Well Harrow Beijing!
16th April - Arrive in Beijing
Arrived in Beijing at 9am on Monday 16th April! Flight over was grand, didn't sleep much en route from Heathrow but got a couple of films in to pass the time. Watched The Muppets first, which was enjoyably cheesy. Also watched New Years Eve which was enjoyable, yet plot-hole central! Anywhoo, I'm not here to write a film blog I'll leave that to the Boy Ryan (for those who know him!).
First impression of the Chinese (cue sweeping generalisation no.1) is that they're not the most patient of people. Got the Express Train into the middle of Beijing, 25 yuan, so about €2.40. Once I got into Donghzimen I changed to the subway which costs 2 yuan for any journey - that's about 25 CENT...ya hear that Irish Rail, yiz robbin bastards! So in general, travel is really cheap. I emerged from the subway, and my first sight was this so TYPICALLY chinese looking building
it was like "hurrah, now THIS is China". I was absolutely wrecked after arriving I went straight to the hotel with my massive backpack and checked in. As part of my tour which I'm doing in China I'm sharing with a girl, and she hadn't arrived yet so I just hit the sack. My roomate arrived shortly afterwards - her name is Miri, she's German and great craic. She has such brilliant English it would put us to shame. We started chatting straight away and I knew we were going to get on well. So that evening we both went down to meet the rest of our tour group - there's 11 of us, 9 girls and 2 guys. Everyone is really sound and easy-going thankfully, apart from me there's no other Irish, 2 Dutch, Miri who's Gernan, and the rest are all brits! We had a quick orientation meeting then myself and Miri and the 2 Dutch (the EU contingent) went out for some food. We found a busy local restaurant just down the street from our hotel, and the woman in there assured us that she "speak engrish" so we left our ordering down to her ladyship. It was gas, after the food arrives, she's up with her iphone wanting photos with us ...we soon found out we were going to have to get used to getting our photo taken! Anywhoo, we ordered one fish dish, one beef dish and one chiken dish and just hoped for the best! Food turned out to be pretty good and cost about €6 each with beers so not too overpriced. The norm here for any meal seems to be about 30-40 yuan which is less than a fiver. Can't go wrong really, and the local food is good so no need to go for the western stuff, but it's hilarious - right across from our hotel - a McDonalds, guess you can't go anywhere! We crashed pretty early on day one as we had a full itinerary for day two.
17th April - Discover Beijing
We met Xu at 9am after having breakfast in the hotel. Breakfast was good, muesli with yogurt, boiled eggs, toast, watermelon and of course the chinese options - full on salad, stir-fried noodles. I stuck to the eggs and muesli and of course coffee!! It was buffet style so as much as we wanted and only 25Y so only €2.40. So we met Xu and walked down the street to Tiananmen Square. I didn't realise we were so close to it! It was already so busy, the busiest being the queue into see Mao who is preserved in god knows what, in Mao's Mausoleum. Queue was massive!
Xu was great he gave us general history about the square and pointed out some things to note then we went around and took some pictures. It then began - the photo taking...of US. Miri is tall and blond so they just stare at her and at all of us as well. It was kinda funny at first seeing some Chinese pretend to take photos of something else but blatantly taking photos of us. Then some people just come up and grab you by the arm and talk in chinese and make the universal photo taking signal. The second we agree to take photos with one though loads of people gather round and start taking photos and trying to get in the photos. We just walked away before it got too manic! Tellin ya, I'm starting to feel like Lindsay Lohan, without the electronic tag that is.
Anywhoo back to the sight-seeing. So we walked the length of Tiananmen Square - Tian meaning Heaven and Men meaning peace so Heaven and Peace square. At the end of Tiananmen Sq you enter the Forbidden City - which is a series of buildings which used to be just for the Emperors, it was forbidden for the people to even look at the forbidden city never mind try and enter it. It was built around 1400 and for 500 years it was inpenitrable for all of the people. Series of Ming and Qing dynastys lived there. Inside it there are palaces one behind the other with vast courtyards within them. The palaces themselves are decorated beautifully the colours and the designs are beautiful. We were told that it is constantly being repaired - all the buildings are wooden so they have often been damaged by fire. It takes about 10 years for them to try and repair and repaint the whole thing. To enter the Forbidden City cost us 60Y, just over €7. The crazy thing that has surprised me is how few westerners there are in China so far. That's why they're still so fascinated when they see Westerners. Like at Tiananmen Sq and in the Forbidden City, it was teaming with people, like masses but 99% of them were Chinese, suppose that's what you get when you've a country with over a billion people in it!
