Beijing, China 10-1-09

I’m in China! Walking through the airport, stuffing into a subway, and making my way through the city on that first day is something I will never forget. After traveling through Europe for a couple months, I thought I was pretty good with the language barrier thing, but China is a whole other animal! It is very rare to find someone here who speaks English and the only word I know in Chinese is Ni Hao (hello).

Josh, a friend of mine from back home, really hooked me up and was able to get me a room at a nice hotel in Beijing for a few nights. I had the hotel name and address written down and when I was at the airport withdrawing money, I had someone write the hotel name down in Chinese characters. I was able to get an idea of which metro I had to take to get there and started towards the hotel.

The security in China is ridiculous, they make you and your bags go through scanners every time you enter a subway station, train station, or popular tourist site. After taking my 21kg bag on and off a few times, I was ready to get to my hotel. I kept showing my Chinese character piece of paper to everyone and followed the pointed fingers until I eventually ended up at my hotel, Jianjuo Hotel in Beijing. The place way gorgeous and I was unsuited to be there with my huge backpack on. The bell hop took my bags and brought me up to my room. It was incredible. I had a balcony view of the whole city, huge king sized bed, flat screen TV, walk in rain shower. It was heaven and much different than what I had been used to. I settled in, slept for a few hrs, walked around the streets, ate some noodles at a restaurant nearby, and called it a day.

The next few days in China were very overcast and foggy. And because the National Holiday was in a couple days it was very difficult to get around the city. Road were blocked off and officers were setting up preparation, bleachers, banners, and flowers everywhere. I was able to see Tiananmen Square, but my first few days in Beijing were mostly spent in my cozy hotel, taking advantage of my luxury, swimming in the pool, going in the sauna, steam room… the works.

National day was on October 1^st 2009 and the entire city shut down for its 60^th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. The streets were blocked off by police, cars were not allowed to drive, the subway system was turned off, busses weren’t running.. you get the idea. I really wanted to get to Tiananmen Square to see the tanks, soldiers, marching bands, fireworks, etc… but we (any normal person) weren’t allowed to get there. My hotel said the best way to watch was to sit in front of a TV. Well, for about 5 hours I sat at the hotel, but then the captivity police left and I found out we had about 4 hours to walk around if we wanted to. I was determined to see the big show and found a round-a-bout way to get to the square by taking a different metro line that was working and switching till I was within walking distance of the square. I figured if I got to the area, I’d be able to somehow get it. Wow, was I wrong! I couldn’t even get near the square. Police and security were everywhere! Lined up all along the streets, standing in a line and blocking every road. I tried to explain to the officers that I wanted to see the show and only heard “No, not possible, must go”. Disappointed, I turned around to take the same metro and was instantly denied. The metro was closed. And under no circumstances were they going to let me through. I had to walk about 15 blocks to get out of the center of the city and then was able to catch a taxi to take me near my hotel. From there I had to walk a bit more to make it home. Well, can’t say I didn’t try. The best part of that evening was when I was walking through these tiny side streets. Two little Chinese boys ran up to me and one said “HELLO, MY NAME IS JASON”. I said, “Hi, Jason. My name is Lauren, how are you?” He just looked at me confused and puzzled look on his face and repeated, “Hello, my name is Jason”. Well, that was all he knew. But it was still fun to see the excitement he had to share his English with me. The boys followed me on their wiggle-skate boards for a little while and I took pictures till we went our separate ways.

On Oct 2^nd I packed up my stuff and headed to a hostel I had booked which looked pretty good from the pictures and ratings on Hostelworld.com. As soon as I arrived to The Chinese Box I met a guy named Benji from France who wanted to check out the Summer Palace. We went around 4pm and stayed long enough to watch the sunset behind some mountains. We headed back to the hostel, ate dumplings with the entire hostel (the hostel owners had a dumpling party and made everyone dinner). Later we met up with some other friends and went out. First we went to a bar street nearby and then took another taxi to more of a downtown area where they had huge clubs. We went into two called Coco and L.A. which were both incredible. They reminded me of the ones back home in South Beach, but were even better. Four DJ’s were spinning at the same time in the club LA, the music was great, lights flashed everywhere, and made designs in the room so it looked like we were standing in cages, or bubbles. And they had bubble machines going off too. It was a great night.

