China Part 2: Beijing

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Trip Start May 07, 2008 Previous
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  Beijing, China
Thursday, July 17, 2008

Hi everyone

Welcome to our China Trip part 2: Beijing. In typical Perryman style, we decided to live by the seat of our pants and not book a hotel as usual. Consequently, at Beijing airport Hotel booking desk, out of the 5 girls there we managed to get the dizziest one, with poor English and a knowledge of hotels akin to my knowledge of hotels in Malawi. Hotel was central. Room was a cave. Staff were curt. We checked out the next day into a much nicer place right next door to Tiananmen Square - but because of the scale of everything in Beijing, next door means a twenty minute walk! I offended the porter in this hotel though (I think!). I accidentally tipped him Hong Kong Dollars instead of Beijing currency and only about 30p's worth! Well...it's the thought that counts!

Beijing airport was AMAZING. Spotlessly clean, silent, security and police everywhere eyeing you up and 'models' wearing Olympic outfits for tourist photos! The place was breathtakingly massive. 3 escalators and a small electric train to take us to baggage collection!!

We walked around the Hotel's local area which is pedestrianised and full of shops and department stores and video screens. Oh and just in case you forgot while shopping...75foot billboards everywhere advertising the Olympics. We found a small side street that looked interesting, heaving with tourists and red lanterns billowing in the breeze. Very Chinese, very pretty...until....we spotted the goods!! A row of stalls selling Fried cockroaches, fried scorpians, fried silk worms, prawns, sea horses, maggots, snake....and everything skewered on a kebab stick.

Beijing airport

Pretty gross stuff. The scorpians were still alive and wriggling around on the stick. Nice. Suddenly I wasn't hungry. You know you get toffee apples at fairs? Well here they also had what looked like 'toffee' grapes, 'toffee' cherries etc all on sticks and dripping in syrup and sugar. You could also sip coconut juice from within it's shell too.

Our first night, we didn't leave the hotel room until approx 9pm. We didn't envisage this to be a problem for dinner. Oh, it was a big problem! Every restaurant closes at 9pm!!! And the ones that weren't, the menus were all in Chinese (obviously) so trying to ask waiters for fried chicken?? Or friend beef with vegetables?? was slightly frustrating! Our choices were narrow: street stalls with fried corn on the cob or beer! And I was complaining because....?! I wanted a decent meal. So we came across this back street restaurant tucked away where there were thankfully two tables of tourists in and on the windowsill were 4 jars with pickled whole snakes in! Pickled snake eh? you can't go wrong with a bit of pickled snake so we went in. The food we ordered was absolutely delicious - no snake though!

We visited Tiananmen Square which was ok. Just like going to Trafalgar Square really but bigger. It was teeming with hard-hat builders putting up stands, welding signs, fixing lights for the Olympics.

We visited The Forbidden City. This place was the size of London! 980 buildings within the 7 metre high City walls - an imperial palace from the mid-Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty as well as once being the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government.

Appetising..!

Construction took 15 years!!!! Absolutely fascinating place and rammed with tourists. Trying to get a photo was hilarious! See our photos!

The piece de resistence, of course was ...(drum roll please...) The Great Wall of China!!!!!!!!!!! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! Obviously, it wasn't possible to walk the whole length of it for 2 reasons. A) some of it has dangerously deteriorated away and b) it stretches over 4160 miles!! Built between 6th century BC and 16th century to protect borders of Chinese Empire from attacks during the rule of successive dynasties. 2-3 million Chinese died while constructing it!! The dead were buried under the Wall's paths during construction. Thought some of the paving slabs were a bit bumpy......

So...we only walked about 2 miles of it. There was a steep route or a pleasant stroll route. We chose the steep route! Ann, a German girl and Walter, a Singapore man came with us while some of the others in our group chose the easy route. When I say steep, what I actually mean is you crawl up on all fours!! Walking down was scary, just a sheer drop down. Incredible, magnificent, breathtaking views though. The sweat poured off of us and if you suffered from Vertigo, then you would be cured by the time you got to the top! Our route took just 1 hour or so despite the asthmatic climb up. So tempting to go on...and on...and on...but we had to head back to the coach or our tour guide would be sending out flares for us!! Climbing the Great Wall was just the most amazing experience ever.

Cockroaches

Incredible.

The day after the great wall, we went to sort out our china trip consisting of trains, planes and boats!
David still looked and felt like poo due to his cold but insisted on coming with me on another organised tour. Telling him to stay in bed was useless. We went to Lama Temple which was fascinating. So called because of the religion Lama-ism or something like that! A derivative of Buddhism - as in the Dalai Lama. A strong smell of incense burning greeted you as people prayed in front of the temples. We got to see the Guinness book of world records for the tallest Buddha statue, just a mere 17 metres tall and all carved out of 1 piece of sandalwood! incredible!

Next was panda zoo. Yay!!!! The pandas had lots of room to roam - no cages or anything and the place was vast with shops, restaurants, gardens, panda-viewing platforms little rivers, very pretty. However, it was a case of get to main panda-viewing house, ram yourself into the thronging melee of other panda-fanatics, get as good a photo as you can get from within the shoving Chinese stampede, then "got a good photo? Right! Ok! let's go go go!!" as our tour guide marched us out of the massive zoo like an army of ants to our waiting coach!! All done within 20mins!

