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Published: July 22nd 2010
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The grey gloom we had seen on the train rather set the tone for Beijing- and indeed much of China! The mist, or was it smog, or perhaps smoggy-mist, kept everything a few degrees cooler but boy was it stubborn. For our whole stay it felt as though we were about an hour away from an enormous thunder storm. At first I thought that one good rain shower and the city would be fresh and clean again. Well we got the rain but we didn’t get clear skies- we just got wet.
Never mind, the hostel was amazing, a beautifully renovated Hutong (a little like a Moroccan Riad) with a glass covered courtyard surrounded by guest’s rooms. The first spots of rain fell just as we walked in the door so we sat around enjoying the show, drinking cheap beers, and whiling away the time with the world expert on leaf footed bugs (visiting Beijing to give a paper). If you are interested, they have done rather well recently and their spread has followed much the same path as the Black Death.
After acquainting ourselves with the (fabulous) public transport network, the limits of the Beijing metro system were
our oyster. We spent the next few days visiting some of the big tourist spots. Famous landmarks, and I mean internationally recognized, iconic buildings, loomed out at us as we waked through the grey soup. It was all very Sci-fi so, of course, I loved it. Although everywhere was busy and pretty spread out it was so easy to get around that it was a doddle.
Some of the highlights
The Forbidden City - We skipped Mao’s mausoleum (we had our fill of preserved corpses in Moscow), filled under his picture on the Gate of Heavenly Peace and into the famous walled city. The rain seemed to have kept the worst of the crowds away (although there were still plenty of people) and we enjoyed mooching around for a few hours. We dropped in on the clock exhibition hall in time (I kill myself I really do) for a demonstration and watched as glittery palm trees span around manically at odd angles on the hour. There were also some nice gardens and we managed to find a couple of quieter spots only populated by dusty looking guards- who took no notice of us and focused entirely on the
Us on the Great Wall
This was at the highest point we were able to get to and away from most of the crowds - bliss! important job of texting their girlfriend. We decided to avoid Starbucks- yep that’s right, Starbucks, in the Forbidden City.
Summer Palace - We hired the world’s slowest electric boat (after standing in the worlds slowest queue) and pottered around the lake for an hour. This was good fun although the soup did make navigation a bit difficult. One interesting feature of China is that there are an awful lot of people who haven’t seen any foreigners. It is the summer holidays at the moment so a lot of them were, like us, hitting the main sights. Quite a few people asked to have their picture taken with us and an awful lot of them just snapped us from afar. We were literally like sitting ducks in the boat but it was all in good spirits and there was a lot of waiving and the exchange of badly pronounced ‘hello’s in English/Mandarin.
Olympic Stadium - Even though the soup had turned to treacle at this point and you couldn’t get a clear view from one end of the stadium to the other, and there was at one point a line of people waiting to have their picture taken with
The Great Wall
This is the section we had climbed up us, and you wonder what they had to flatten to build it. I really liked it. There were loads of people milling around outside, vendors flying little paper kites and all in all a bit of a party atmosphere.
We also went to:-
Temple of Heaven Park- very tranquil, a shame we missed the morning Tai Chi
The Great Wall- packed to the gills but really great and nice to be in the hills for the day.
The Pearl Market - where I bought lots of bargain souvenirs and where I literally had to wrestle Luke away from some over enthusiastic bag sellers. Honestly there was a point where me and one of the girls had an arm each!
A duck restaurant - we found a questionable looking restaurant which served great Peking duck. They roast the birds in an open fire fueled by fruit wood. Unfortunately they didn’t really cater for loan diners and so Luke ate a whole duck to himself- yes you read that correctly a WHOLE duck.
The only really stressful thing about Beijing was the queuing. Ahh how I longed for the good old days of an orderly British queue. Apparently in China,
when queuing, if you leave more than a foot length (and I mean my UK size 4.5’s not 12 inches) between you and the person in front then you are mistaken for someone just loitering around for no reason- in public toilets for example. It is, therefore, fair game to push you aside and stand right in front of you. But the really sneaky trick is that people make their move with such purpose and confidence that you are stunned in to silence. And in that pause they’ve bested you- since there is no way I can start a squabble in Mandarin. But not to worry, after a couple of days of muttered expletives- which they pretended not to hear/understand and I pretended weren’t directed at them, my elbows/scowl got much shaper and it stopped happening.
Hmm, I hope I don’t sound like we had a bad time in Beijing it really isn’t the case. Just like the posing in Moscow there were a few things that made us smile/grimace (and I’m sure this was recripocated) but the city and the people were incredibly welcoming - and tolerant of clueless tourists!
Best of all however was that a
friend back in the UK, Yonghui Ma, arranged for us to go for dinner with her brother and his partner - Youngzhi and Danny. We went to a lovely little Muslim restaurant near our hotel and then they took us to a Hutong area and we wandered around the shops. It was so great to meet such lovely people and just a brilliant way to see a less touristy side of the city.
So finally, thanks Youngzhi and Danny (and Yonghui) for a great night out, it was the perfect way to finish our time in Beijing.
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Ash
non-member comment
shame about the weather but glad your having fun