Ni Hao Beijing!

---

Day 1: Arrival in Beijing

I finally flew out of Heathrow on Saturday afternoon having been airport shopping for a few forgotten essentials (including soap, a purse, and a bag for hand luggage...), and arrived in Beijing on Sunday. It was pretty cold when I got here, probably similar temperatures to England but with the addition of an icy Siberian wind that probably makes it feel much colder. After a bus and rickshaw ride, I arrived at my accomodation. Fortunately I booked a bed in advance, which is just as well because this city is vast, and even with a sense of direction (which I don't pretend to have), finding your way around is pretty difficult. There's also a tendency to attract quite a lot of attention when walking round with an oversized backpack. Anyway, I'm in a shared dormitory in one of the big youth hostels in the city, which is proving quite handy for meeting people. I was probably asleep within about an hour of arrival, waking only to join one of my roommates and her friends in a bar....


Day 2: Two Great Walls meet!

Having met a group of swedish engineers on the first night, I joined them on a trip to the Great Wall at Mutianyu the next day. Getting up early has always been a bit of a struggle, but with added jetlag, it was really difficult! Nevertheless, I was ready to go at 8am and after a 2 hour minibus ride we pulled up in a village half way up a big hill. From there, it was a 20 minute walk uphill, trying to dodge hawkers selling 'all merchandise at good price' (and being quite agressive about it), and then a 5 minute cable car ride up to the wall. The scenery from the cable car and then from the wall was awesome. Being the end of Autumn, the forests covering the hillside were really colourful and set on a backdrop of huge mountains. We walked along the wall for a couple of hours, which turned out to be quite hard work. Since it was so cold and still fairly early, it was really icy in places and so everyone took it in turns to fall over on the ice at least once. It's quite an art trying to simultaneously stop yourself from falling on your backside whilst attempting to save your camera from smashing! We walked uphill and along the wall through six towers, each one built in a different style, with the final tower at the top of 500 steep steps. After this, the wall had (thankfully) crumbled and not been restored, so going any further wasn't possible. We headed back the way we came, and went by minibus to a local giant greenhouse full of plants and water features, that also had tables and chairs, thereby doubling up as a restaurant! After lots of food (some of it seemed to be vegetarian...rice, pak choi, tomato and egg soup), washed down with ample green tea, we headed back into town. En route back into Beijing, we passed the Olympic stadium. Although many of the high rise buildings in the vicinity aren't finished and the area around the stadium is still a building site, the stadium itself is quite impressive. Our final stop was at a tea house, where we tried various chinese teas and learned a bit about how to prepare tea properly a la chine. Favourite tea of the tasting session was probably jasmine, but not sure if it could ever replace PG. It is definitely a nice change having tea with all meals, though again, I'm not sure it can replace wine in the long-term!

After a short break back at the hostel, I went out with Annika (one of the Swedish girls) to a street just south of Tiananmen Square, where there are rows of tailors and shops selling beautiful chinese clothes. I still haven't bought anything so I'm doing well!


Day Three: Looking for direction

Ater not much sleep, I eventually surfaced at about midday after a much needed lie-in! Decided that I needed a walk so thought I'd try and make my own way to the Temple of Heaven. The map indicated that I only needed to follow a straight street a few kilometres down from the nearest subway station. Unfortunately, maps being what they are (i.e. wrong) and my mandarin not being so good (that would be non-existent), it took an hour-and-a-half to get there. I did stop and ask for directions a few times (by pointing at mandarin writing in a guide book), but since I never understood the response, it didn't really help much! Anyway, I got there eventually (finally reached by a side entrance after crossing a building site). The temple complex itself was situated in the middle of a huge park, with rows of cyprus trees and interlinking pathways. A background of chinese music and speech being broadcast in some areas along with a cold mist covering pretty much everything made it feel quite erie. The buildings of the temple and surrounding halls and monuments were all really impressive, although everywhere was packed with visitors (mainly chinese tour groups), which detracted from the whole experience somewhat since it turned into a bit of a fight to get near the buildings. I did the sensible thing and got a taxi back to the subway station before heading home!


Veggie Nightmares

Being vegetarian abroad isn't easy at the best of times. It's often the case that you order a plate of vegetables and they appear, tasting suspiciously of meat stock. Not that I can complain, since my mandarin vocabularly isn't really such that I can ask for things to be cooked in a certain way (that would be without meat). That said, it was pleasantly surprising to find one or two vegetarian restaurants, including one just opposite the hostel that does great tofu and dumplings. Unfortunately, eating out can be quite a daunting experience on your own. On entering local, non-touristy restaurants, there's often a shout across the room and 3 or more waiters appear, surround your table and 'help' you order, with prices appropriately adjusted for foreigner status (still only about a pound for a main course, so I won't complain). Along with stares from other diners, it can feel a bit uncomfortable! As an alternative, I've tried buying snack foods, most of which have looked a lot nicer than they've tasted, including 'France Bread' (nothing like bread at all, but a custardy stale-flavoured cake made to look deceptively like fresh bread). I also made the mistake of buying some crisps with an English translation of the ingredients on the back, which I read half-way through to discover that they were cooked in chicken fat. (No I didn't finish the packet). Safe bets have been fruit, dried fruit and biscuits (without an English translation of ingredients). I miss cheese!!


