First I must say I’m really impressed with Beijing. Maybe it is a good time to visit, here in the early winter and with the Olympics coming up. One month ago, if you said China I would say little yellow men in ricshaws with a brownish set of clothes, probably with a little too short legs, chaotic traffic with donkey charts, bicycles and old cars honking non-stop, spitting chinese, stray dogs and cats everywhere and rats on a stick at every street kitchen.
Now I know it is so not that way! Nice new cars, taxis have meters all of them (and they use them), the road rules are impossible to understand. I think it is one big game of “chicken”. The one with the strongest nerves wins! But only a little honking and no accidents.
The subway is fairly new and well organized with names in Chinese AND English, the spitting is not too bad and I saw no animals out of place (except for the scorpions on a stick)! So I really like Beijing and find the Chinese people very nice and helpful. They don’t know about queuing but after living in Egypt I had no difficulties in using my elbows to get through!
Arrived in Beijing in the afternoon on the 26th and spent the rest of the day relaxing and settling down. Next morning we got up quite early, ate breakfast at the hostel and then took off for the big tour! Started at Tiananmen Square also known as Square of Heavenly peace. It was pretty amazing. The size, the surroundings, the life and just being there. Another name that suddenly means something to me! It is huge and have this obelisk in the middle with soldiers standing guard around that and Maos maosoleum where people are standing in a big line to see his grave, Chinese flags all around, the olympic count down screen and all the street vendours selling Chinese flags, Mao watches where his arm is waving and kites in all sizes and shapes. After strolling around there for a while we went into the Forbidden City. What a magnificent place. You could almost imagine the life that used to go on there with the Emperor and his wife, the concubines, slaves, waiters, chefs and so on. We walked around and saw Hall of Surpreme Harmony, Gate of Good Fortune, Palace of Heavenly Purity, Palace of Earthly Tranquility, Gate of Heavenly Unity, Gate of Loyal Obedience ( are you seeing any pattern here?!) and the Imperial Garden. After that we climbed the hill just north of it for a brilliant view over the Forbidden city and Beijing in general. There was a perculiar light due to the sun being in zenith and a little smog and it added to the feeling of being a part of a fairy tale or in another world.
Then we headed for the Silk Street but first we ate at the Quanjude Peking Duck restaurant, a very famous one. I had a nice duck with garlic but Joakim went for the real thing: First duck tongue soup with these little rubbery tongues floating around and then he had half a duck including half the head with the brain and vegetables, soy sauce, bread, steamed pancakes and some mushrooms which reminded me of chewing on a ballon soaked in vinegar! But the duck was excellent, the meat so tender and juicy. I don’t know why I didn’t take that. Luckily I tasted his, I even tried the brain, not a bad taste but very difficult to abstract from the fact that I was eating brain… Should have gone for the grilled scorpions while I was at it…
After lunch we hit the silk street. I was not supposed to buy anything but then there were these silk scarves. And the fake Armani jeans. And the ipod. And loudspeakers. And, and, and….
After spending many hours and too much money we finally went home and then decided to go out for a drink. Ended up at a crowded disco and around three I was tired and decided to go home, the others stayed. I had forgotten the note from Leo hostel with the adress written in chinese but I knew I stayed near Tiananmen square so I didn’t think it was a problem. It was! No-one understood me when I said Tiananmen square and they just made fun of my pronounciation and laughed but then I got aggressive because I was really tired now and just wanted to go home. Then the guard almost threw me out because I grabbed a pen from an employee a little too quick and I was very angry. I wrote Tiananmen on a piece of paper and showed it to the taxi drivers and finally I found one who understood. Off we went and came to the square and then I couldn’t remember where to go so we drove around for a while. Then I recoignoised my hutong ( street) and payed the driver and got out. It was dark and there were some Chinese men working in the hutong so the driver wanted to walk me to the hostel. After 50 meters or so I realised it was the wrong hutong so we got back to the taxi and found a map and I showed him exactly where I stayed and finally we found the right hutong and my hostel. I have never been so happy to get home I think. When I wanted to pay the driver for his kindness he said no thank you and left. Really an extraordinairy kind person.