The following day I headed to Tiananmen Square with Anas, a cool guy from the US. The square was crazy packed with Chinese tourists (this whole week was a holiday and most Chinese residents traveled to Beijing for the celebrations). All of the floats from the parade were on display and all I could see were Chinese people for miles!

The funny thing here is that Americans, or white people, are extremely rare. When I’m on a subway, every person around me is staring in my direction. They look at my hair, face, clothes… just curious. But, they never look away, even if we catch eyes. And if I’m walking down the street, a Chinese person walking towards me will stare the entire time until we pass each other. It’s so odd. I sort of feel like a celebrity because they all want to take pictures with me too. The first time I was asked to “take a photo” I was a little puzzled because I went to grab the guy’s camera but instead, he passed it to his wife and swung and arm around me to smile for a picture!

Almost every girl here has dark eyes and dark straight hair. A rare few lighten their hair or perm it curly. Also, the girls are obsessed with having fair skin. A lot of them wear white make-up on their face and cover up their arms so their natural skin color doesn’t show. We (backpackers) were warned not to buy lotion or face wash here because they all have whitening agents in them. So, I’m sure I must be an odd site for the girls to see, since I have light skin, light-brown curly hair, and blue-green eyes.

Anas and I had a good time walking around, posing for pictures, and checking out the floats. We made our way to the Forbidden City and had a Chinese Tour guide show us around for about 5 dollars US. He is a history professor at a University in a neighboring city, came to Beijing for the Holiday, and decided to work by giving tours of the Forbidden City since he knew so much about it. It was nice to walk around with him and listen.

Anas and I ate some dumplings and rice clusters on the way back and met up with everyone at the hostel. In Beijing is an infamous night market which sells all sorts of weird food items.. fried snake, frog, crickets, starfish, sea horses, silk worms, scorpions, and even dog and cat in the back of the market. Anas, Ginny (my roommate, from Washington), Richard (great guy from the UK), and I decided to go. We walked around for a while and I was sort of in shock at what was being sold. Richard had been before and said we should try the scorpion. We had two options.. the tiny baby ones that were skewered on a stick and still moving, or the papa scorpions which were massive. At first I was thinking about getting a set of 5 baby ones on a stick, but then figured.. I’m probably only going to do this once in my life, might as well do it right and go big. I ordered up and watched as they dipped my scorpion into a disgusting pot of boiling oil. I tried to ask for them to put a sauce on it, but of course, no one speaks English and they had no idea what I wanted.

Well, it was time. I stared at the scorpion for a few seconds, trying to figure out the best way to do this, and then counted to 3 in my head and took a big bite! I had bit the scorpion in half and was chewing with my eyes closed expecting the worst… and then surprise.. I opened my eyes and said, “it’s not that bad!” It was just crunchy and chewy and tasted like fried oil… until I swallowed. Instantaneously, an overwhelming taste of foul dead insect filled my mouth and nostrils, it was so gross! Richard was taking pictures and laughing hysterically- it’s so funny to see my face change in the pictures from “delighted” to “disgusted”. I washed the taste of scorpion down with some coconut milk (they were selling coconuts at the market too). And for the rest of the time there, I realized that the unfamiliar scent the market had when I first walked it (which I didn’t mind then), now smelt of the fried scorpion and I couldn’t take it much longer. Ginny and Anas were brave too and they each had two baby scorpions. It was fun to watch them eat them, but they said they couldn’t really taste anything.. the baby scorpions just tasted crunchy. We headed back to the hostel and got to sleep early for our big day tomorrow.

My phone alarm went off at 5am and I got packed up and ready to hike the great wall. We drove 4 hours to a more isolated section of wall and hiked on top of the wall for 10 km. The section we did was the Jinshanling wall which stretches 10.5 km from Longyukou in the West to Wangjinglou in the East. This section of the wall was originally built in 1368 during the Ming Dynasty and was rebuilt in 1567. A lot of it had been refurbished, but the best parts (and most difficult to climb) were untouched. Luckily I had my sneakers on.. I didn’t realize how much of a hike this would be! The hike itself was four hours long and was non-stop up and down steep stairs. It was exhausting, but exhilarating at the same time because the view was incredible (the Beijing skies finally cleared up and we could see for miles) and I was just sort-of in awe at the fact that I was actually AT the GREAT WALL. It was one of the best feelings I’ve ever felt.

