Beijing
Trip Start
Apr 03, 2008
1
19
26
Trip End
Jul 02, 2008
Beijing,
China
Sunday, May 25, 2008
We are now in Beijing, and the last couple of days in China before we head to Mongolia on Tuesday morning. I'll give you a round-up of what we've been up to over the last week.
On Saturday 17th May we didn't get much done - after packing our things away and having some food outside at the hostel for lunch we checked out of the hostel in Xi'an, leaving our luggage there for the day, and spent the afternoon shopping in the Muslim quarter for food for the train journey to Beijing. We had a spicy tofu dish, some savoury filled pancakes, persimmon cakes and bean curd cakes as well. The latter were very dry and sweet, but everything was good. Our favourites have to be the filled pancakes though - they're so delicious and come with lots of different fillings.
We headed back to the hostel to collect our bags, and headed to the station in plenty of time for the train at 6.30pm. As we got ready to leave the hostel the heavens opened, and even crossing the pavement from the door to the taxi outside we got drenched! This was the first rain we'd had since Shanghai, and it was really impressive - just wish we hadn't been caught in it!
The train left Beijing at around 2030, and other than playing some cards and eating our dinner, we mainly just slept for the 11 hour trip. We were in a hard sleeper, with middle beds again, and slept very well. For much of the journey we could see lightning from the train windows, so there must have been some serious storms going on! The train we were on was the Lhasa to Beijing train, and there were oxygen outlets above the beds for when the train crosses high in the mountains.
We arrived in Beijing at about 7am, caught a bus to Qianmen and walked to Leo Hostel where we had booked to stay. We showered and settled in before getting an early lunch at the hostel bar and heading out onto nearby Tiananmen Sq. We walked around the square, and then walked around the outside walls of the Forbidden City towards Jingshan Park to the north of the Forbidden City. The park is lovely, with peonies planted everywhere (when we were there we saw lots of children painting pictures of the flowers), and also a lot of singing and dancing going on. From the pavillions on top of the hill there was an amazing view of the rooves of the Forbidden city, so we took lots of pictures!
From the park we explored the Hutongs in the area (these are the narrow lanes of one storey buildings that still a quarter of Beijing residents live in). We found some kebabs to eat, and then went for a coffee in 'Bar Street' before doing some shopping. We have dinner in a Tibetan restaurant. The decor was beautiful, and the food was really interesting. We both tried butter tea, as we believe it's popular in Mongolia and we wanted to prime our taste buds! It's actually very nice, so I'm looking forward to some more. After dinner we walked back to the hostel and went to bed - it had been a long day!
On Monday 19th May we were up early again, this time to go on the hostel's 'Secret Wall Tour'. This tour was recommended to us by a friend we met on our trip, and was the reason we chose the hostel. The trip left the hostel at 0730, driving in a minibus of 12 people for 2.5 hours to a remote area of the Great Wall. When we arrived, we met a local guide (a little old lady who spoke no English and walked with a stick - she was very sweet!) and set off walking up to the Wall, and along it, for about 3 hours. The stretch of wall was beautiful - unrestored so that the climb was tricky at times (I slipped over embarrassingly...) - and deserted. We saw only 2 other walkers on our whole trip - totally different to the restored areas of the wall where there are hawkers selling things to you as you walk along! We walked back to the guide's village for a very nice vegetarian lunch, and then got the minibus back to the hostel. We watched a film in the bar, had a shower and then headed out to a nearby roast duck restaurant for dinner. It was great value, and really nice food. I think we have mastered the skill of rolling the pancakes and eating them entirely with chopsticks, but it's not as neat as the locals!
Again, we were up pretty early on Tuesday 20th May, this time to meet up with Carine, the French girl who we met in Xi'an on our climb up Hua Shan. We met her just after 8am at a large shopping market called Sanlitun Yashow. We spent the whole morning in the market buying souvenirs and good value clothing - it's irresistable when the prices are that good!
After some lunch in the food court of the market, we headed back to the 'Bar Street' area of town to find a new hostel. Leo's was fun, but very noisy at night - annoying when you're trying to get up early! The hostel round there was fully booked, so we decided to ring around later in the evening to enquire about the following day. We stoppe at a cafe for drinks and cake before getting a taxi to the place we needed to collect our trans-mongolian train tickets from. Although it took a while to find the place, they were very helpful and presented our tickets without a problem.
We walked back to Leo's via a different area of Hutongs, and I made the mistake of going into one of the public toilets (none of the hutongs have toilets in the houses, so communal toilets are used) - which were WAY too public for my liking...!
Once we got back to the hostel we had a beer in the bar and then headed to a reataurant just over the road. It has a TV that played an English language documentary about Chairman Mao (!) and the food was good and cheap. We decided to name it the 'anti-communist cafe', as it certainly had that sort of feeling about it.
On Wednesday 21st May we were up ridiculously early - 0430 (!) to try to catch the sunrise flag raising ceremony in Tiananmen Sq. Unfortunately the sun rises very early here, and by the time we arrived, it was all over! We couldn't believe that there were tour groups out at that hour to see the ceremony - we just couldn't believe how busy it was! Back at the hostel we showered and had breakfast, then at 0800 headed to Tiananmen Sq again to see the Chairman Mao mausoleum. We weren't allowed in as Ali had flip flops on, and it turns out you need to wear covered shoes. We didn't have time to change and then come back, so we decided to leave it for another time.
