Currency:
Yuan (also known as renminbi) - RMB

Highlights:
The Great Wall, the fascinating culture, how affordable everything is.

Our Adventure:

Freezing and fascinating were the two most common adjectives we had heard used to describe China for this time of year - and they were both very much correct! Beijing has been one of our favourite cities visited on tour so far - so incredibly different and my head is exploding right now trying to think of all that we learnt that I want to get written down.

We did a whirlwind tour of Beijing as we only had 2.5 days to explore the city (due to time constraints - we need to make it to Malaysia by Christmas) but we did manage to fit a lot in and have added so many items to a 'future to do' list.

Some facts we found really interesting about China and Beijing in particular:
• China's population = 1.2 billion.
• Beijing's population = 17.4 million living on 16,800 square km's distributed on 18 districts.
• There is still a lot of censorship - we couldn't even access Facebook (you can imagine the withdrawal symptoms my husband experienced!).
• There are several languages spoken in China with Mandarin being the most common.
• Beijing has concentric 'ring roads' which are actually rectangular that go around the metropolis.
• Most of the famous sites (Temple of Heaven, Tian'an Square, Forbidden City, Ming Tombs, Great Wall) are built on the same line for feng shui purposes.
• Foreigners have only been allowed to visit China since 1979 (and have only been allowed to rent cars since 2008).
• To control the traffic in Beijing, cars with licence plates ending in specific numbers are forbidden from entering the city center on different days (for example - cars ending in 1 cannot enter on Mondays etc. with all cars only being allowed on weekends). This was also an effective way that they managed to control the pollution before the Olympics as only odd or even cars were allowed to enter the city for the months leading up to it.
• Pedestrian crossings mean nothing (even less than Africa!). Crossing the road or even driving the road is an incredible feat in itself which mainly involves dominating at the game of chicken.

Day 1 - Arriving in Beijing

We arrived late afternoon from Tokyo and stepped off the plane to be greeted by the iciest wind we have ever felt in our lives (-6 degrees to be exact). We both looked at each other and laughed thinking that we even had the audacity to complain about it being cold in Japan! This cold made Japan look like summer time! The airport is really impressive - one of the many contributions from the 2008 Olympics.

We jumped into a cab and proudly showed the taxi driver the map we had printed off of our hotel location from Google in Chinese. However , the map was fairly zoomed out and the driver was trying to study it while driving (never a good thing) - eventually he gave up and grunted and passed us a big map of China - in Chinese! This is probably a good time to mention that very few people speak English here. This is something we had also been warned about but, similar to the cold, we had underestimated! So picture the scene - Shaun and I trying to study this map in Chinese and comparing it to the Google map and gesturing wildly (based on pure guesswork) which way to go! Eventually we pulled off the road and called our hotel so that they could explain the location to the driver - and it turns out we were only a block away so Shaun and I gave each other massive high 5's!

Day 2 - Touring the City

Lama Temple:
The first place on our list of things to do was visit the Silk Market to purchase some warm clothes. Unfortunately we ended up changing course and stopping at the Lama Temple along the way which turned out to be a very cold move! The Lama Temple was beautiful though - it has the reputation of being Beijing's mot spectacular place of worship and the most famous Buddhist temple outside of Tibet. It has five main halls, each taller than the last, as well as some stunning statuary. It was fascinating to see the monks milling about and to watch people worshipping - we couldn't work out why each store on the street outside sold massive bundles of incense but it made sense when we stepped inside as at each temple, there was a fire burning outside where people would light their incense sticks (three at a time) and then kneel down and rise up alternatively with the incense held out before them to pray. We loved all the Buddhist statues and it was fascinating to learn about some of the different types - our favourite being the plump laughing Buddha. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures inside the halls so our photos capture only the courtyard areas. We also realized here how the majority of tourists are the Chinese people themselves - we spotted a few other Westerners throughout the day but not more than could be counted on two hands!