Next stop was a carpet shop. Chinese girls looming up a masterpiece. And post-demonstration you had a chance to part with a £500 25x25 masterpiece!!! For some reason our tour guide though it important to spend at least 1 hour here which resulted in our 10-piece tour loitering around after just 20mins empty-handed and muttering "wanna see more pandas!!"

On our final day in Beijing we had until the evening before our train left for Xi'an (pronounced Shee-an) which is where the Terracotta army is based.

seahorses

I woke up thinking "for gods sakes! is it necessary to speak so loudly?!" cursing the guest in the room next door to us. When it didn't cease I stomped up to our window and, hiding naked behind the net curtains, suddenly shouted to David "quick! Come and look at this!" outside our hotel in the car park was a massive brass band, an army of stiff uniformed men, a platform with microphones and a small array of press flashing away!!!! Later on, we were told that it was a ceremony announcing that our hotel was the official IOC (International Olympic Committee) hotel where lots of VIP's would be staying (including Princess Anne!!!!!). Quite often we had seen lots of Olympic-clad people wandering around and the whole city was in panic mode with building, tidying, officiating and practising their customer service skills. Very exciting atmosphere. Actually, we were in Beijing probably at the best time ever. It was still relatively quiet and interesting to witness the preparations. Once the Olympics are in full force the city will be a crush of bodies. Glad we won't be there then.

We really enjoyed Beijing a lot. It's a beautiful city and as David eloquently put it "the men are very lucky!!" as we people watched one day! All of the women in Beijing, no matter the place, time or occasion, will dress up to the NINES. They are so elegant and feminine. Made me feel like a right heffalump in my combats, trainers and sweaty vest-breasts. When we went to sort out our China trip, we were taken into the finance dept of the tower-block sized travel company.

Anyone for snake??

Here, the women morosely shuffled paper and photocopied in grey 1980's office décor while wearing electric pink and lime green glittery spangly 12-inch heels and Come Dancing outfits!! It was like Angela Rippon doing the filing!! Women wiggled down streets in tight little dresses with killer heels and handbags you would sacrifice a lamb for!! My shopping mode suddenly hit "Imperative! Imperative!"

David: I used to play with matches and go off with strangers when I was younger, this is because I didn't pay any attention to what Charley had to say in those public information ads aimed at children. You know the ones, Charley would miow and the little boy would translate: Charley says: 'don't be a poxy twat - and - give us a fish'. If I had paid more attention to what Charley had to say I would be able to understand fluent Chinese. Because that is what Chinese sounds like: meow, meow, meeeowww... at least it does when you first arrive. Which puts a big grin on your face and you can't not like everyone.

I came to China with some trepidation, I've always wanted to come. The culture fascinates me, as does their vast history. But, there's that oppressive political thing. Which, after spending a day in Beijing is completely unfounded. Beijing is amazing. I have no idea what on earth Paul Merton was going on about when he said you can't go anywhere without an official guide or that he felt watched all the time. Utter rubbish. As is the rubbish about not being allowed into parts of the Forbidden City...

David astounded by size of Forbidden City!

yes there are about 100 rooms of the 9000 rooms there that you can't go in, but that's because they're being repaired.
Anyway, there is no feeling of oppression. You can go where you like, when you like, without a problem at all. People will come up to you in the street and ask where you are going, but they're not the secret police, they're normal people genuinely wanting to help you experience their city - perhaps his suspicious 24-hour British security camera'd brain got confused....

We were advised to try a McDonalds in every country we go to, to experience the cultural differences they have. One thing that struck me as odd, was that all the staff were over 40, as opposed to spotty teenagers back in the UK. Thinking about it, it then occurred to me that everyone I'd seen in Beijing that was in any way official was in fact a spotty teenager. On further examination I noticed that every street corner and park pagoda was thronging with OAPs lounging around, chatting, playing chess. But, not making a nuisance of themselves. I guess that's the way to do it, get the kids working and running the country while you enjoy your retirement. The Chinese know a thing or two about social orders J

Also, everyone I spoke to openly condemns Chairmen Mao. I was surprised by this, but they hate that bit of their past. Yes, there is still a great big picture of him up in the Square but that's part of the cultural heritage now, not there for adoration.

Other things I noticed was that the driving is fine: No worse than in Britain.

Everything is spotlessly clean as Lois says. Actually, I have a theory about this. In India, everyone is a vegetarian since nigh on every animal that walks is sacred or holy. Consequently, the streets are covered in cow manure, horse shit, dog poo and the place teems with insects. In China, they eat EVERYTHING. Which is probably why the place is spotless, and you're lucky to see a live animal that isn't skewered to a stick.

Everyone is friendly. And, the Chinese (that we've seen) have the most fantastic sense of humour. As most of officialdom is made up of hormonal adolescents flirting and mucking about it's a wonder everything runs so smoothly - but they seem to know when to be serious. And the history is mind boggling. I love it here. I've found a book on Chinese characters and I'm learning it.

...right that's enough David, this is my flaming blog!! Tch! No, he's right in everything he says. The more we travel the less inclined we are to believe what is printed in travel books/websites and to take what advice people give us with a pinch of salt. You just have to experience everything for yourself because everyone's encounters are so incredibly different.

Next: Xi'an and the terracotta army.

Love, us xxxx

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Going up Great Wall...

...going down Great Wall

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

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