Oxymoronic Beijing
Trip Start
Oct 20, 2008
1
24
29
Trip End
Feb 02, 2009
Beijing,
China
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
First impressions of Beijing:
-very modern,
-loads of interesting modern architecture,
-very wide streets
-saturation of very high end name brand stores (not limited to clothing or accessories)
-very cold in the winter
The story:
We stayed in the Wangfujing area, very close to all the main shopping areas. Our hotel was behind the Regent hotel and in that building housed a Lamborghini, Rolls Royce, Masarati, and Ferrari dealership...so in case any guests had the impulse to purchase these things, it was easily available. The malls were EVERYWHERE; not even little dinky malls, but large sprawling affairs with multiple levels. The one we frequented had an Audi and BMW store in it, not just for cars, but in case you wanted to be branded, accessories and clothing were available for purchase. I may be naive, sheltered or just plain unaware, but nowhere in my travels have I ever seen such high concentrations of very high end stores as prolific as Starbucks (until I reached HK, but that blog is coming later). There were several, as in more than 3, Rolex stores (exclusively selling only Rolex), Hermes, LV, Cartier (Cartier actually had stores kattycorner to each other), etc. I must sound like a hillbilly, but I did not expect this here. China is still a communist country right? I mean, industrialism, workers, all equal, all that right? So in that vein, does all this shopping mean that ALL the workers of China are buying up Cartier and Tiffany cufflinks? Did the meaning of communism change while we were traveling? or is China picking and choosing from a smorgsboard of "western capitalism" I'm confused...
Food:
Food in Beijing is yummy and diverse. We had Japanese ramen and rice our first night. That was great, esp. since I have been craving good ramen since Africa.
Peking Duck--Ernie and I chose to go to the oldest peking duck restaraunt called Dadong. They have been serving peking duck since 1864 and apparently they have been counting how many ducks they have served since because we got duck #374387 (thats what it says on the greeting card they gave us when we ordered our duck, really!). A guy in chef gear rolls a cart to your table and expertly slices your duck for you in such a way that EVERY piece has the crispy skin on it, PLUS he especially slices off just the fatty crispy skin for you to gnosh on, so good....
So on either a corn or flour thin round "pancake" (more of a tortilla, really) you put the duck pieces, plum sauce, scallions, watercress, bib lettuce, chili. Wrap it, bring to mouth, bite, chew, repeat, and enjoy. It was excellent. Turns out Ernie is a way better wrapper than I am. He had an expert hand that ensured that every bite had each element in it (though it was unintentional, knowing Ernie). The meal was great, but since duck and duck skin is so rich, we were beginning to feel our arteries contract. It was a memorable meal.
Sichuan Food--Ernie loved our Sichuan meal. In ordering our meal, we kind of went a bit overboard. EVERYTHING we ordered had the spicy chili paste oil in it. We had spinach leaves in chili, lamb baked in the chili, and prawns in garlic chili oil. It was a little spicy...Ernie love it. He ate most of the lamb (lamb being his favorite) and the spinach. It was funny.
Street food--We didn't try the sticks of strange meat as it was really cold outside (although we have pictures of scorpions, sea horses, and other unidentifiable creatures on sticks), but we managed to procure those delicious looking sugar covered crabapples on a stick. Ours had orange wedges as well. It was teeth-rottingly good!
The Great Wall:
The main reason we decided to go to Beijing was to go to the Great Wall.We booked an all day hike on the wall, but didn't really think through the whole -0 C weather. So on the day of our hike, we wore:
- 3 pairs of socks (we only had running shoes on, and those are airy!)
- 3 pairs of pants
- 5-6 layers on top
- scarves (1 for Ernie; 2 for me)
- hat and gloves
After a 3 hr drive to the wall, we started our hike from Jinshanling to Simatai (@ 10 mi) Surprisingly though, we were not as cold as we thought we would be. Once we got hiking, it wasn't too bad. We had a great hiking guide who gave us loads of information. The wall is amazing! Since we were there in the off season, and we were on a private hike, we were really able to enjoy the wall in peace and quiet. It was awe-inspiring and reamarkable. It deserves to be a Great Wonder. We went through 32 towers and at some parts, we had to get off the wall and walk along side it as the wall was too damaged. Some parts we walked through were actually very narrow and others very steep. The wall follows the mountain ridge so our hike was very up and down. At the end we crossed a river on a suspension bridge. Ernie wouldn't take a picture of me on the bridge, even though it was a cool picture! (I think it had to do with me running, stomping back and forth on the bridge, which made him nervous) (E: I took a picture of her on the bridge. I refused to take the picture she wanted of her hanging half off the bridge.) It was amazing (did I say that already?)
E: Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and Summer Palace:
Beautiful, but probably better seen in the summer. We could imagine how amazing they would be with the gardens in bloom, the lake sparkling, the trees covering everything. But it was winter and the gardens were bare, the lake frozen, and we were freezing. We rushed through these sites faster because they were mostly outdoors. Even with the freezing weather there were tons of people there. What is most impressive about these places is their size. They're huge! It's easy to get lost trying to see everything.
We definitely want to come back and spend more time here, esp in better weather.
E: Definitely need to come back. With only three days there we saw as much as we could, but we were rushed and we missed a couple major sites (the Temple of Heaven and Lama Temple) as well as just not having time to get a comfortable feel of the city in general, and that's just Beijing. There are so many other amazing places in China that this definitely is one of the places we feel would be well worth coming back in warmer weather to spend much more time. Hopefully we'll get some Great Wall pictures and stuff posted once we get to New Zealand.
Till our next blog!!