Subway:
We were using the subway to transverse and had found it fairly straight-forward to use except for their bizarre ticket-purchasing system. You can buy a prepaid card (similar to the Oyster card in London) but our Chinese wasn't sufficient for us to find out where one can actually purchase these so instead we had to buy singles for each trip which at RMB 2 / trip (20p) is a bargain! However, we didn't realize that the tickets only work at the station where you purchase them so we had bought a whole bunch of them to use for the day - only to find out that they were useless... Luckily we only wasted GBP 2!

Silk Market:
We made sure the next stop was definitely the Silk Market which is the most infamous market in Beijing and is reportedly the city's third main tourist attraction. Our friend Jo had kindly given us her book Beijing which was really useful to us - but had made us worried as it was published just before the Olympics and said that the trade of counterfeit goods was likely to be stamped out before the Olympic s. We gave thanks to the god of fake goods though as that was definitely not the case and there was hall upon hall of goods - and these fakes aren't just any fakes, there is no way we would be able to tell the difference. We did a quick walk-through while being completely harassed and then honed in on the respective jackets we had spotted - this is also not easy haggling as it takes a lot of back and forth and walking away but eventually we left armed with jackets, beanies and gloves - a whole lot more prepared! We just wished that our backpacks were a little bigger as there was so much we would have liked to buy but alas, will have to be another time.

Tian'an Men Square:
We headed for Tian'an Men Square (the Square of the Gate of Heavenly Peace) next - the world's largest public square. There was a lot of mixed emotion as we looked out at this square - thinking about all the good and bad that has occurred here such as the bloody climax of 1989's pro-democracy demonstrations and the founding of the People's Republic of China (proclaimed by Mao here on 1 October 1949). The square is surrounded by grand buildings including the Great Hall of the People, China National Museum, the Museum of the Chinese Revolution, the Qianmen Gate and the Forbidden City. In the center of the square are the Monument to the Heroes and Mao's Mausoleum which houses the embalmed body of Mao (who died in 1976 and who appears to still be hero-worshipped by the majority of the people). They actually raise his body up twice a day for people to view but we unfortunately missed the viewings.

Forbidden City:
Adjacent to the square is the Forbidden City from where successive imperial dynasties ruled for a period of almost 500 years. The symbolic center of the Chinese universe, the palace was the exclusive domain of the imperial court from its completion in 1420 until the last of the 24 emperors was forced to abdicate at the beginning of the 20th century. The modern world intruded in 1949, when the public were finally admitted through the palace gates. Unfortunately they decided to close the gates an hour earlier than our guide book had advised so we were not able to go inside but we were still able to appreciate its awesomeness from the outside. (We were also secretly most upset about not being able to visit the Starbucks that was supposed to be inside the City and which was the only thing that had kept us going for the past few hours in the cold!).

Hou Hai:
By this stage, we were frozen from top to bottom despite our new attire so we headed home for a warm 'wake up shake up' shower before heading out again to Hou Hai which is the area around the joined lakes of Qian Hai and Hou Hai and has traditionally been home to nobles and wealthy merchants. We had been hoping to get there in the daylight to visit the grand homes and the hutongs ( (Beijing's ancient alleyways with traditional Beijing architecture) surrounding the lake but we had forgotten that winter time means a 4:30pm sunset. We comforted ourselves with the thought of seeing the tea-candles floating on the lake at night - but of course the lake was too frozen for any type of floating to occur! Nonetheless, we loved our walk along Lotus Lane next to the lake which is lined with brightly-lit restaurants and bars. Apparently the more lanterns a restaurant has outside, the better it is and we chose a fancy-looking place where for GBP 15, we feasted upon all sorts of dishes. For the way home, we had learnt our lesson with the taxis and had gotten our hotel to write down their exact address in Chinese - much easier!

You can see our photos here:

2009-12-18 [China, Beijing] Ni Hao (Hello) Beijing:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=363047&id=713415257&l=98893d1723

Day 3 - Great Wall Tour and Acrobatic Show

Now the plan for this day had been to wake up at 5:30am and traipse across town to another hostel from where we would depart at 6:30am for a 5 hour hike of the wall. Given our previous day's experience in the cold, you can understand our logic in 'no way in hell were we doing that'. So we scoured the internet for another tour deal and found one that was fairly reasonable (Sinoway tours) and would pick us up from our hotel at 7:30am and incorporate other places on the tour and no hiking. Sold. The only trick for paying less on this tour was that you had to stop at certain shopping places where of course they try to get you to buy stuff but we held firm the whole day and actually enjoyed what we learnt from each place.

