Advertisement
Published: September 15th 2011
Edit Blog Post
“Walking ten thousand miles of the world is better than reading ten thousand scrolls.” - Chinese Proverb
The cool thing about China is that it feels like one foot is planted firmly in the past and the other is planted in the future. You still have traditional things like food, tai chi, and Chinese Opera and at the same time you have futuristic architecture and electric motorcycles zipping around. The bad part of this is that some people haven't caught up yet. For instance, it seems a favorite pastime in China is a game called “Who can get to that empty seat on the subway the fastest?” It's slightly annoying when you're obviously trying to get off the subway and a great wall of people come at you as soon as the doors open. Even after we left China we saw an Asian man in San Francisco rushing onto the subway even though no one else was near him and there were plenty of empty seats. I think it gets ingrained after a while. The next annoying thing that you see especially in the big Chinese cities is that drivers WILL run you over if given half a
chance. In the West we hold crosswalks to be sacred but those green “walk” symbols won't save you here, no sirree. You best keep your head on a swivel. The last annoying thing you'll inevitably see anywhere in China is people crapping on the sidewalks, even in big cities. No, really! In fact, kids here don't wear diapers, they just have pants that open up in the back and when the need arises (wherever they might find themselves) they cop a squat without being shy. China is very tech savvy, and may be the world's biggest economy in 20 years, but part of me feels like there are some things they could use a little work on.
Ok, now that little rant is over. Beijing. It's huge! Beijing municipality is the size of Belgium. The first thing you notice about Beijing is the excessively wide avenues, wide enough to say...I don't know...maybe drive a few tanks down. Not that we saw any, but if a few went past us I don't think we would have been surprised. There's a definite Stalin-esque feeling to the city. A person we met summed it up best: “It feels soulless.”
The first
thing we did after dumping our bags was to find the infamous Donghuamen Night Market that we had seen on Globe Trotter. We bought a few tasty treats like liquid sugar glazed fruit, lamb kebabs, and meat skewers, but we couldn't bring ourselves to try the scorpions on a stick, shark on a stick, or cicadas on a stick. It introduced us to a new way of satisfying our appetites: Don't eat food, just look at disgusting things. Presto! No longer hungry.
One of the main things we wanted to do here was to see the Great Wall. Before we went we saw people that had already been there wearing t-shirts that proclaimed: “I climbed the Great Wall!” We'd wonder to ourselves: 'Why does it say CLIMB? Shouldn't it say HIKE?' After getting there we realized two things: 1) It's friggin cold!!!! 2) And yes, CLIMB is the right word. I don't know why I didn't realize this before but in terms of defense it makes sense that the wall should ride the highest parts of the mountain. What doesn't make sense is that there don't seem to be any stairs, you'd think that would be something that would
have been invented by this point in history, but most of the ground is smooth and at steep angles. I can't imagine being a guard having to climb that thing in the dead of winter. If I saw an enemy hoard charging me I'd say: “Thank God! Just take it!” When we reached the top of a hill we could see the wall stretching off in both directions over the horizons, and it reminded me of the watchtowers between Rohan and Gondor (Yeah, LOTRs!). It's hard to imagine the amount of work that went into just that section, let alone the other 6000 kilometers. It's amazing/horrifying when I learned that on average one person died for every meter of wall that was built. Usually they'd just throw the body into the mortar and build on top of him. And after all that work how effective was it from keeping out Genghis Khan? Not very, he just rode around it. I enjoyed going to the wall. Yes the Wall at Badaling is the most touristed section of the wall, and only parts of it are fully restored, but if you walk out far enough it's one of those places where it's
easy to feel transported back in time and get a feel for what life was like back then.
Tianenman Square and the Forbidden City were next on our list of “must sees.” Tianenman Square is the biggest public square in the world and the center of the Chinese Universe. It's filled with stiff guards and lots of closed circuit television cameras pointing in every direction. It's aerodynamic shape also makes it a great place to be blasted with frigged wind, if you're into that sort of thing. I've always heard that if you go to Tianenman Square and show an average Chinaman a picture of the dude blocking the tanks they won't know what it is, censorship is so strong here. I decided not to try, as I got the feeling people have “disappeared” over the years and have never been seen again for just that reason. Nevertheless it seems that Tianenmen Square is a place of pilgrimage for most Chinese, and people from all over China came to have their picture taken in front of the statues and the giant picture of Mao where he gave his speeches.
NEXT STOP: JAPAN!!! 😊 TIPS FOR TRAVELERS!!!
Want to try a Longevity Noodle? It took us a while to find a place that served it.
Cick here for a map.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.103s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 8; qc: 23; dbt: 0.033s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb