National Week in Beijing
Trip Start
Aug 24, 2008
1
5
13
Trip End
Jul 2009
Beijing,
China
Monday, October 6, 2008
It is Monday at 6:00 in the morning and we are groggy and grumpy at the train station... but we are excited about going to Beijing. Why are we excited? Well, I have always wanted to go to the Great Wall, we have heard so many great things about Beijing sights like Tiananmen Square and Beihai Park, and we and we have planned to meet up with some other Drake graduates that are teaching in other parts of China. But MOST of all, we are excited about eating Western food. Don't get me wrong; Chinese food has been good and exciting, but after living off of it for more than a month, nothing sounds as good as Mexican food and sandwiches. So we have a plan. Not a schedule of events and daily destinations; but a plan to eat NOTHING but Western food for an entire week. And we reached our goal with flying colors. Throughout the week we ate at Subway three times, ate at a Hooters once, ate pizza one time, at at a diner called Grandma's Kitchen, and had Tex-Mex once at a restaurant called Tex-Mex!
The train ride was a long two hours from Shijiazhuang station. And I think that it just seems long because even before you get on the train, you have to stand in a "line" that works more like a herd. We were in the middle and pushing because someone told us that our seats were not guaranteed and that we might have to stand for the journey. But apparently we cannot read our tickets because we had seat numbers and they were all together and everything was way less dramatic that we originally thought. And also, a train ride seems long when the people around you keep getting up from their seats. It seems like it is a cultural norm to eat noodles on a train ride. We think of baseball and hotdogs, fairs and funnel cakes, cook outs and hamburgers... I really think that Chinese people associate train rides and noodles! Almost everyone has a bowl of dry noodles when they get on the train. Then, at some point during the journey, they get up and fill their noodle bowl with boiling water that is provided by the train. There is like a small noodle making station in between every train car. And the funny thing was that the ride was only two hours long, so it is not like you had to skip a meal while you were on the train. It was quite the learning experience and I will know what snack food to bring on my next trip.
We made it to Beijing right on time at 8:30 in the morning. We bussed it to our hostel which was a crazy, uncomfortable, and crowded ride...but we made it. We stayed at the Sanlitun Hostel which is in the Sanlitun district that is famous for its restaurants and night life. It is always referred to as the Sanlitun bar district. We were surrounded by bars and clubs with funny names like Monkey Tree, People are Strange, Big Boat, Boys and Girls, The Den, R&B, Dream Color, Peppers, and Suzi Wongs. We are in a 6 person room with only 5 people but they were nice enough to not put a random 6th person in our room with us. The hostel workers spoke English well and helped us with everything we needed from figuring out the subway system, to getting directions, to writing things in Chinese for the cab drivers. It was a great place and we will definitely stay there again. We hit the road and found a sandwich place called The Olive where we each got a huge chicken and peppers sandwich with big bread. Honestly, I will not take grilled chicken on bread for granted again. And the best part was that it was covered in cheese! We also knew that we wanted to book a trip to the Great Wall right away so that we could do it at the beginning of the week while we still had energy. So we booked it with the Downtown Backpacker's Hostel that is in the Hutong District. The Hutongs are old Chinese alleyways that are either originally old or refurbished to look like the old Hutong style. It is a part of the city where the buildings are small and the streets are cobble stone. The streets are also lined with tea shops and boutiques. I would compare it to Des Moines east village...but that is a stretch.
Tuesday at 6:30, we arrive at the Backpacker's Hostel where we are put on a van full of foreigners for 3 hours. We among people from Belgium, Spain, America, and Germany. We arrive at the Jingshanling section of the Great Wall around 9:30. Here, we are given the option of taking a cable car to the top of the wall which would cost money and take about 15 minutes, or just walk to the top which is free and would only take 30 minutes. We discussed the options and since I always feel like a challenge and brought up the points that we are young and it would only take 15 minutes longer than everyone else; we walked. But I left out the part where I always feel like a challenge and then regret taking it on later... this was one of those moments. We were pretty exhausted by the time we got to the top of the wall to "start" our hike. This was the deal: We were dropped off at Jingshangling wall and were to hike for 8 km, about 5 miles and arrive at the Simatia section of the wall by 2pm where the bus would be and would leave from. The only real directions we were given was to turn left when we got up to the wall and walk along the wall until 2pm. It was fun and adventurous but we were in no way prepared for how intense the climbing would be. We basically climbed rocks and steps that came up to my thighs and then skidded back down for 4 1/2 hours! I really was a blast though. Our group really did a great job. We would stop at moments to really take in the beauty of the ancient world that we below us and all around us. We would take breaks to rest and to take pictures even though the pictures do not do justice to the mountains and the wall. We found ourselves more than halfway when we saw the sign for the Simatai portion of the wall and stopped to have lunch. Surprise, surprise; I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while sitting on the Great Wall. That was an unknown goal I think I had that I was excited to achieve!
There are some things about the wall that I do not understand though. I really don't know why the old emperors decided to build a wall on top of mountains. I really don't think that soldiers want to walk over mountains in the first place. The wall should have been built on flat ground as maybe a second line of defense after the mountains. The enemy soldiers would be so tired from hiking through the mountains that the sight of a huge wall that they would have to also get past would make them WANT to surrender. I know I don't have a background in military defense, but I really think it was common sense. Also, so many workers died building the wall. These workers could have built the wall safely on level ground and then served in the army against the troops that were climbing in the mountains! And did you know that the workers who died during the construction of the wall were built right into it. We thought of this fact while we were walking on the wall workers.
So we are 3/4 of the way done with our hike when we see a suspension bridge over a river that we have to cross. This was a great sign because after the bridge, we only had to walk to 2 more watchtowers and we were finished. The bridge was very stable but it was still uncomfortable to feel people jump around...just to test it. We all know those people. While we were crossing the bridge we saw people zip lining from the top, over the river, to the bottom ground level. We instantly decided that no matter how much it cost, we WOULD do that! Turn out that zip lining only cost 40 RMB per person, which is equivalent to maybe $6-$7. Willie went first while I video taped him screaming. Then I went and recorded myself going all the way down. Then we watched Alissa and Billie from the safety of the landing spot. I will include the videos on this blog also so make sure to watch them all; but you can turn off the volume because we all sound terrible when were are jumping from great heights. The mix of adrenaline and the disbelief that you just hike the Great Wall made an amazing combination. I would hike the terrible wall again just to have that feeling that you are really living! It was really great. We hopped on a boat, got back to the bus, and tried to sleep the rest of the way back.
That night we each treated ourselves to footlong subs at Subway. They don't have the $5 footlong deal here, but I think I would have spent $50 on a sub that night. We also spotted a Chinese Walmart across the street from Subway. It was almost too much Wester culture to take in in one moment.
I think maybe I am writing to much, with too much detail so I will try to speed it up for those of you who obviously have a life of their own. On Wednesday we all went to the Silk Market, which does not have silk. or if it does, I just never saw it. It is a huge building with more that 6 floors total and each floor is allotted a genre of item to sell. The basement floor was all shoes and handbags, the first was women's clothing, and so on. There was a floor full of jewelry and scarves, electronics and souvenirs, men's clothes and coats... you get it. And this market was full of little stalls of merchandise that was "brand name." Each stall looked almost the same and had the same merchandise such as Nikes, Coach, D&G, Puma, Uggs, Northface, Abercrombie, and more. These were obviously NOT those brands, but were fake look-a-likes. I didn't mind at all though as long as the merchandise served its purpose. I have needed tennis shoes badly and also wanted to buy some warm winter boots. So I set out to get the best price. You can barter and argue with these people until they basically give you the items for maybe 10% of their original price. We were told to start out by stating 10% of their price because you can always go up from there. I wanted Pumas that were originally 400 something RMB and I got the lady down to 60 RMB. So my Pumas were less than $10. I also go a pair of Uggs down from 450 RMB to 120 RMB. So those were less than $20. But is was so funny to barter with these people because they are basically all trained the same and trained to play the "You will make me poor" card. They saw things about how they need to make a living, we will make them poor, they always say "Are you joking" when I would give them my original price. But if you walk away or say no, they will almost instantly take 100 RMB off and give you the Chinese price, especially if you barter in Chinese. And they don't understand that that is an insult in itself to give a Chinese price because that verifies the existence of a "foreigner's price!" So they are basically trying to take your money. I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the competitive nature of it, but the crowds, the pushing, the grabbing of your arm to come into their stalls all got to be a little too much after a few hours.
