friendly and ready to help. They are also very curious about foreigners. Dana and I felt like celebrities with people constantly taking our photos. My favorite is the not-so-sneaky cell phone photos.

The food is indescribably amazing. It is so different from our western imitations. Very healthy with lots of vegetables and the flavors are incredible. Everything is steamed. The variety is huge. My favorite is steamed pork dumplings, but there are so many little dishes which you can order and share amongst friends. We haven’t ordered anything we didn’t like yet. Since we can’t communicate with anyone, eating is always an adventure. Often the menus have pictures, or if not, we either walk to where they are cooking and point to what we want or even walk around and point to other people’s dishes. The waitresses are always so accommodating and helpful.

The language is also a huge part of experiencing China. It is very different from travelling in a Latin-based language speaking country where some words are similar and you can learn a few words to get by, or even look up the meaning of the word. It is hard to explain, but imagine being both deaf and mute, not knowing sign language nor knowing how to read. This is what it is like. The use of characters makes communication seem impossible. Thankfully a few places including the subway have the phonetic version in English letters (although still Chinese words) underneath the indecipherable Chinese symbols. Otherwise we get by with pointing and acting out what we want. A few people can speak English, but this usually only consists of a “Hello”, then running away shrieking with giggles. I love this; it makes me laugh every time too. Today I said “how much” to a girl and she just about died with excitement and kept laughing and pointing at us. It is all in good fun though, and they seem so overjoyed about us that you can’t help but smile back at them. I have found that it is better not to use the few Chinese words I have learned as people are so thrilled to hear you speak English.

China is a very safe country. They are honest people, and care about their neighbours.
While we were in Beijing, we visited the Imperial Palace, the Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, the Llama Temple, the Drum and Bell Towers. We also went to watch a Chinese Opera which was less than good. They sing in really high pitched voices but some of the dancing/acrobatics were entertaining.

We also visited the Great Wall. We chose a less visited portion of the Wall and were able to hike along it for 4 hours by ourselves, away from other tourists and the persistently annoying hawkers. Even with all the hype, the Wall really is Great! It stretches on for as far as the eye can see and this section had some portions restored and some left as is, so it was interesting to see the differences. At the end, when we reached the touristy area they had a zip-line down the mountain to save you walking 30min. down. Dana and I eagerly hopped on together and plunged down over the river for a thrilling 60 seconds.

I also suppose it wouldn’t be China without its scams. Dana and I were almost taken advantage of. When we were wandering around Tiananmen Square, these young Chinese men came up to us and started chatting, being really friendly and saying they were students studying English. My instincts gave me a bad feeling and I told them sorry, but we going to go get some tea. One of them said they knew a good place a block away and that they would take us there. Dana, who was eager to meet some local Chinese people, was already 10 feet away walking to the tea shop before I could say no. When we got there, it looked the same as any tea house so we decided to go in and they took us to an upstairs ‘private room’. This again made me feel uncomfortable and I was worried they were going to drug us or kidnap or some other horrible thing, but at the same time these guys were so nice and I didn’t have the confidence to be rude to them and say we didn’t want to have tea with them. So we sat down and they ordered 2 pots of tea and some snacks. I was nervous about it so I barely touched my tea and just sat there for an hour while Dana chatted about China.
Thankfully, Dana didn’t drop unconscious and no big scary men came in to rob us… yet. After an hour they wanted us to try some Chinese wine, so they ordered 3 glasses (I passed) and the 3 of them drank. After this I was starting to think that either these guys actually just wanted to be nice, or that we had avoided their scam. Then the bill came. The bill was ¥4200 or $600. Dana was mind-blown, asking to see the menu and kept asking, how can one pot of tea be over $100, that’s crazy? I of course was boiling with anger and whispering to Dana, that ‘that’s because it’s a scam’ between gritted teeth. The entertaining part is that these guys were still acting so nice and seemed genuinely concerned that we didn’t realize how much the tea cost. They of course, offered to pay their half of the bill, although still leaving us with $300. We knew tea couldn’t cost that much, but it was our first day in China and we had no idea how much things cost, maybe tea was really highly valued and they did order the tea that used to be reserved just for the emperor! I kept saying that we don’t have that kind of money so we’re sorry, but we can’t pay. They acted very generous and kept saying that they would pay more and more of our half of the bill, but we would have to treat them when they came to Canada… yeah right! Luckily Dana had only ¥100 in his wallet and the rest of our money was in our money belt. We pulled it out and said this was all we had and, no we don’t have debit cards, or visas on us. Finally they said they would cover the rest and we left with only paying our ¥100 which is $14. After we left we immediately found another tea shop a block away and looked at the prices. You could buy a whole tin of the ‘Emperor’s tea’ for ¥70 or $10… Oh getting scammed is the worst feeling!! Even though I was upset that I ignored my instincts and that the first Chinese people we met were deceiving con-artists, in the end we came out pretty good. Typically, a meal for Dana and I costs about $10 so with the snacks, 2 pots of tea and wine, they probably only made a few dollars. It makes me sick thinking they might convince someone to pay $300. And even though I was stressed the whole time that we were going to get robbed or mugged, at least Dana got to chat with some Chinese people about their culture and politics. We are pretty luck I guess.

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Photos

Yes this boat is made of marble
Commissioned by the only Female Empress Cixi - 'The Drangon Lady'