After the Forbidden City we got a bus to The Palace of Heaven. All buses cost 1Y, as in 12 cent. As I said travel is dirt cheap. On the bus we encountered lots more "rushing for seats" from the Chinese. They would put Londoners jostling for seats on the tube to shame! We all just stood, on display getting stared at as always :) When we arrived at the entrance to the Palace of Heaven we were starved so Xu found a little local restaurant and ordered food for us. It's great to have him to do that becuase unless they have a picture menu we would have been screwed! He ordered lots of lovely stuff, sweet and sour pork, beef and vegtables, a lovely side dish of like beaten up fried eggs and tomatoes, lots of other stuff - so tasty.
Big bowl of rice to dish out too. Oh and lets just say we are all on the way to becoming professional chopsticks users. By the time I leave Hong Kong I'll be like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill picking up the single grains of rice haha!
After lunch we walked through the Temple of Heaven. It's a series of temples and areas that the ruling Emperor used to come to and have a big ceremony to pray for a good harvest. Xu gave us some history on it, explaining that for the Emperor it was so important that the Chinese people have a good harvest because if they did, they were happy which meant they were not bothering him or causing trouble. Xu said that the Chinese in general even today, they just have a different mentality. Like he knows from the West we probably don't understand how they can be happy with Communism but Xu said for most Chinese people once they really just have a roof over their heads and their family and some food they are happy. That really is all that concerns them - just a more simpler life I guess. It good to just get their perspective on life.
To be honest by the end of the Temple of Heaven I was a bit templed out so I started losing interest! Also we had been on our feet walking round for like 7 hours at this stage. So we all got the subway home and headed back to the hotel. I chilled out, had a shower and hung out in the bar/common area in the hostel. Then me and Miri decided to go to Starbucks. I was never so happy as when I had a big massive Americano in front of me - even happier afterwards! God that coffee put me in a great mood. Oh and Starbucks isn't dirt cheap - it was 25Y for the Grande Americano - so 2 euro so not too bad, but worth every penny! Then me and Miri got the subway out to the Olympic Park - we wanted to see the Aquatic arena in the dark. If you remember the Bejing Olympics it was nicknamed the Cube it's all bubbles on the outside.
It was deadly, and the Birds Nest stadium is right beside it. But we've been told that it's crazy, for somewhere that's so impressive it's NEVER used now, it's like a ghost town out around it, just tourists (chinese and westerners) taking photos. Pity really! We were wrecked at this stage it had been a very busy day so we went home (had to change subway line 4 times) and crashed.
18th April - *Oprah Voice* THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA!!!
Holy mother of god this day was amazeballs! What wasn't - being wide awake from 4.30am. Although it could have been worse, as we had to meet Xu at 6.30am to get the bus out to Mutianyu - the section of the wall we were going to visit. As I was awake early I got up before Miri and got ready then I went out to scout out food options around the hotel. This was the first time I was ever in my life up too early for McDonald's breakfast haha! We were hoping that the McDonalds across the road might be open 24hrs or at 6am for breakfast but no joy. I walked down the Hutongs (little alleyways with small shops/huts/people selling food etc) beside the hotel. There were some "restaurants" cooking food at their doors, but they looked like these steamed dumplings and at 6am I really couldn't face them. There was also some guys frying these long twisty things - although they were soaking in oil and really wasn't up for some unknown deep fried something at 6am either. So we had gotten some fruit and cookies the night before in a shop so we settled for that before we left. We had a private bus organised out to the great wall. Xu explained that traffic in Beijing was mental so that's why we were leaving so early. It turned out to be great though as when we arrived at the Wall it was empty. At first it was a little chilly, as it was a cloudy day, and I was starting to regret my light tshirt and shorts decision! However, after the first 100 steps my mind was changed :)
Myself, Miri, Daniel and Bethany (the only solo travellers on our tour) headed off up the wall at our own pace and we were ahead of the others. To be honest the first section, i.e. the steps up TO the wall was the toughest part. We thought we were going to be screwed, we were getting out of breath so quickly. But it was just never-ending steps! Then once we reached the wall it got a little easier as in between most sections of steps there was a stretch of a walk. Even if it was uphill, it was still a welcomed break from the onslaught of steps we experienced. Along the way we met vendors selling water, coke, beer - at first we were laughing like "Beer?", cue it being 10 o'clock in the morning when we reached the top and the four of us celebrated with a beer. It was lovely. It was whilst enjoying this beer we suddenly thought, "oh shit, this better not go to our heads because of the height and climb as we now have to go BACK DOWN the mass of steps. Hahaha! Anyhwoo, we got a bit of a rhythm and the descent wasn't as bad as we expected. Words really can't describe how amazing the wall is, and how incredible an experience it was trekking it. Like we kept stopping taking photos and just reminding ourselves - we're on the feckin (my words) great wall of China!!