Our tour guide, Andrea, met us for breakfast at our hotel which was a traditional Chinese breakfast... interesting. We were really lucky as we were the only two people on the tour (clearly everyone else reads ahead about the temperatures in Beijing this time of year) and Andrea was our age and a real character - even if she did talk a lot!

Stop 1 - Jade Factory. We were really impressed watching these people at work and seeing the results of their handiwork (a trade which is passed from generation to generation). There were some beautiful pieces and we were very tempted to buy a Buddha but were unsure of the whole other god in our house thing so decided against it.

Stop 2 - The Ming Tombs. This is the resting place for 13 of the 16 emperors of the Ming-dynasty (1368 - 1644) and is China's finest example of imperial funerary architecture. The site was selected because of its auspicious feng shui alignment; a ridge of mountains to the north cradles the tombs on three sides, protecting the dead from the evil spirits carried on the north wind. The tombs are spread over 40 square km's. Only three (Chang Ling, Ding Ling and Zhao Long) have been restored - and this only occurred somewhat recently (1955 - 1958). It's amazing what they have managed to recover in terms of artifacts - crowns, jewellery etc. given that these were buried over 300 years ago. We were supposed to be going to one of the underground tombs but to our relief Andrea advised against this as she said it was boring in that you only get to see a coffin replica so we stayed above ground and went to Chang Ling's tomb instead which is the oldest and grandest of all the tombs as he was the first emperor to be buried here (each descending emperor has to have a smaller tomb than the previous as a sign of respect). Chang Ling was buried here with his wife and 16 of his concubines. Andrea explained that an emperor would have up to 3,000 concubines on average and he wouldn't even get to see most of them (even visiting a different one each night added up to several years). She further said that the reason most women would want to become concubines was the chance of becoming empress (if she were to bear him a son first) and also the chance of being buried with the emperor and therefore going to heaven (he would select up to 30 to be buried with him - they would have to commit suicide by hanging and be buried standing up to still be at the emperor's command should he need anything in heaven).

Stop 3 - Mr Yang's Restaurant. We got a free lunch as part of our tour and we were a little unsure about what to expect given our non-enjoyment of our breakfast that morning but the food was amazing! Sadly this is probably due to it being of Cantonese origin and therefore a lot more like the Chinese food we know and love from home - exactly what our guide book encouraged us to avoid :)

Stop 4 - The Great Wall of China. This needs no introduction and although one expects a lot, it is still absolutely mind blowing to behold. The Great Wall snakes through the countryside over deserts, hills and plains for 6,700 km and is apparently the only man-made structure that can be seen from space. At its closest point it is less than 60 km from Beijing. The wall was created following the unification in China under Qin Shi Huangdi (221 - 210 BC) mainly to keep out the Mongolian people. There are several watchtowers along the wall and these were manned by four soldiers each who would signal by smoke (lighting wolf dung) to Beijing of any danger - one smoke signal indicated 100 soldiers, two 500 soldiers etc. However, despite impressive battlements, it ultimately proved ineffective and was breached in the 13th century by the Mongols and in the 17th century by the Manchus. Today, only select sections of its crumbling remains have been fully restored with four main sites accessible from Beijing: Badaling, Mutianyu, Huanghau Cheng and Simatai. Although Badaling is the closest to Beijing, we elected not to go there as apparently this is the most crowded (although again see previous comment - not sure why we were worried since there are far fewer crazy tourists in winter!).

Instead we went to Mutianyu as after reading up about the different sections this appealed to us the most as it is in a dramatic hilly setting and is supposed to be one of the most beautiful sections. The wall here dates back from 1368 and also has a lot of original parts. Andrea left us to explore the wall on our own and after heading up to the top by cable car and being treated to some awesome views along the way, we jumped off and walked through a series of watchtowers to get the best view. It was another magical moment and the same sense of spiritual greatness descended upon us - similar to our feeling at Machu Picchu. We felt truly blessed to be able to walk along of the wonders of the world and we were especially lucky as it was a beautiful clear sunny day (very few and far between apparently). We also virtually had the place to ourselves as there were only a handful of other visitors. It didn't even feel as cold up there - maybe -2 instead of -6 :) There are hills spread out on both sides - Mongolia on one side and China on the other - and the views are spectacular.

