Beijing

As I begin to write this I am already in my ninth day here. Tomorrow will be my last before I catch a train to Shanghai.

After buying a map at the station and finding our bearings we joined the que for the taxis. It was a long que and the Chinese would take any opportunity to seize even the smallest gap in front of you. The taxi was good and cheap and dropped us at the mouth of the hutong where I hostel was. Beijing is known for its Hutongs, little narrow back streets that date back to simpler times. They are full of people, bicycles, street food sellers, you name it. We found the hostel a little way down and found that our room was in a seperate building down another branch of the hutong. Our building was a secluded courtyard fool of plants and a fountain. Tables and chairs around the outside under canopies and a pool table in the middle. inside there was a welcoming reception area with comfy seats and internet. The room was lovely, with air conditioning and an on suite bathroom.

That evening we set out to explore the area nearby with bars and restaurants. It was pretty touristy but all the bars were very empty. It was perhaps to early. We found a place that did Mongolian hotpot, a self heated vessel of boiling stock into which you drop meats and vegetables. It was good, but terrifically spicy and we were rightly worried about whether the meat was cooking properly. We ventured further from the hostel and found some better bars. I got a bit drunk. Setting off back we realised how big a city Beijing is. No taxi would give us the time of day and we had to bet let in when we eventually returned to the hostel at 1-2 in the morning!

The next day we walked to a park and climbed the mound created from earth dug for the moat of the forbidden palace nearby. It gave us a view of the city though it was very hazy. It also offered us a view of the forbidden city, whcih we went to next. It was another baking hot day (perhaps 35 C) and having been up ill at both ends much of the night I was not in good shape. In fact I was quite worried i was going to pass out. Poor Angela had to put up with my moaning and floundering spirit as we explored the maze of royal palaces. I had enough about me to get an impression of what life might have been like for the emporers, princes, and concubines who resided in this most guilded of prisons. By the end of the palace though I was dead on my feet. Angela explored the last and most grand buildings on her own while I trudged toward the exit via any shade I could find. That evening I stayed back at the hostel while Angela (who had brilliantly found us a bus home) went out for food. I had planned to begin the blog, but a power cut put pay to that. What a lousy day!

The following morning we were up early for breakfast at the main building. I had slept well and after breakfast felt ready for the days tour to the great wall. we had chosen Mutianyu section. The hike from Jinshanging to Simutai was impossible because Simutai is now closed for restoration. When we arrive at the foot of the hills that the wall crowned we were advised to take a cable car to the top (at extra cost). Of the 20 or so people on the tour, we were the only ones who walked. The wall was as grand and magnificent as I had imagined, though I couldnt help being dissapointed by the low cloud. After the first section was climbed I was, however, glad of the cooler air. Plus the mist couldnt help but add a welcome sense of mystery. By the way, I have now created a flickr page http://www.flickr.com/photos/lp123/

We spent 3 hours exploring the long and incredibly undulating length of wall and returned to the valley floor. We refused the winding metal theme park style slide, which our fellow tour goers presumably all took. We barely saw them after the first 30 min. I dont think they ventured far from the cable car! We had lunch and I started to feel decidedly peaky. The journey back, much longer due to our hitting the crazy traffic, was not much fun!

New stuff....

By the evening I had pulled myself together and joined Angela for a meal of the local speciality, Peking Duck. Angela had directions to a nearby restaurant, which was nice, and the food was excellent. A bit messy with neither of us having mastered chop sticks and plum sauce, but that made it more fun.

We took the following day at a slower pace, starting with a trip to the Yonghegong Lama Temple. I really enjoyed our visit here, with an instantly relaxing atmosphere, the temple was beautifully maintained, and the chinese burnt insence and prayed. There were tour buses outside, but they seemed to have vanished inside. The first object of interest was a small tower (not sure what else to call it) with a fence around, signs saying 'please dont throw coins' (or something to that effect). Guess what Angela did? Yes, taking inspiration from the chinese, who attepmted to land a coin on the tower's gently sloping ledges, she had a go! Inside the main temple building was the most enormous Buddha statue, carved from a single piece of wood. I think it was some 18 metres high and 8 metres below ground. A world record.