Day Four: Squares, Cities and Parks

It's all change in the hostel today, and I currently have the dorm to myself! The swedes left last night heading south, and two other girls left this morning. I got up relatively early and caught the subway to Qianmen, the gateway to the city, from a time when Beijing had walls. From there I went past Mao's Mausoleum, a monstrous building at the south end of Tiananmen Square. I didn't go into the mausoleum, since I'm not really the biggest fan of communist dictators, but I don't think you're meant to say that when in China. In fact, if you google him or look him up or try to look him up on any sites here, most of them are blocked. Apparently, he's lying inside the mausoleum behind glass, pickled, for all to see. Lovely.

Moving swiftly on, I walked up and across a very windy Tiananmen square. It's really quite huge and despite numerous tourists, postcard sellers and occasional kite flyers, it is relatively quiet and the atmosphere understandably reverent. From Tiananmen, I crossed over a moat and through the gates of the Forbidden City, the home and palaces of emperor's of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Again, the buildings were amazing and I don't think any descriptions given here would do them justice. Less amazing was my automated audioguide which tended to kick in quite randomly and start describing things that I wasn't even close to, getting me completely lost (easily done)!

I left the Forbidden City and crossed the moat into Jingshan Park, essentially a huge hill constructed from the soil used to excavate the moat of the Forbidden City. After walking up hundreds of steps (surrounded by yet more cyprus trees), there is very ornate Buddhist temple on top of the hill, with impressive views out across the city.

I made it back to the subway station sticking to the main roads and managing to bypass the night market which was just starting to get going selling all kinds of (meaty, fishy, insecty) foods, cooked on skewers to order (sadly not an aubergine in sight).


Day 5: Big Temples, Little Alleys and Chinese record breakers

I got home last night expecting to find at least one other person had arrived, but it was still just me there, with my inner child insisting that I still sleep on the top bunk! Unfortunately, a reduction in the number of people seemed to make the room even colder than previous nights. I still don't seem to be over the jet lag and am habitually waking up hungry at 3am (ok, so I do that in England too, but usually I can get off to sleep again in under 4 hours).

I got up a bit late and headed up to the north of the city. First stop was the Lama Temple, a colourful complex of buildings with Buddhas for every occasion (hundreds of them), heaps of incense and a handful of monks. Among the highlights was the largest sandalwood Buddha in the world - I think it was about 30m tall and had had a temple constructed around it. All the buildings, as well as ousing their Buddhas, were really beautifully decorated on the inside, with ornate carvings and bright colourful fabric draped over objects and hanging from ceilings. Sadly no photos were allowed inside the temples, so you'll just have to take my word for the amazing decor! Five minutes down the road I visited Confucius temple and museum, and the Imperial College which comprised a lovely temple in the middle of a moat where emperors of old would lecture in Confucian teachings.

Feeling a bit 'templed out', I thought I'd explore a bit and have a go at finding my way through the hutongs of old Beijing (hampered slightly by the accuracy of my map). Hutongs, the alleyways lined with shops and houses, apparently formed a significant part of old Beijing, but are fast decreasing in number as land is being cleared to make way for larger roads. About the width of a car, they're mainly used by bikes and rickshaws and are quite easy to get lost in (with or without a map). The ramshackle buildings with washing hung out to dry, local shops with fruit for sale spilling out onto the streets, and people walking, cycling or sitting out in the street, made for quite an interesting walk. It did start to get a bit nerve-racking, when after walking for 30 minutes or so, I realised that I was a tad lost in a labyrinth of unlabelled lanes in the heart of Beijing, but I made it out eventually and found my way back onto the main roads.

Next on the itinery was a trip to the bell and drum towers respectively. Both were huge buildings with great views over old and new Beijing. The bell tower, housing the largest bell in China (once again, I can vouch for the fact that it was very big, and when I get to a computer that has text in a language other than mandarin, I'll upload pictures!), was built in the 13th century and used to mark ceremonial occasions. The drum tower, 100m south, contained over twenty drums. Originally used to tell the time as the drums were struck every hour, there's now a brief performance by 4-5 drummers every half-an-hour which was pleasant and at least made it worth the climb up the steep steps to the top of the tower. Among the drums was another record breaker, a huge drum made in the 1990's over two metres in diameter and rumoured to be the biggest drum in the world.

I finished my trek off with a walk around one of the lakes in the centre of the city, before making my way back down past the walls of the Forbidden City and back to Tiananmen Square.

Well, Beijing's been fantastic, much better than I'd expected, but tomorrow it's time to move on (already). My flight to Osaka leaves at 2pm, so I'll be continuing the blog from there next week.

I'd better get off and pack and then hopefully get some sleep...

---

Comments

[ben]

are you sure it was the maps that were inaccurate?!
because it could have been your female interpretation! (did you have them up the right way?)