After getting our full of snaps, we got to choose between a cable car or toboggan for our descent. We were a little scared of the latter but then decided to just go for it and were so glad we did as it was one of the most fun things we have done so far on tour - imagine getting to slide down a massive hill from the Wall down to the bottom!

Stop 5 - Teahouse. We then stopped at a Chinese teahouse where we were treated to a traditional Chinese tea ceremony and got to taste several different types of tea and shown how to prepare them as well as explained what they were used for.

Stop 6 - Silk Museum. Here we learnt about the history of silk-making and how silk blankets are made. I would have loved to have bought one as they are apparently brilliant for people with allergies as they don't have short filaments like traditional blankets. There was some beautiful stuff for sale and we gave ourselves giant pats on the back for not having bought anything the whole day (which is a major guilt trip when they have given you this whole tour 'for free').

Stop 7 - Olympic District. We did a quick drive by two of the most iconic buildings from the recent Olympic Games - the Bird's Nest (the main arena designed by a French architect) and the Water Cube (designed by an Australian architect - looks like blue bubbles at night). There are so many interesting symbols in China - the dragon is probably the most prominent (symbolizing power) but the bird (symbolizing peace) is also important and this was captured in the main buildings from the Games - the Birds Nest, the Bird's Legs (CCTV building) and the Egg (the national theater). The Nest and the Cube are crazy-looking but very impressive and a source of great pride for the Chinese people.

We then had time for a quick shower before Andrea picked us up again to head to Chaoyang Theater for the flying acrobatic show that was developed especially for the Olympics. Although China has a worldwide reputation for its gymnasts, we still had no idea what was in store for us. What a show! The balance, flexibility and strength displayed were amazing! They had several different acts - all with cool rave music and impressive costumes. Andrea explained that acrobatics is not likely to be around for too much longer though as apparently the performers are all poor people who have no other option than this lifestyle - which they learn from a very young age. So as the level of education in China improves, so do their options.

We collapsed into bed that night - our heads full of images of this incredible country…

You can view our photos here:

2009-12-19 [China, Beijing] Jade Factory, Ming Tombs, Great Wall of China, Tea, Silk Factory and Acrobatics Show - Part 1:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=363044&id=713415257&l=b6f620b684

2009-12-19 [China, Beijing] Jade Factory, Ming Tombs, Great Wall of China, Tea, Silk Factory and Acrobatics Show - Part 2:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=363051&id=713415257&l=80a8a01e1a

In reflection, there was so much about Beijing that surprised us. We had been expecting this crazy, polluted, crowded, poor city and instead what we got was a city that is so modern yet has managed to preserve its ancient parts and tradition. We also didn't witness any pollution (although apparently we were lucky as the strong winds had blown it out - one positive thing about the wind!). The city also didn't feel nearly as crowded as Tokyo because it's so spread out. We also loved the feeling of pride that you can feel emanating from the people there.

At the same time, China taught us that there is a lot that we should not take for granted:
• Warm weather
• Western toilets (I had been warned about this and did a really good job the first day of not using a public loo all day after hearing Kate, Lex and Georgie's story about the Chinese circus toilets on many occasion - but didn't really have a choice on day 2 despite not drinking any water!).
• English
• Etiquette of not spitting (again we were warned but it's still hard to not be grossed out when everyone not only spits in public but also holds one nostril and then just blows out the other onto the ground!).

We also have a long list of places to see or things to do for when we visit next time:
• Temple of Heaven
• Bei Hei Park
• Summer Palace
• 798 Art District
• Eat Peking Duck, hotpot and trying out other regions of China's food
• Hou Hai - rickshaw ride around the hutongs, boat ride on the lake and going up the drum tower.
• CCTV building.
And that's just for Beijing!

We will be back!

Love
Lara + Leise