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Published: August 19th 2012
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I was greatly looking forward to finally making it to Beijing, the capital of China. This was because I would be meeting up with a couple friends of my friend Junting who is from China and went to college in the states. I met Junting when I was studying abroad in Madrid and when I told her I was visiting China, she set me up wonderfully with friends of hers and also staying with her family in her home town of Dalian which I will visit next. Unfortunately, she is stuck in the US until she can get her work visa which won't be for a while and she hasn't been back to China for over a year. Nevertheless, she has been really helpful in assisting me in making accommodations and setting up friends of hers to show me around in both Beijing and Dalian.
I arrived in Beijing by an overnight train from Xi'an just in time for the morning rush hour. I would advice never being caught in rush hour in Beijing if possible, especially if you don't know exactly where you are going and if you have a huge backpack and another pack like I
Tiananmen Square
The worlds largest public square and site of the massacre of student activist in 1989 did. It really is just crazy. I took the bus based on the directions supplied from the hostel and after finding the bus (which is way harder than it sounds because of the what seems like hundreds of bus numbers) I had to join the masses scrambling aboard. It looked completely full to me, but the bus assistant lady pointed at me to get on, so I tried to load with my big bag on my back and my small bag on my front. With more of me off the bus than on, I was ready to just wait for the next one, but then the lady started hitting my legs with her stick so that I would get my feet in past the yellow line. Then I looked back and I see her shoving my bag with all her might and I fall on all the people standing farther inside, the door slams shut behind me, we all spring back against the door and then the bus driver guns it and we go flying back the other way. Being wedged in the front corner, I couldn't move at all. I couldn't even grab my phone to check which stop
to get off on. Thankfully the bus lightened a little bit as we went along and it wasn't too long of a ride because my back was killing me from holding on so hard with the crazy jerky driving. I described this to the people I met later and they just laughed and said I experienced very typical China public transit.
One of the other reasons I took the bus was because I literally had no cash (less than 2 USD). So the first thing I tried to do after checking into my hostel was to exchange dollars to rmb (my ATM card hadn't been working for some reason). This was another extremely annoying bureaucratic process. First, I learned there are no places other than banks that you can exchange money. So I walked about 15 minutes to a bank only to learn that they would not under any circumstances exchange money without my real passport which I had left at my hostel because I usually only carry a copy with me. So I had to walk back, get my passport and then go back. It then was a huge process with a long wait, paperwork, people
having to approve the transaction and other bureaucratic none sense that took more than 20 minutes to exchange only $40. Again, this is China I guess.
Once I was finally on my way to explore Beijing, I had a full afternoon before I had to meet up with one of Junting's friend's boyfriend for dinner. I decided to do Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City in that time. Tiananmen square is very famous as the worlds largest public square (it is really huge!) and also the site of the massacre of student activists in 1989. (Interestingly, if you google Tiananmen square in china, nothing will come up and any key websites that describe the massacre are blocked along with Facebook, YouTube, twitter and some Wikipedia pages - though there are ways around the firewalls for locals but it's a bit of a hassle). There are a ton of people in both Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden city as well as the countless Chinese tour groups like there were at the Terracotta warriors.
The Forbidden City was impressive because of its size and function but once you saw one part of it, you basically saw
In the square
After I asked this group of girls to take this picture for me, I then had to take a picture with each of them individually... There were 9 of them it all, as it was all more or less the same. It was built in the early 1400's and has served as the imperial palace until the end of the Qing dynasty. With nearly 1,000 buildings it is called the forbidden city because it used to be that nobody could enter or leave the walls of the city without the emperors permission. Now a world heritage site it is one of the must dos when visiting Beijing. However, I particularly enjoyed the Jingshan park outside the exit of the forbidden city that provided great views.
After a ton of walking I then had to make my way to meet up with Junting's best friend's boyfriend for the evening. His name is Walt and he sent me by email a location to meet him. I had my hostel help me figure out how to get there and was confident I knew where I was going. Well I got there, but Walt was not to be seen. I tried asking people for help or directions, but the lack of people that speak English plus their apparent apprehension of me did not make that successful. I finally was able to
find someone in a store let me use their phone to call Walt. He said he would come find me (turns out the hostel directions were way off from where I needed to be). Finally, two hours after the time we were supposed to meet, we were able to find each other.
I'm really glad he was so patient and willing to come get me. I had a great time eating a very traditional Chinese dinner (which for me means I really have no idea what I'm eating), checking out some of the locals night spots, and going to a night market before finding a bar to have a couple drinks in. He was really interesting to talk to and even though he has never been outside of China, he is trying to pass his English proficiency exam to be able to get his masters in the US. His father works for the government and Walt is a proud member of the People's Party. The thing that Walt also introduced me to was the generosity and hospitality of the Chinese people. He would not let me pay for anything and also wanted to make sure I was
experiencing the best China had to offer. I at first thought this was just Walt, but after spending time with Junting's other friends, I learned this is just how Chinese people treat their friends and guests who visit them from far.
The next two days in Beijing were spent with Junting's other friends that went to school with her in the states. Their names were Daniel and his girlfriend Meng. They too wanted to make sure I had the best possible Chinese experience and wanted to treat me to everything we did. With many great traditional meals, a fun visit to one of the more famous parks, visiting the Great Wall and the Olympic park, they really showed me a great time. They were a lot of fun too, interesting to talk to (Daniel is studying supply chain management and Meng is about to begin her masters in IR), and were always looking out for me. I was very grateful for being able to spend my time in Beijing with them and really appreciated their extreme generosity. For me, this was such a different experience with the Chinese people, who walking around in public come off as
Inside the main gate at the forbidden city
The center tunnel was reserved only for the emperor to walk through and people still can't walk through it rather selfish. Walt, Daniel and Meng left me with wonderful appreciation for Beijing anda changed impression of the locals.
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