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Hello again everyone, here is my blog about my trip to Beijing this month.
Overall I enjoyed the trip, although two weeks in Beijing is too long and by the end I just wanted to get home.
So I left Changsha on Wednesday 7th January 2009. Because the biggest Chinese holiday of the year begins is in January, namely the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year), there were very few train tickets available and we had to go first class. In China this is called Soft Sleeper. Soft Sleeper means that you get a cabin shared with 3 others and it is supposed to be luxurious. The cabin that Jonny and I shared was quite nice and included our own TV each (but all in Chinese though). We did however, have to pay a lot for this luxury - 500 Yuan each (roughly 50 pounds).
We arrived in Beijing at 7am after a reasonably quick 13 hour journey. We immediately went to the ticket desk to buy tickets to Zhangjiakou (a city further north where we had planned to visit a friend of Jonny's for a couple of days and then come back to Beijing). However, that was where things began to go wrong! The place was full of queues and so like any good British person, we got in line and waited patiently. The ticket desks weren't open at first so we had to wait until 8am for them to open. At 8am the ticket desks opened and we expected to be out of there within 20 minutes. But the queues didn't move. We didn't understand why and tried to work out the reason until finally, at 9am, we had had enough. We decided to go and find our hostel and stay there for one night, before heading to Zhangjiakou the next day instead.
Luckily, Jonny had been to Beijing a year before so he knew roughly where to go and what to do. We found the subway and it took us straight to Qianmen station, which was only 15 minutes walk from the hostel. After wandering around hutongs (old chinese streets) for a few minutes we eventually found the Hostel and checked in. That afternoon we headed to a different train station and bought our tickets to Zhangjiakou for the following day. Another teacher from the same university as us was up in Beijing getting a visa for his Chinese wife to visis europe with him for the holiday, so we met up with him in Tiananmen square later that afternoon.
We decided to go and try some Peking Duck. This is beijing's most famous cuisine, so we had to have it. We went to a very posh restaurant and had the duck there with pancakes and plum sauce. It was very expensive though at 168 Yuan plus extra's and we were not happy with the amount of food we recieved. So after that dissappointing experience, we headed outside to the lake. Because it was around minus 10 in Beijing, the lake had frozen over and people were Ice Skating on it. Me, admin and his wife decided to have a go. Jonny couldn't because he had a bad shoulder. It was good fun although it took me a long time to stop holding the fence on my way round.
The next day was another day of travel as we had to get to Zhangjiakou. We had booked hard seats (the worst class of seats) because they were cheap and the journey was only supposed to take 3 hours. It didn't! It took 5 hours! We arrived in Zhangjiakou at 8pm and were met by Jonny's friend Sunny. It was his little cousin's birthday so we attended a party and had a very nice meal there with the family. The food in Beijing and North China is much closer to British food and they eat a lot of potatoes and lamb and things like that (unlike Hunan food which is mostly rice, beef and spicy foods). Then we went to our hotel.
The next morning was Saturday 10th January. Sunny had kindly arranged to take us to see the best tourist site in his city - part of the Great Wall of China. Although this wasn't much like the wall that tourists normally go to, it was more authentic because it wasn't as restored. I really enjoyed seeing this and took lots of photos. The weather was very cold, but the views were stunning and there was even some snow on the ground. We climbed the wall for a good hour I think and then I came back down because it was tiring for me, as it was all uphill, the others carried on for 10 minutes and then came back too. Later that day we went to KFC and wandered round the shops before heading back to the Hotel. The family had paid for us to have another quite expensive looking meal at the hotel that night (the Chinese are excellant hosts) and I got to try donkey!
Sunday was our final day in Zhangjiakou and so we got up late and went and had Northen Chinese Hot Pot with Sunny and his friends. The train back to Beijing was shorter at only 4 hours because we got a quicker train and so by 8pm we were back in our Hostel in Beijing. That night we went to a Muslim restaurant near the hostel and managed to have some naan bread...It was so good!
Monday was a mixed day. Some was good, some wasn't so good. We had planned to do the Zoo and then the Military Museum. We went to the Zoo in the morning and had a look around. To be honest, it wasn't as good as we hoped. The Chinese clearly have no idea how to look after animals properly and it seemed quite cruel. On top of that, many things were closed or the animals weren't there. Despite that however, we did see some interesting things, and I got to see Panda's, which was my whole reason for going there. One Panda in particular seemed to like the attention because as soon as he realised people had gathered to take photo's, he began to climb onto a frame and show off. The more we laughed, the more he did acrobatic type things. It was very funny. After the Zoo, we headed to the subway and went to the Military Museum, but it was closed. Most things in China seem to be closed on Mondays. Then we decided to head for the English pub mentioned in the Lonely Planet and try some Steak and Kidney pie. Being away from British food for so long does give you withdrawal symptoms so we were looking forward to this. While trying to look for this pub we came across a street full of russian shops and buildings, it was Beijing's own little Russia. This was an interesting experience for me as I've never been to Russia, and it was funny to hear Chinese people trying to speak to us in Russian. Eventually we found the Pub.....except it wasn't. The Pub had been turned into a Bookshop. We were fed up now and decided to head back to the Hostel to make plans for the evening. That evening, we decided to go to the Night Market where they sell the exotic foods. The foods are very expensive but it was worth it just to say we've tried it. I managed to eat Scorpion, a Cricket and a Lavae thing. The latter made me feel sick but the Scorpion and Cricket didn't taste too bad. I also tried fried icecream, which was just weird!
