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China couldn't be more different to Japan.
On arrival at Beijing airport, this fact was bluntly demonstrated to us everywhere we looked. Gone were the polite queues for trains and the subway. Gone was the quiet, reserved passerby.
People don't like queuing in China. Despite the best efforts of the people who designed the metro system to mark out on the floor where people should wait (at the side of the doors) so that people on the train could get off safely, embarking and disembarking from trains is China is still akin to a rugby scrum.
Also, a lot of the time, people seem to have no concept of personal space, and have no qualms about getting in a person's way or pushing in front.
In a queue, recently, at a supermarket, Peet and I were waiting for the cashier to finish serving the person in front of us. We were waiting, as we Brits do, patiently with a little gap between us and the transaction so they could have privacy. Out of nowhere, a young woman pushes me aside and tries to walk past Peet with her basket so that she could be next! Luckily Peet quickly put a stop to it, and she walked off laughing, but I was so shocked! Who does that?! Seriously.
Anyway, needless to say, China is taking a bit of getting used to.
Another "interesting" social norm here is that it's completely OK to spit loudly in the street. And when I say loudly, I mean you can hear it 100m away. And it's not a cute little polite spit, if that exists, it's a full-bellied, take-a-step-back-and-hold-onto-something hawk.
When I first arrived in Japan, I was a little bit shocked to see how many people were wearing masks to cover their mouths (like a surgeon would). Peet explained they did this if they were feeling a bit ill, to prevent other people from catching things from them or vice versa if they were feeling a bit run down.
You may have guessed, it's not the same in China. Coughing and sneezing, not only may be done anywhere (away from people, towards people, over your food, over other people's food, etc), you also don't need to cover your mouth.
So yes, there was a massive culture shock upon arriving in Beijing.
Our first day was trying for other reasons too.
Straight away, we took the metro from the airport to where we thought was near our hotel (you may be able to see where this is going). The metro was a pretty stressful experience, for reasons mentioned previously, with suitcases and a strong dislike for large crowds of people in enclosed spaces thrown in. We knew our hotel was somewhere in the Fordbidden City, but there was no stop for that specifically, so we headed for Tiananmen Square.
After the map on my TripIt app deciding not to work anymore, we decided to ask for directions. Peet speaks fluent mandarin, so in theory it shouldn't've been difficult... but unfortunately, we discovered Chinese people need addresses to be written in Chinese (duh!).
Another thing we discovered at this point, was that it's practically IMPOSSIBLE to get a taxi in Beijing. Literally impossible after 10pm, 99% impossible the rest of the time. It's not because there's a shortage of taxis or that they're all busy, or that they don't stop. It's because they stop and actually refuse to take you - before even hearing where you want to go. We saw this happening to Chinese people too, so it wasn't a race-related thing. I've never seen anything like it before in my life.
We finally managed to get a couple of rickshaws to take us - one person and one suitcase in each.
It turns out however, that there are a few hotels in Beijing with a very similar name to the one we were staying at. We were expected at the Red Wall Garden Hotel, we arrived at the Red Wall Hotel.
And then, of course, the rickshaw drivers decided to try to rip us off since we were obviously fresh off the boat: "40 kwai? no, no, no, we meant 40 euros!"
40 yuan (or kwai, as they call it) is about £4-£5, 40 euros obviously isn't.
Happily, I let Peet deal with this. After a lot of tough wrangling in Chinese, while subtely looking up the word for "police" on his chinese dictionary app in the eyeline of the drivers, everyone suddenly came to an agreement.
And thankfully the Red Wall hotel staff took amazing care of us, and brought us a drink while they phoned our actual hotel and got them to pick us up.
The Red Wall Garden Hotel was in the hutong, which is like the old town of Beijing. All of the buildings are grey, and seem to have an inner courtyard. They're quite simple and are connected by dirt road/ pathways too narrow for cars.
When we actually arrived, it was like stumbling upon a precious diamond. We were pretty exhausted and stressed after our adventures to get there, and were so relieved to find it was tranquil and comfortable.
Our room was across the courtyard from the reception. We walked past budgerigars in cages, chirping away happily, and a little pond with a fountain, filled with koi carp and a turtle. There were little tables and chairs for sitting and reading at, with parasols to keep the sun off.
And the room itself was large, and traditionally decorated, but with a modern bathroom (YAY!). The entrance was a double set of windowed doors that opened onto a terrace overlooking the courtyard, with curtains to draw for privacy. It was completely perfect.
After we had a bit of time to recover, we went out into town to watch an acrobat performance at a small theatre, followed by authentic peking duck at a great restaurant. Finally I'm in a country where I adore the food :)
The acrobatic show was incredible. It was probably because I was so tired, but every stunt had me verging on tears of excitement. The most spectacular was a group of about 8 men, who were running across the stage and somersaulting through a hoop. They did it one by one, each one doing it slightly differently, but each one landing perfectly. Each time, the hoop got higher and smaller. It was almost too hard to watch, it was so exciting!
And then the duck was also amazing. It's carved in front of you by one of the chefs, in a very precise and deliberate manner. Then you get shown how to make your wrap. It's slightly more complex than the duck with cucumber we get at home: there's about 8 different things you can put inside. They showed us first of all, to eat the skin with sugar (which was sooooo good), and then to eat the meat with what can only be described as UBER garlic. It had such a kick to it, it almost blew my head off.
To make the actual wrap, using chopsticks naturally, you needed to firstly dip the duck in the hoisin sauce. You place 3 - no more than 3! (this was very important apparently) - in the middle at the top of your pancake. Then you add cucumber, spring onion, and a bunch of other colourful stuff which all tasted great though I still don't know what it is. And then you need to fold the pancake, still using your chopsticks: first the bottom up, then one side across and then the other. Except this was actually too difficult for the person showing us, so she had to call over one of her colleagues, who ALSO couldn't do it. So then they had to call over the chef, who deftly folded it and handed it to me.
Getting home was interesting, as mentioned before - you can't get a taxi after 10pm. Not realising this before, I had dolled myself up and left the house in my high heels, which it turns out aren't great when needing to walk 10k back to your hotel!
All in all, it was an interesting first day in China.
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