Back From Beijing

This past week was the Chinese National Day holiday, a holiday that mostly involves an obscene display of military power in Mainland China and nothing in Hong Kong except a massive influx of Mainland Chinese tourists.  I, instead of staying here, however, decided to flock, along with the rest of China, to Beijing for the holiday.

In mainland China, there are hardly any public holidays.  Instead, they get a week off in the fall around the National Day holiday and it's called "golden week".  Hong Kong people just get National Day off.  When I told my Chinese tutor that I was thinking of going to Beijing during this aforementioned "golden week" she looked at me like I had suggested I'd saw my left arm off there and then and asked me why in the world I would want to go there during that time. But, go I did.

Before I even left, I was in doubt that the trip would actually work out.  To start off my trip, I got detained at Hong Kong airport because of a visa problem (I got released, obviously, and that experience will be a whole other blog post) but finally made my flight.  But backing up, I couldn't get a Chinese visa (a must for Americans) because of this same visa problem.  So I found a way to circumvent the problem by taking advantage of the 72 hour transit visa that is offered to tourists landing in select Chinese cities.  It's awesome, actually, because you save yourself a BUM LOAD of money and don't have to go through the process of applying for the visa, but it's only for 72 hours.  Give and take, I say.

If you're wondering how this works, here's the skinny:

You must be transiting from one country to China to a third country to take advantage.  (Hong Kong --> Korea --> Beijing for example is okay.  United States --> Beijing --> United States wouldn't work, because the beginning and ending countries are the same. Savvy?

You must have a passport from a certain country.  Here's the list, it's too long to type.  http://www.travelchinaguide.com/embassy/visa/free-72hour/

You must really know what you're talking about.  I had trouble explaining this to every gate agent I checked in with from Hong Kong to Seoul.  People just aren't aware of the policy and really don't want to let you fly to China if you don't have a visa.  The first time I landed in China and used this policy (back in August) even the Chinese immigration officers didn't know what this policy was.  They were better this time.

When in doubt, here's a picture I took at the Beijing airport, for proof.  

 

I'm not making this stuff up!

  
Anyway.  With that done, I managed to get into Beijing with no problem.  My friend Heather who had arrived a day before me came to pick me up and we went into the city on the Airport Express (Which I highly recommend.  It's fast and cheap, which is a pretty good combo in my opinion). 

Once you get into the city, it's pretty easy to transfer to one of the regular Metro lines.  I was surprised at how much the Metro felt like the Hong Kong metro until I realized that the MTR corporation (owner of the HK metro) also owns the Beijing one.  So there ya go.  At our transfer station, Dongzhimen, there were THRONGS of people.  It also didn't help that we got there right at rush hour.  Exhibit A:

From there, my intrepid friend, Heather, easily navigated us to the exit for my friend's apartment at which point, I quickly unloaded my stuff and then we went to dinner.  What did we have, you ask?
This, friends.  

 Some of you might be judging me right now.  You might be thinking, Texas Barbeque? Can't you get that at home? Why didn't you eat Beijing food?! Well, the answer here is clear - there's never a wrong time for Texas Barbeque and there certainly isn't one of these in Hong Kong.  And the over the top Texan decor in the restaurant and blaring country tunes drew me in like a beam to an alien ship.  So there.


After that, we all headed back to my friend's place for a good night's sleep before heading out the next day.  We had planned to do the great wall that day, because we had heard that the Forbidden City and Tiananmen square were going to be absolutely nutso.  Unfortunately, when we woke up the next day, it was lightning and POURING rain outside.  Nowhere anybody wanted to be.  So we hung out at the apartment and at about 11:30 decided to go out for some lunch.  Right as we exited the building, the most gorgeous blue skies opened up, a cool breeze was blowing and the day became perfect.  We could not have asked for better weather.

It was already much too late to go the great wall, so we decided to head over to the Forbidden City and take our chances with the crowds.  We decided to climb to the top of the hill at Jingshan Park, where this is this gorgeous view looking South over the Forbidden City and the rest of Beijing.  I'd visited here when I was in Beijing in August, but I could see hardly anything because of the horrible smog.  Here's another picture for comparison's sake...

After that, we had planned to walk right across the street and into the North Entrance to the Forbidden City.  But when we got there, we discovered that the gate was being used as an exit only for the sake of crowd control.  We then walked ALL the way around the Forbidden City to the South Gate where we were then allowed in.  There are really no words to describe how awesome this place is.  It's the largest group of preserved wooden structures in the world.  And to think that all of this has been around for hundreds of years is totally mind-blowing.  The sheer scale of the Forbidden City is enough to make you completely awestruck, but the ornate detail is what really caught my eye.  Here's the corner of one of the buildings...

We were so lucky to have blue skies...

 After we finished at the Forbidden City, we headed out the North Gate and realized that unfortunately, Tiananmen Square, our next destination was again on the South side of the Forbidden City.  Noticing that the crowds had thickened, we decided to just hail whatever form of transportation we could.  The first guy that stopped for us was not a taxi but a sort of rickshaw that looked like a chrome refrigerator on the back of a bicycle with windows in it.  We sat in the refrigerator portion as our rickshaw man smoked and hummed happily to himself as he darted in and out of cars, buses, and all sorts of street vendors.  I will say that I'm glad we didn't walk.  My feet were TOTALLY dead by this point.