We went pack to the hostel to pack our bags and we checked out, leaving our bags in storage for the day. Together with a friend we had made at the hostel, we went to the Forbidden City at about 1030. Ali and I stayed until closing time (5pm) - there's just so much to see! It's a real maze of buildings, and everything is so beautiful and interesting. I rented an audioguide which was very clever as it worked using GPS to work out where you are and what recording to play you regarding that location.
After returning to the hostel to collect our bags, we headed to the new hostel that we had booked - Lama Temple - on the metro. It was in a very interesting area of town, but the hostel itself wasvery quiet, we we just watched a film, got some dinner at a nearby restaurant, and went to bed. We weren't very happy with our room as it had no window and so was very dark. We decided to stick with it for a couple of nights to see the sights that we wanted to see though.
On Thursday 22nd May we had breakfast in the hostel and washed some of our clothes. Then we headed to Lama Temple via the local hutongs, for a bit more exploring. Lama Temple was wonderful - the largest Tibetan Buddhist Temple outside of Tibet, and so impressive. At the back hall (of many!) there is an enormous (26m high) buddha that is carved from one single piece of sandalwood. It is unbelievable to look at. Back at the hostel we made ourselves some cheap instant noodles for a quick late lunch, grabbed our clean washing, and headed out to find the Olympic stadium. We ended up walking through a sort of construction site, but nobody stoppped us so it turned out to be a useful shortcut! We only saw the Olympic park from a distance, but later discovered that it was possible to go in and see warm up events (or maybe qualification events) inside the stadium!
After getting a taxi back to the hostel, we headed out onto 'Food Street' - a street full of restaurants - for some dinner. We ended up in a bad one though - the food was bad, and in the tanks behind me there were some very unhappy looking fish and turtles... We didn't enjoy our meal. To make up for it we headed towards the Bell and Drum towersand found a nice bar with a rooftop terrace for a couple of drinks. It was called The Drum and Bell.
On Friday 23rd May we had a walk around the local area of the Lame Temple hostel, but then checked out of the hostel and returned to Leo's! We decided that we preferred a lively place with a bit of noise to a dead place! Once we got to Leo's we had some lunch and then walked to the Temple of Heaven for the afternoon. We really enjoyed the park, although some of the smaller sights were unbearably crowded. The buildings are really beautiful though. On our way out of the East gate we went into the Pearl Market, and bought some shoes! (It obviously doesn't only sell pearls!)
For dinner we headed to Lao She Teahouse, where over a wonderful dinner and great tea we saw a shadow puppet show, and martial arts style tea pouring with metal teapots that had really long spouts! It was great fun and comes highly recommended.
On Saturday 24th May we went to a nearby hostel called 365 (which comes highly recommended by friends that we have met here) to get some breakfast. It's only 20 metres down the same road as Leo's, and made a nice change. Then we got a picnic from the supermarket (including lovely mini mangoes) to take to the Summer Palace with us.
From Qianmen we caught the number 826 bus to the Summer Palace - it took about 1 hour 20 minutes, and we had to stand the whole way - it was not enjoyable at all! Inside the Palace there is so much to do - it's an enormous parl with a huge lake and many beautiful things to see inside. We spent about 5 hours there, and could spend many more. The lake reminded us of a smaller Hangzhou - it was quite strange! Heading back into town at about 5pm, the bus took closer to 2 hours, but luckily we had seats for the trip back. The bus got so crowded it was difficult to see where our stop was!
After a shower we headed to 'Snack Street' near the south of Wanfujing Dajie to investigate the street food. We were really disappointed as there was no good quality food - just unusual foods that is meant for shock rather than taste, like scorpions, seahorses, starfish and snake (which we unwittingly tried thinking it to be something else. Snake is disgusting and we do not recommend it!). We did find some vegetarian wraps and some kebabs, but they were nothing compared to the street food we've had in other Chinese cities. We headed back to the 365 bar for some dessert (I had a great homemade apple pie!) and a drink, then we went to bed.
Today, Sunday 25th May, we were up early and headed to Beihai park to try to see the typical morning outdoor activities of the Chinese people. We saw so many different things - many kinds of group exercise, fan dancing and strange games being played with bats and balls. It was really interesting and nice to see the parl while it was not too busy. After visiting the park I bought some really good steamed dumplings for breakfast, and then we went to Mao's mausoleum. That was a really strange experience - he looked so waxy and orange that I'm not convinced we saw the real thing (there are rumours that there is a summy Mao that is sometimes in the place of the real body). It was very interesting that so many Chinese people were in such reverence of him, even buying flowers to lay at the foot of a large statue of him.
After seeing Mao, we headed to the silk market to buy the last of our souvenirs, grabbed a sandwich for lunch, and then tried to locate a matinee performance of Beijing opera. We found one at Lao She Teahouse, so bought tickets and after dropping our things at the hostel, headed back there for the 3pm performance. It was certainly an interesting experience - that screeching sound must be difficult to achieve! After an hour and a half we had had enough, but we were pleased to have seen it. We have spent this evening getting some dinner locally and playing cards in the bar.
Hope you're all OK.
Kate xx