In the afternoon we explored the cast Summer Palace. A most grand and ridiculous park with lake and buildings dotted around. So enormous in fact that we got quite lost and ended up turning back on ourselves. We had sold ourselves short of time here and the weather began to deteriorate as the evening drew closer. We rushed through the remaining park as the rain began to fall and returned for noodle soup, a few beers and bed. Angela had to leave the next morning :-(

I escorted Angela and bag to the end of the airport expressway and we said our goodbye's. I returned to the hostel and changed to a dorm room. I planned to move to a more central hostel the following day and so set out to book my stay. The weather reflected my mood and it threw it down. The bus didnt take me all the way and I got pretty wet walking the last mile. Ug! Anyway, I booked it and when I returned to the hostel started the blog at long last. I ventured out again for food and had a good meal in a local restaurant in the Hutong. I was lucky enough to find a few English speakers back at the hostel and sat up chatting. One French chap was most interesting and entertaining. He was in Beijing to teach experimental archeology to children. His speciality was musical instruments and he got out some samples to demonstrate. His had a number of small tubes with holes in made from the bones of vulture wings; like whistles, or flutes, yet as he pointed out they didnt make a noise if played this way. Instead they worked wonderfully well if you used a bit of bamboo as a reed. Yes, he demonstrated their rather hillarious squeeky kazoo sort of sound for far far too long! Small ones, thin ones, fat ones......It was secretly very funny to see how seriously he took himself while making such a stupendous noise. Great! He also showed us puzzle games, and told us stories. It helped me relax.

The next day I packed up and moved house. The new hostel was huge and basic. The facilities and the staff were not a patch on the previous hostel, but the location made up for it. Positioned opposite the main railway station near the main road through town, a supermarket on the doorstep, and a subway a few strides from the entrance. I needed to book a ticket to Shanghai and thought I had done so, only to realise that I had booked a hard seat, not a hard sleeper train. Essentially a 20 hour journey in a normal train without beds. Er, no thanks. i managed to rectify things, but only for the following day, the 22nd, at 2 minutes to midnight (which sounds like a song).

I decided to visit the Pearl Market and teh Temple of Heaven, which are next to each other. The Pearl Market turned out, not to be a quaint old traditional market, but a huge 5 floor monstrosity, with floors for shoes, hangbags, tech stuff and off course, Pearls. This is not my thing at all, and I left, quickly! The Temple of Heaven, however, was great. A set of interesting temples with the intended purpose of praying to heaven to provide bumper harvests etc. There were elaborate alters for sacrifices and great vessels for burning crops. The rest of the area is another massive park with thousands of carefully laid out trees of great variety. I walked all the way around and found areas where I was actually alone and almost peaceful. A welcome breather from crazy city life.

That evening I met my roomate Henry and spent the next few days with him.

New stuff!

Henry used to work in Finance in Tokyo, although he was born in Shanghai. He had suddendly become bored of his life and left to travel. He was obviously very well paid and acustomed to the high life. By the time we parted, I was rather fed up of his constant complaining about standards and constant comparisions to Japan. I got very annoyed indeed when he insulted standards in the UK even and bordered on Racism toward the 'Dirty, smelly, Chinese". This isnt to say that I wasn't glad of some company and it was most helpful to have somebody who spoke fluent Chinese!

Together we went to the capitol museum, Belhai park, wandered round the hutongs near Prince Gong's Palace and Gardens, visited the former home of the 'first lady of China', went for drinks one very wet evening without an umbrella (he wouldnt wait for me to go back and get it) and more. The museum was very good, the park nice, the hutongs fun (we got rather lost in the maze of little streets), the home of Soong Choo Ling (I really hope I remember that correctly) would have been fascinating had I not been dashing to the loo after foolishly risking Mongolian Hotpot a second time, the drinks were expensive, yet much needed. I would have prefered to have had the umbrella!!!

So, I was nearing the end of my stay in Beijing. Henry left in the morning first thing and I was leaving on the late train. I am pleased to say I was not sad to see him go. I was more than happy to be on my own and this is important because I am bound to spend much of my trip by myself, so I better not fear it.

