Beijing Part 1, arriving exploring and eating Duck
Trip Start
Sep 25, 2008
1
9
29
Trip End
Apr 01, 2009
Beijing,
China
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
For some reason I thought it would be difficult to get around, struggling with language and unhelpfulness. Infact, almost exactly how Moscow was.
I was wrong, very wrong.
From the very first moment we stepped out of the station we experienced the Chinese people's friendliness and eagerness to please, and to speak English.
We withdrew some money, or rather Sarah withdrew some money and I entered my pin number wrong and lost what was meant to be the back-up card, well done Dan! The money came out in 100s and we needed to get a cab, so to avoid the whole 'no change' situation we went to buy some water.
The little trolley selling water also sold maps, which we needed, but they only had Chinese. 'we'll get an English one later' I said to Sarah.
'ah, English!' said the lady behind the trolley before rummaging around but sadly not finding an English map. She then ran off into the crowded area outside the station, returning a couple of minutes later waving the maps above her head.
The maps, it turned out, were completely free ones printed for the olympics, she excitedly pointed out the pictures of the Bird's Nest and Watercube on the cover. So we thanked her, spent the equivalent of about 30p on water, and left with smiles on our faces.
Our hostel was in the middle of the city, we had a map and the road name written in Mandarin. The taxi driver spoke no English but we got there fine. Taxis in Beijing are cheap, really cheap, about 25p a mile and by far the easiest way to get around town.
We arrived in the hostel at about 3pm and were shown to our dorm. The bottom floor of the dorm had 2 bunks, but we were upstairs, past another two beds and in our own little room, lovely!
Then we showered! Quite possibly the most satisfying shower I've ever had, for nearly a week the only hot water I'd had was in my food!
Without knowing what was around we wandered off from the hostel and found Jingshan park. The park is wonderfully landscaped and we could see a pagoda right up high. We found the steps and missioned it up to the top.
Our timing was perfect, this was one of the hightest points in the Beijing and right in the centre so we had 360 degree views of the city and the beautiful sunset, probably made even better by the weird colours created by the smog!
Back in the hostel we had our first proper chinese food, a massive plate of sweet and sour chicken and rice, washed down with more yukky chinese beer. At 25p a pint however I couldn't really complain I was being ripped off.
Day 2 started with a trip to buy contact lenses. Not really note-worthy were it not for the great customer service. We were sat down, handed a cup of tea and I picked my lenses. The guy paused for a second, then asked us in pretty good English which country we were from. We told him.
'ahhhh, you did very good olympics!' he said with a massive grin.
It turned out they didn't have my prescription.
Sunset
No problem. More tea came, a phone call was made and 10 minutes later from somewhere in the city they arrived by bike-and I was going to have to wait a week for them in England!We walked off to a nearby palace, former residence of Prince Gong. The palace was built in the late 18th century and was our first real taste of seeing how you lived if you were important in China! The architecture is spectacular and wondering around the gardens and lake was a fantastic way to spend an hour, if you could avoid the massive groups of Chinese tourists, complete with matching Nike baseball caps!
We spent the afternoon wandering down to Tiananmen square. Having missed out on the chance of seeing Lenin we failed to cross another communist dictator off our list of people to meet. Chairman Mao only comes up in the morning before returning to his little fridge. I have read, however, that they made a wax-work of him incase the preservation didn't quite work, and that it may well be this that they put on show. Anyway, you couldn't really miss him around Tiananmen, what with the huge painting and the hilarious wavy-arm watches that the hawkers try to sell you!
In the evening we'd arranged to meet the German guys and Swedish girls from the train. We were going for Peking Duck, to a place recommended by our hostel. What looked like a short walk turned out to be a good 30 minute trek, the map drawn for us was not quite to scale! We arrived at Quanjude Roast Duck, the original and in business since 1864.
Duck, and Chinese food in general, is quite common in England but our European friends had never tried it before. Peking Roast duck is very different from our crispy aromatic duck, which was invented in England and is, suprise suprise deep fried!
It's quite an experience, our servers outnumbered us and no sooner had we ordered than the 3 ducks were brought to our table. They are swiftly cut up and placed on the table along with the pancakes, spring onion and sauce.
They don't waste anything, and I mean anything! (you should probably scroll down a bit if you're vegetarian, or like feeding ducks in the park!)
The head is split in 2 and placed underneath the various other internal organs.
Same sunset
The tongues are then draped on top and the carcass is taken away and returned in soup form.I was brave enough to taste the soup, it was horrible. However Andre and Leonie, a doctor from New Zealand who was our room-mate in the hostel, took it upon themselves to out-organ each other. Both ate brain, and other bits before Andre finished off a whole half-a-head, very impressive but truly grotesque to watch.
On the whole I was a little dissapointed, the skin isn't as crispy as our version and the sweet plum sauce is replaced by a bitter varient. It was a great experience though and we were even handed a certificate, informing us we'd just eaten #733,476 and his friends 733,477 & 733,478!
Not satisfied with their eating contest, Leoni and Andre wanted to try Scorpions from the night market so we went off there in taxis. Unfortunately the night market shuts at 10pm, more of an evening market really, so with the rain starting to fall, our first since England, we went back to the boy's hostel to drink the night away.