On Tuesday we wanted to go to Mao's Mausoleum but it closed by 12 so we had to leave early. We got to Tiananmen about 11.30 and headed straight for it. However, everything in Tiananmen is so controlled and so we had to wander right round the Mausoleum to get in. Then we learnt that we were not allowed to take Camera's in. Luckily, a Chinese man came up to us and showed us where to put it, which was another 5 minutes walk away from Tiananmen. He then had the cheek to ask for 50 Yuan for showing us. I would have given him five Yuan but only had 100 Yuan's on me so in the end I just gave him all the change I had which was two Yuan. One thing I have found with the Chinese people is they are out to get as much from you as possible. Their government tell them that it's their Patriotic duty to rip off the foreigner and so they do.
We entered Mao's Mausoleum which is made up of three rooms. The first is a room with a big statue of Mao sat on a chair surrounded with lots of flowers and a background of clouds (making it look like he's in heaven looking down on China). Then we entered the room where Mao's body is Preseved. It's so obviously a fake its not funny. The skin is yellow and the hair looks very very unreal. We were very quickly shuffled past so we had no way to make sure it wasn't real. We entered the last room of Mao memorabilia and then quickly exited. Jonny wanted to treat one of the hostel staff to lunch, so we went to a restaurant and had some food with her. We spent the afternoon at the hostel and met a few new friends there. In the evening we went to a bar in another part of Beijing and found a western fish and chip shop....with the real smell too, so naturally we had to try some chips.
On Wednesday I wanted to go see the Forbidden City. Jonny had already been there before so I went alone. It is a massive place where the Emporer's would live and govern China from until the early 20th Century. The architecture was very interesting. It took me four hours to look round the whole thing and then I left to go back to the hostel. That afternoon we planned to go to the Beijing Olympic stadium, which although its a hassle to get to on the tube, was worth it I think. We went to the Stadium and saw it from the outside (we could have gone in but they wanted 50 Yuan, which I wasn't prepared to pay). We also saw the other Olympic buildings. When I was in the UK, I saw a program about the new CCTV building which was a modern engineering masterpiece, so we went to see that after the Olympic area. It is a magnificent building with a bridge that come out from the two towers but has nothing to hold it in place. In the evening we went back to the hostel and watched Hancock and the new Indiana Jones film as we had nothing better to do.
The next day we decided to attempt the Military Museum again. This time we were more successful. It was very interesting, although the Propoganda was just funny...especially their view that their system is "Communism with Chinese Characteristics"...or in layman's terms Totalitarian Capitalism. They had tanks, guns and planes at the Museum, all of which were very interesting. After that we had planned to go bowling in the evening so we looked around for a bowling alley for two hours. We couldn't find one so in the end we went back to the Hostel. One of the staff there took us to a cinema, the oldest cinema in China where we watched a film called Red Cliff 2. It was in Chinese but had engish subtitles. I thought it was brilliant and really enjoyed it. The cinema was the oldest in Beijing and it was done out like an old cinema from the 1930's. It was quite an experience.
Friday was the day to finish off the major tourist sites for me. Jonny had seen them before so I was on my own again. First I went to see the Temple of Heaven, where the Emporer would pray for good harvests. The Temple was a big round pavillion and had the same architecture as the Forbidden City. After that I took a one hour bus ride to the Summer Palace. This is, in my opinion, the best tourist site in China. It is absolutely amazing and very beautiful. It is basically a big park where the Emporers would come in the holiday. It includes temples, massive lakes and the longest corridor in the world. The architecture is again similar to the Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven. I wandered round this vast park for 3 hours and because the lakes were frozen I was even able to walk on the Ice. In the evening we went to an English bookshop we had found a few days before and spent the evening looking for good books...I bought a book called Night Watch.
Jonny was ill the next few days so I decided to go to the Science and Technology Museum. This was dissappointing. Apart from everything being in Chinese, it was more for Children than anything else. On top of that, these 14 year old girls were trying to be my friend and follow me around. I tried to be nice, but they did get on my nerves a lot. Also it took me 2 hours of walking to find the place and I had to ask many Chinese people for directions. Most of which are wrong. That another bad thing about the Chinese, they have no idea how to give directions. Ask three people the same thing and they will point you in three different directions. I got back in the evening and watched Tropic Thunder. This was the last touristy thing I did in Beijing.
It was now Sunday 18th January and the Chinese New Year was only 8 days away, but both me and Jonny were bored of Beijing. We kept asking at the hostel for tickets but they just kept saying the one Chinese phrase we have come to dread above all others....Mei You La...Don't Have. There were no train tickets available and the planes were too expensive. We had seen most of the tourist sites and so we spent the next two days hanging round the hostel wondering what to do with ourselves. Eventually, on 20th we were so bored that Jonny came up with a plan to get us back home. We worked out that we could get train tickets to Shanghai and then fly back to Changsha from there. It was a hassle and cost us 1400 Yuan each (140 pounds) but at least we'd be home, so that's what we did.
The Journey home wasn't that great, although I did get to travel on the Maglev at over 300km per hour. And I got to see Shanghai again, the second time i've been there and again only for a few hours. But at least everything went reasonably smoothly and I got home. Overall, I enjoyed my time in Beijing and I got to see and experience a lot. Apart from seeing the Terracotta Army, I have now done and experienced everything in China that I wanted to. I look forward to getting back to the UK. I don't know whether I will blog again before then, but I will definetely do another one when I do get home. So for now, Zaijian.
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