I spent the gloriously sunny day buying a few things for the upcoming train journey and then visiting the olympic site. When back at the hostel, I edited the blog and wandered back to my room to pack up and organise my things into suitably accessable places. I needed to make sure I had the things for the train to hand. I am a bit of an expert at preparing for long distance train travel now of course. A couple of recently arrived others returned to the room and I chatted to a guy from San Francisco and Elliot from Minneapolis (no idea how to spell that). With my limited time, I took the initiative and took Elliot out for dinner. I just chose a stop on the subway that I though might yield some nice places to eat. It didnt look good after the first road we tried possessed only shops. However, we spotted a few eateries down a nearby Hutong (these really are the life and soul of Beijing) and chose one with pictures outside. The food was excellent and very reasonably priced. We had three dishes, rice, and a beer all for Y40 (roughly 4 pounds) each. The price of food in Beijing, in fact the price of nearly anything, was very cheap. The tube was Y2 (20p) and the bus Y1, regardless of how far you wanted to travel. I bought a tray of dumplings and some tofu soup down a Hutong for breakfast one day and was so full I couldnt finish the soup. All for Y4!!!

Anyway, I digress... We caught the tube back and played a few games of pool until 22.00. I gathered my things and checked out. I flowed over the overpass, fitted with escalators, and into the station where I proceeded to stand perplexed in front of the big screen. I could see my train number and its departure time fine, but what on earth did the numbers 2 and 7 mean? There were signs for various waiting rooms including number 2 and number 7, so that did not help. There were announcements regarding the check in of other trains, but I couldnt quite fathem out the meaning. I settled on waiting room 7. It was huge and rather full looking, with people sleeping across seats, sitting on bags in the corridor etc etc. Not to be hasty, I slowly wandered down the central aisle and spotted a spare seat.

It was a relief to take the weight of my pack off my feet (and the knee). I slumped into my seat, but before my long sigh had ended the girl next to me said 'Hello'. 'Ni Hao' I replied. She was Chinese, studying at the China Women's University and obviously wanting to meet the white man and practice her Chinese. I took the opportunity to ask for help to see if I was in the right place and what I should do when the train was announced. She looked at my ticket and we were on the same train. What luck!! I relaxed. She also explained that the 2 meant floor and 7 the waiting room. I had flooked it. She was very friendly, her English was quite good and we chatted, which easily passed the time. Her 'English name' was Crystal and I was introduced to the friend Cherry. I was given the Chinese nam of 'Da Shan', meaning Big Mountain. Perhaps she was taking the mick! We had the customary silly photos taken by a not too amused chap who was content listening to his ipod. It was all quite funny really and after my couple of beers I was in a good mood (it does happen sometimes). She seemed quite chuffed when I agreed to give her my email.

Anyway, the train was announced, and we parted on the platform. She offered to help me find my carriage, but seeing as she was in 16 (right next to the entrance to the platform) and I was in 4, I told her to get on and I would be fine! It was a long walk to my carriage. I trotted along quickly, though there was ample time, past all the other doors, each with smartly dressed attendant standing proudly by. When I got to my carriage the door was closed and no attendant was present. Just my luck I thought, but out she popped and laid the ramp for me. I was berth 001, a bottom bunk. The bed was a pain in the bum to lift up (the design was very similar, but not quite as ingenious as the Russian trains), but I managed to squeeze my bag in, after removing a bag of food. I was shortly joined by an elderly couple and their sons. The sons just came to help them on, but said hello to me and were quite funny.

It was quickly bed time. The elderly couple refused my offer of the bottom bunk. I slept well. Today was a relaxed affair with me reading my book and trying to learn a bit more Mandarin. I made some noodle soup in the cup I bought, for breakfast. I jumped off at a stop around lunch time to try and find some better food, but ended up buying a bottle of coke and turning to realise that everyone else had got back on the train and the attendants were removing the ramps!! I jumped back on just in time. Returning to my cabin, the old couple proceeded to feed me noodles, cakes, milk etc etc. They would not accept a polite refusal, and I was glad to accept. They were really very generous, very gentle, and kind.

We made it to Shanghai on time, at 20.00. Here ends the Beijing section. Sorry it was such an epic, but I got rather behind. I will create a new entry for Shanghai and try to make it up-to-date quickly!