After climbing down to where we started, we walked back up a bit further in a different direction as you can....wait for it TOBOGGON DOWN THE WALL!! I couldn't even imagine how this would work but it sounded like something I could not miss out on! Also judging by the fact that health and safety is not exactly high on the agenda here I was slightly cautious! When we got there we saw that they had built what looked like a massive slide that had loads of twists and turns and some parts steeper than the other and you sat on this plastic seat thing on it with a leaver – if you pushed forward you went faster and if you leaned back it acted as a brake. Anywhoo, down the four of us went, one by one and it was brilliant! Such a laugh, and the views as you can imagine were out of this world. Unfortunately it was a cloudy day and although that hindered some of the views for our photos it was amazing tobogganing down through the cloud!
Really a once in a lifetime experience. After we had all finished the trek, we met up and had lunch in a subway at the bottom of the wall – and yes Subway is the same the world over, same smell! We got our bus back to Beijing and arranged to meet Xu at 5.30 to go to a traditional Peking (Beijing) Duck restaurant for food.
To get to to this restaurant that Xu had booked, we walked from our hotel through a few hutongs near the hotel. They really are the most fascinating places. You never know what you’ll see being cooked or sold. Everything from guys doing metalwork with sparks flying everywhere, to ducks hanging after being cooked, to people trying to sell everything from sweets to shoes. Lots of shall we "interesting" smells!
Also, when you’re walking around Beijing you get used to the fact that people will spit, yes SPIT anywhere. It’s pretty disgusting but it’s unavoidable. Luckily I haven’t fallen victim to having any spit actually on me as of yet!! Ha ha ha! Anywhoo, back to the restaurant, it was cool, we had our own private room, with a big round table. The centre of the table moved around so dishes that were placed down could be easily moved around so that everyone can share all the food. It’s deadly. We all ordered a beer and Xu ordered 2 ducks for us – this is served pretty much the same as crispy shredded duck at home, with the hoisin sauce and sliced cucumber and spring onion that you make a pancake with. Xu also ordered lots of other dishes – sweet and sour prawns, beef and vegetables, AMAZING leg of lamb all cut up, a pork dish, and prawn. There was loads of food – it’s all brought out to the table as it’s ready so it seemed like never-ending food constantly arriving, it was brilliant! After we had the meal, we walked back to our hotel and decided to go to a local bar for a couple of drinks. This was at 8.30 … lets just say by 2am I was behind the bar teaching the barmaid how to make baby Guinness! Ha ha ha! We all beered up and had a great night. The bar was only small, and whilst we were there a big thunder and lightening storm started, so we COULDN’T leave, even if we wanted to …well that’s our excuse and we’re stickin to it! Great end to a fab day!
19th April 2012 - Recovery in Beijing
Well suffice to say, we were all feeling a little delicate on the morning of the 19th April. Ha Ha!
Thankfully Miri woke me at 9am to see if I wanted to get breakfast, at first I really didn’t want to move, but in China, breakfast is one meal that it’s hard to replace if you don’t get it in the hotel. So I dragged myself outa bed and went down to the restaurant. In the restaurant, there were a few other fellow casualties from the night before. After breakfast just went back to bed for an hour as we had to check out by 12 o’clock. After checkout I just chilled, did some writing and hung out in the common room. We all met up as a group at 2pm and went out to get food. We had gotten the address of an Italian restaurant from Xu the night before as some of the group were yearning for something Western, like pizza so we had planned to go there. However when we phoned the restaurant, the phone number was incorrect so we had to give up on that plan. We decided to walk around and see what we could find. Unfortunately there really are very limited options when it comes to non-Chinese food. So we were faced with only two options – McDonalds or KFC…ended up in KFC, not great to be honest but it filled a gap, and with a 15hour overnight train ride ahead of us we needed to eat. Afterwards, we just headed back to the hotel to hang out and get ready for our trip to Shanghai.
We headed to the train station with Xu, all laden down with our rucksacks. Luckily it was only 2 subway stops away. When we arrived, we saw what a busy train station is like Chinese style. Imagine a station 3 times the size of Waterloo absolutely crammed with people. You would think there was some big event on but it’s just your average Thursday in Beijing. We got a few snacks and Xu led us to our train. As this was a 15 hour overnight train we would be sleeping in a sleeper carriage. This consists of 10 shall we say "dorms". Each dorm has an open entrance and 6 beds, three each side. I had chosen the middle bunk so that was my abode for the night. To be honest, it was quite comfortable. You were provided with a thin duvet and a pillow, and there was a little individual light above your bed and shelf. After inspecting our beds for the night we mingled between the two dorms, and played such games as "See how many cheeses we can name before we run out" to pass the time. 5 hours later and it was almost midnight and we decided to crash.
No joke – best night’s sleep I’ve had since I arrived in China!! So we’ve decided it was going out on the beer the night before that made us all get sleep – so that’s the plan for the next 4 night trains!