Next day I wanted to see the Olympic stadium aka The Bird Nest and Joakim and a guy from Hong Kong came along. First we took the subway, then a taxi to a bridge on a new road from where there was a nice view (and people selling olympic artefacts) and we admired the design and could also see the swimming stadium which is made of a special material that is made of solar cell systems or something like that. The concrete of the future! There was a heavy smog over Beijing that day at it gave a mystic light but some great photos…
Back to the center where we went for a quick walk in Temple of Heaven park until we realised it was huge and we were tired so we wanted to go home but found the Pearl market on the way so we spent a few hours there and a lot of money on Gucci shoes and so before walking home ( it looked such a short distance but took more than an hour).
Next morning I got up early to go on a trip to the Great Wall. We were going to “the Secret wall”. First we drove for almost two hours then I saw a sign for Badaling which is the most touristy part of the wall I and thought Oh No, but luckily we drove on for another 5 km or so, picked up our chinese guide and stopped in the middle of nowhere!. Then we started climbing up up up and finally after 40 minutes we reached the wall. Hoorray another tick on the list of places I have heard of but never thougt I would see! Then we walked on the wall for 2 hours, up and down, sometimes it was very steep, sometimes very old but always BEAUTIFUL! All the way you could see the wall winding up and down out in the horizon no matter which way you turned and the mountains were beautiful, becoming misty in the distance and turning bluish. Well just another wonderful experience I must say.
After the climb we had lunch in a local restaurant with a lot of local food served on many plates and put in the middle of a table you could turn the middle of so you could reach all the plates. Then back to Beijing and I slept as usual all the way! Back at Leos I met Joakim who was going to the Shaolin Kung Fu show and I went with him. It was a nice show telling the story of how Kong Kong became a master of Kung Fu and some amazing performances like when a guy and a girl is grabbing two ropes with their bare hands and then they are lifted up under the ceiling and just swinging around and then he grabs her with his feet and she lets go of the rope and he is swinging around holding her only with his feet. Wauv…
Next morning I went to the Summer Palace. Another wonderful tranquile place with a huge lake and temples and the long corridor the longest painted gallery in the world. I spent 3 hours there just walking around enjoying the peace and the beautiful surroundings. I saw the marble boat which an empress restored for money meant for strengthening the army and not improving her palace. Well old story, new location!
After the Summer Palace I went to the Old Summer Palace and saw the ruins and walked around in the park for 1½ hour before I finally went home.
After a little break in Leos I headed for the silk market again to buy an ipod for a friend. Mission accomplished but then I “fell” over another pair of jeans a nice cardigan and nike shoes. Ooops!
It was friday night and my last night in Beijing so I wanted to celebrate and a lot of people were going out so I joined them (wearing my new clothes). We were supposed to go to this fancy night club but after walking around the same block for 40 minutes and still no club to be seen some wanted to do this other that and after a lot of could’s, would’s, should’s 6 of us went back to Leos and sat there for an hour until they closed the bar and then 4 of us went out again (this time I had like 4 notes with the adress of the hostel in different pockets). We found a nice little bar with live music, and I met the first Danish people since Sia left me. We stayed there until 5am when they closed and then took a taxi back. I thought about staying up and go to Tiananmen Square to watch some kind of a ceremony there was supposed to go on. Something of a sunrise celebration and it should be particually big that day because it was the first day in the month but I was really tired then so I went to bed.
Got up after a few hours sleep and went back to Temple of Heaven park to see the round altar. It was a huge stone thing with a central elevated stone with 9 stones around and then 18, 27 and so on up to 81 stones laid in circles. Very beautiful. Thought of going to the Lama Temple but I was really tired so I went to Tiananmen Square a last time and then back to Leos where I prepared myself for leaving Beijing, saying goodbye to my good travel companion through the last 12 days and everybody else. Took a taxi to the station and boarded the train, met 4 Irish people from Leos and talked a little with them before I went to bed at 8pm and slept like a dead all night. What a week. Nice but packed with new impressions and no sleep….