In the refrigerator rickshaw

Lots of random traffic all around the Forbidden City

We arrived at Tiananmen square after taking a wrong turn and almost getting on the Metro instead.  We made a little bit of a scene when after a lady in line started touching my hair and talking about me to her friend in Mandarin I tried to politely ask her to please not touch my hair anymore and she went NUTS that I spoke Mandarin. She was screaming out "This foreigner speaks Mandarin! This foreigner speaks Mandarin!" It was a little much for me, to be honest. But fortunately, she was then really inclined to help me figure out where we needed to go, which was not in the line we were waiting in.  So all's well that ends well... As we arrived at Tiananmen square, we could see just people upon people upon people.  I read in the South China Morning post today that there were over 110,000 people in the square.  It felt like it!

So many soldiers.  And our cell phones mysteriously had NO signal the whole time were there...

Loads of people coming out of the MTR into the square. 

By that point, we were more or less done with all of that craziness.  We decided to head away from the square in hopes of catching a taxi, which we never managed to do.  We did manage to hail another motorbike/rickshaw and asked the driver to take us to a place Heather and Kenny had been on her first night in Beijing.  I showed the driver the address and he nodded and said he could take us there for the low price of 60 Kuai (about $10US).  It was a good deal so we went.

Somewhere about 45 minutes later, we were driving around aimlessly and the driver stopped about every block or two to try and ask directions.  I hadn't been there, so I was almost useless in helping us find our way.  At one point, he turned to go onto one of the ring roads which was a terrible idea, so I told him so.  He then veered to the left into ONCOMING TRAFFIC! Luckily at that point it was just a bike lane.  The strangest part is that the people who were going the right way didn't seem bothered or uncomfortable at all with the fact that this rickshaw man was going the wrong direction.

Later, however, we started driving on the wrong side of the road in earnest with cars, bikes, and motorcycles zipping past us like salmon swimming upstream.  It was terrifying to say the least but I couldn't stop laughing for some reason.  Finally I was able to describe to our rickshaw man where we needed to go and he got us within a few blocks of our destination.  He wanted more money, but I told him that it certainly wasn't our fault that he didn't know where he was going! He laughed and gave me a kindly pat on the shoulder and off we went.  Unfortunately, my jacket also went off with the rickshaw man to live a new life somewhere in Beijing.

We had a great dinner at a small restaurant next to a huge commercial outdoor mall space that was actually awesome. Since my jacket had left me and the weather was hovering in the fifties, I had to get a new one.  I decided to just bite the bullet and get a North Face shell, which I had been thinking about for a long time. So I'm now the proud owner of an awesome teal North Face jacket which has a lot of good memories attached.

The next day, we got up early and headed out to the Great Wall. We went through a lot of debate about which section to visit (there are about 8 sections within driving distance of Beijing, each with pros and cons) but we decided to visit Mutianyu, a less touristy section than the oh-so-popular Badaling section. Mutianyu also has a cable car to take you to the top of the Great Wall which was awesome since the Great Wall runs along the ridgeline of well, a mountain. 

We decided to hire a taxi to get there because we couldn't figure out how to get there on a bus without it taking a million years.  We hailed a driver who quoted us 600kuai (about 100usd) to take us the 2ish hours up, wait a few hours and then drive us back.  It was a good deal.

Beijing traffic is no fun

We headed North and got stuck in the oh-so-famous Beijing traffic.  Eventually, though, we broke through it all and saw the mountains rising up quickly before us.  We would our way through mountain roads and finally made it to the base of the cable car area.  Heather and I grabbed a quick lunch that was actually decent, considering we were in the middle of an area overrun with tourists in the middle of nowhere.

We bought our cable car tickets, trekked up a hill and tried to get on, only to discover that we also needed a ticket for the Great Wall itself.  Not very efficient, but whatever.  So we went back down, bought our Great Wall tickets and then went up again.  As our car rose above the tree tops, we could really see the wall for the first time and it was SPECTACULAR.  It was one of those moments that I will never forget.

We got out of the cable car and turned right to explore some of the wall.  It was incredible to think that these stones were hauled up the very large mountain we'd just ascended in a matter of minutes.  We took loads of pictures and had loads of pictures taken of us.  We even had several people come up to us and ask to take pictures with us which of course we obliged.

It was surreal to be standing on this wall, looking out over the most beautiful mountains and to think about how incredible it must have been to stand on that wall when it was originally built.  History geek out, for sure.


Here are some of the best shots that I took.  My friend Heather is a professional photographer, so hers are lightyears better than mine.  Maybe I'll post some of those when I get a chance.

That night, we met up again with Kenny and had dinner at a Chinese restaurant where I ate, among other things Crawfish in a spicy oily sauce, Chicken Hearts and Lamb fat.  I can now check those off the list and assure you that I don't think I'll need to eat those again for some time.

We then went to some of the Hutongs (alleys) in Northeastern Beijing and explored some great local bars, shops and just took in the local culture.  At the first place we went, we had a couple of local girls come up to us and ask for our phone numbers.  They were so excited to talk to us and asked if we could keep in contact.  Kenny joked with us that if we wanted to go meet some Chinese men we'd have no problem, since even girls were asking for our phone numbers!  We went to another place that was super cozy and we all sat around catching up.  I love good conversations about real things, so that was an awesome time for me.  Heather and I rounded out the night at a Jazz place while Kenny went home because he had to be at an event early the next morning.

Early the next day, Heather had to leave, so I got her off to the airport, tidied up the apartment and headed to the silk market to do a little bit of shopping.  I'd say what I got but then my family wouldn't be surprised, so you'll just have to wait and see!

Phew.  There's a whirlwind 71 hours in Beijing for you!

Til next time,

The Adventurer

(Even China has chinglish!)