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Beijing, China

Beijing felt as if we had stepped into a black and white movie, yet we were joined by the most colourful bunch of zoologists studying for their masters degree abroad. They were on their way to Mongolia to spend 10 days in yurts with rare Mongolian horses. They were all very well travelled and brought the excitement back into travelling. It was the kick in the butt we needed. Having an open, positive mind can turn the day around and bring the light to a country. So with that, I’ll continue about our day – first day on tour in Beijing.

The first stop was to the Temple of Heaven Park. This is one of Beijing’s most popular parks and it’s full of people of all ages (mostly ages 50-80yrs from what I saw) taking part in traditional pass times such as tai chi, fan dancing, diablo, card games and my favourite, the brass bands randomly situated with people gathered singing. Next stop was Temple of Heaven, a Taoist temple where emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties would offer sacrifices to heaven and pray for good harvests. (It was interesting being on tour with vegetarians at that point).
Now.. the Chinese lunch deserved its own blog as it was amazing. I think it was because we had eaten about 1 days worth of food in the last 3 days and we were starving. At the risk of sounding stupid, I also asked the guide if there were China towns in China. He responded respectfully (the answer was ‘no’ by the way). We then caught the subway to Tiananmen Square. The square is 400,000m2 and can fit 1,000,000 people in all at once and is the biggest square in the world. It was a short walk to enter the Forbidden City through the Gate of Heavenly Peace, which is adorned with its famous Mao portrait. Off-limits to commoners for 500 years, this ‘city’ houses the best preserved cluster of ancient buildings in China. This ‘city’ is 720,000m2, has 980 buildings, took 1,000,000 people to build and opened in 1420. My favourite bit of the tour was when we got a new perspective on this immense structure from the top of the pagoda in Jingshan Park. This view point, complete with giant golden statue is high on a man made hill overlooking the Forbidden City and Beijing City. The weather was terrible as I’m sure the pictures will indicate. The day was completed with Danishes and coffee with the Americans and then on to a tasty Chinese Restaurant (In China, it’s simply called a restaurant) where we had peking duck for the first time, served with pancakes. It was quite tasty and believe it or not the duck head looking at me didn’t bother me – wow, haven’t I changed!

Travelling with others and sharing traveller’s stories, even if only for a day, was fun. Other travellers were so similar. I felt we might stand out like dorks when travelling by ourselves with our practical backpacker’s gear but with other travellers we fitted right in. They even have those awful croc meets sandal shoe things we are wearing.

The next two days were slightly different than the first. We were the only 2 on tour, so the guide was just for us. Unfortunately it was a 3 day holiday there. From my understanding they were celebrating a poem about not being eaten by fishes??. The itinerary was slightly altered as we now couldn’t eat with the locals. The streets were much, much busier too. Any hoo – today was a bicycle tour through the winding alleyways and back streets around the Forbidden City. These alleyways are known as hutongs and are home to many residents as well as shops, markets, temples and historic buildings. It was interesting taking a glimpse into this traditional way of life and neighbourhood. Many traditional areas have been replaced with high rises. Fortunately this one is being preserved. To give a bit of context as to why they are so special, these houses (living, kitchen, bedroom) in their entirety range in size from between 4m2 – 14m2 and sleep two adults and one child. They are through a door in the alleyway. Depending on how many meter-boxes are outside, determines how many ‘houses’ are in each complex – many have 10. So that would be 10 families/houses x 3 family members = 30 people living in an area that’s no bigger than 80m2. Hopefully you’ll see how small they are in the pictures. The bathrooms are communal and shared between hundreds. The government has provided small green communal areas where people can go to enjoy the outdoors. Here, the locals asked if we wished to play table tennis with them – which was awesome! From there we went to the local markets where we saw traditional ingredients. It’s very different to a market back home. From here we rode around some man made lakes, quite odd seeing them so peacefully located right in the middle of the city. Of course they were built for the emperor. Once upon a time they were forbidden to commoners.

Bike riding through the hutongs and streets of Beijing was an experience in itself. To keep up with our guide and to literally not get walked over by the locals, you had to act as a local.

Our experiences of being walked through, over the last few days meant we had learnt how to do do it straight back. With that, we just rode over and through people. It’s a weird concept but quite liberating getting payback after being rammed by trollies and nearly driven into by a motorbike. At lunch, traditional dumpling soup, I finally got to ask the guide the question I’d been dying to ask. What is it like living in China, in a communist country? By the sound of it, it’s no different than Australia. Large businesses, railways and airport are owned by the government but that’s about it. She could read through my question and said China and Vietnam are nothing like some of the other communist countries. There are something like 52 religions. 23 million people live in Beijing and two thirds of them are “floaters”, people from outside Beijing. We also learnt that the average Beijing office worker’s yearly income is $11,000. Rent on a 65m2 2 bed apartment semi CBD is $1,000 per month or $800k to buy.

Dave’s still sick with the flu. After 3 weeks sick he was getting better but on Sunday walking around in the rain and freezing (20deg) conditions has made it worse. His recovery consists of beer and jam sandwiches for dinner in the room – again.

Final day on tour we were met by Casper the guide and the fanciest transport I’ve seen, to take us on the 2 hour trip to the Great Wall. We weren’t planning on paying the extra for the ski lift style transport up to the Wall and a toboggan down, but over the last few days it has been quite a hike so it was worth the $35. I’ve seen plenty of pictures of the Great Wall but they don’t do it justice. Seeing it in person, I can understand why it’s one of the seven medieval wonders of the world. I probably should have known this before going but it was built to keep the Mongolians out. It took 200 years to build and is 6350km long and was completed in the 17th century. They also call it the world’s biggest cemetery as 1 million people died building and protecting it. The ‘protectors’ spent 3 years in one stint guarding it and often died of poor, freezing living conditions, not actually the war. The modern day locals say you aren’t a hero until you visit the Wall. I’m unsure why, but it got us there! From the Great Wall, Casper took us to a fantastic Chinese restaurant
for local cuisine and specially requested sweet and sour pork, which is not as popular here as it is in Aussie. I’m unsure why as its ‘totz amaze’! Today’s question to Casper over lunch, was why the Chinese Government blocked Facebook, Skype etc. We couldn’t quite get a straight answer but learned that Google is also sometimes blocked. The last stop on this tour with leather seats, was to a traditional Chinese reflexology foot massage. 1 month in hiking boots and a 16kg back pack – We were in heaven.

Beijing, for me was quite frustrating. I struggled with what could be perceived as the rudeness of locals towards tourists, but I have since learnt it’s just the lack of English. Dave explained it’s just the way of life here and Confucius teaches doing what you have to do for yourself, looking after number 1. This may have been lost in translation but does explain a lot about their arrogance. We were blown away with China’s 5,000 year old history and its culture. It was well worth the stop, and like many places the more you spend time, the more you’ll uncover. I’d like to get out of the city and really get to know the people of China.

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