At the end of the hike was the option to walk down the mountain or take a zip-line, so naturally, I strapped myself in and took off. It was a gorgeous view from the air as I was zip-lining over a river while still being able to see mountains and the great wall all around me. Our Great Wall group had a huge Chinese buffet at a restaurant at the bottom of the wall and then headed back.

The next day, Anas and I headed to the silk market and spent the day haggling. The Chinese sellers were relentless and always ended the transaction by screaming, yelling, sometimes hitting, pulling on our clothes, or chasing us down the isle to drag us back. We knew we had gotten a good deal when they had a scowl on their face and were almost upset to let us have the item for that price. The way it works is, they take out a calculator and type in a ridiculous amount, 700 Chinese Yuan (which is about 100 US), then I would take the calculator and type in 14 Yuan (about 2 dollars). This would go back and forth for almost 30 minutes every time. I left the market with my prized goods and gave so much credit to Anas for being able to stand the abuse from the female Chinese sellers. They were actually hitting him and yelling at him and calling him horrible names because he was pricing too low. Crazy people!

In the morning, Richard and I decided it would be a good day to rent bikes and tour the city. We started off the day with a hot pot lunch. Our table had a huge hole in the center of it where they place a big bowl full of soup. Under the table was a gas heater which kept the pot hot. Then, we got to order anything we wanted and cooked the veggies and meat ourselves. Lunch was great and cheap (less than 4 US a person) and we hopped on our bikes to cruise around Beijing.

Seeing the city from a bike is a completely different experience. The flow of traffic here works by push and shove. Even if the light is red, cars, bikes, and pedestrians will move forward and make their way across. Everyone is aggressive at first, but then patient to let each other pass. It’s very interesting to see. We rode all day and took pictures from our bikes of the city and each other. It was fun to pass all the Chinese people who would just stare and watch us crazy foreigners on bikes.

We rode past Tiananmen Square, to the Temple of Heaven (where we locked up our bikes and walked around), and then rode all around the area. We played a game to see how many people we could get to wave at us and I would say Ni Hao and smile to anyone who was staring. It was one of my favorite days in Beijing. On the way home we stopped at a glasses store where I picked up my custom prescription glasses I had made for about 30 US.

My original plan was to go to Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and then fly to Bangkok, Thailand. The longer I stayed in Beijing and talked to people at my hostel, the more I realized that I wanted to see more of China. Richard and a couple others were going from Beijing to Xian to see the Terracotta warriors, then to Chengdu to see the largest Buddha in the world and to see some pandas, and then to Guilin to see the limestone mountain spikes of Yangshou and cruise on the Li River. Well, Richard convinced me and I changed all of my plans around.

The funny thing/best thing about traveling is that you realize anything you want to do is up to you. Plans can change at any time. This was my second time changing my itinerary around and already it’s getting easier. This just seems like the right thing to do.

The next day Richard and I boarded our train which would get us to Xian in about 12 hours. The traveling options on the trains are to stand, have hard seats, soft seats, hard sleepers, or soft sleepers. Standing is the cheapest, and it means standing the whole time. The hard seat is a fold-down cheap seat where everyone is crammed together, shoulders touching one another and knees touching the person sitting in front of you. A soft seat is a slightly better seat and the seating is similar to an airplane, a row of people and you get a fold down table. The hard sleeper is a small room with 6 beds in it, 3 bunked on one side and 3 bunked on the other. The room is 5 feet wide, 6 feet long and has no privacy since there are no doors or lights. The soft sleeper is the best option and most expensive. It’s the same size as a hard sleeper but there are only 4 beds (two bunked on either side) and there is a door, air conditioning control, volume control for the announcements, and light switches.

We had soft sleepers, paid around $50 US for the tickets and slept for 10 hours on the overnight train. It wasn’t bad at all and was quite comfortable since it was just Richard, me, and a Chinese woman in the room who slept the whole time too. Not a bad way to get around China.

Next stop, Xian!