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Chinese People in one word - Random!
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Day 1 - I arrived at the airport to be greeted by a really smiley Chinaman holding my name. He didn't speak a word of English and me not one word of Chinese! After an hours drive to the hotel (Beijing is huge) I got a pretty good education on driving in China - without seatbelts, with as much horn blowing as possible and the biggest get priority!
Visited the Temple of Heaven in the afternoon and had the massive realisation of how cold it is in Beijing. In the evening I went to dinner with my tour group - Charles ordered a variety of dishes for everyone to share - the best thing about having a Chinese guide is that you can try all sorts of things but you always know what it is you are trying, which is fairly important with Chinese cuisine, as chickens feet and tripe make common appearances on the menu! To save me mentioning the food continually in this blog, let's just say there wasn't one meal in three weeks I didn't enjoy, although it is all very sweet! How I miss plain, wholemeal bread!
Day 2 - The Great Wall - just as you'd imagine it! Really impressive sight and because it was misty it felt slightly enigmatic also! We visited a section further from Beijing than the usual spot and were rewarded by being the only group there, really worth it! On returning to the bus every tourist has to run the gauntlet of tourist stalls and really pushy vendors - they literally pull you to their stall and stand in front of you shouting at you to buy something - it's quite a scary ordeal!
Had Peking Duck for dinner - yum!
Day 3 - Tiananmen Square & Forbidden City - really enjoyed the square - it really is vast and really open! You can't walk over it at night though following the bomb a few years back. I went to see Chairman Mao's body which is enbalmed in the central building - looked a lot like a Madam Tussauds model - pretty eerie! At the end of the Square there is a massive portrait of him - it's as if everything in Beijing is enshrined to him and I believe this is a fair representation of the Chinese mentality towards their former Chairman.
The Forbidden City is massive! Really enjoyed looking around and hearing the history from Charles.
Afterwards we took a bus to the Hutong (the old area of town filled with alleyways and courtyards of traditional, small houses) and had lunch in a family's house - yum! Then took a rickshaw ride around the streets and I tried to take as many photos of Chinese people as possible - I just find them really interesting! The way of life was really intriguing as they have a great community in the area.
I went to the Pearl Market in the afternoon but was a little disappointed with it. In the evening we saw a Kung Fu show which was quite spectacular, although the rest of the group were more taken with it than me! Afterwards, John, Faraz, Cecille and I got a taxi to Houhai Lake which is surrounded by neon lit bars and clubs for a few drinks. Nearby there was a park filled with people ballroom dancing! Really random place is China! Our bar was really relaxed with some guys playing an acoustic set of Chinese music. I ordered some chips and about 10 minutes later they came through the front door with a bowl full, which I believe they had just obtained from McDonalds! They even put the ketchup sachets on the side!
Day 4 - Summer Palace - Faraz (an aussie) and I caught the public bus to the Summer Palace which cost 1 yuan (8 pence) but took about an hour and was pretty crowded! The place is huge and really beautiful - full of pagodas, lakes and gardens. Had a really lovely day pottering around and giving people oreos and saw some more Chinese randomness - a lady walking around the lake backwards ("it's common" according to Charles)!
In the evening we went to Beijing Train Station - now that's the place to experience China! You have to go through a security check on the way in, and all outside is a sea of people. Inside is an even denser sea of people sat all over the floor waiting for their trains. Chinese people, particularly those in Beijing, are not used to westerners, and they don't have that belief of ours that it's rude to stare. When waiting for the train, a circle of interested locals formed around us, just watching what we were doing! It was really offputting to start, but after a while you learn to love it - where else would you get this amount of attention?!
The sleeper train is cramped and grim. There are 6 beds to a bunk (3 each side) and 66 people in a carriage! Following on from the station, the staring continues on the train, but this goes on all evening until lights out at 10pm. The toilets are squats but given that the train is in motion, people seem to find it hard to aim - one girl in our group, Clare, didn't go once on any of the sleeper trains! But the worst thing about the trains is that most Chinese smoke, and they are allowed to smoke in between the carriages (the windows don't open), so throughout the night you can feel your throat filling up and a passive smokers cough developing! After the smoking ban in the UK it is a massive shock! And of course, where there's smoking, there's spitting!
Where I stayed:
R J Brown
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| 1. | Chinese People in one word - Random! - Beijing, China Mar 21, 2008 |
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