Trip days 2, 3 and 4.
After day 1 in Beijing I was not very happy with this city. The heat and humidity were oppressive and it was just shit. It made walking around and doing anything really hard work and I think I might have suffered a minor case of heat stroke or some dehydration. I was just a cocky Australian thinking this wasn't real heat. It didn't help that I lugged my pack an hour in said heat trying to find the hostel without Google maps. In this scenario a wheeled case would have been superior to a backpack ;]
The area I'm staying in is nice. It's one of those gentrified hutongs ... people still live in the smaller hutongs but the main one is filled with shops and food joints and a lot of teenagers/20somethings taking selfies while drinking some odd fruit or milk concoction.
The hostel itself was a pleasant surprise. In pretty good condition, pretty clean and after the first night I got moved into a room with a bed long enough for my legs. The aircon is very effective. Peking International Youth Hostel - would recommend. They've got these vines with nice orange flowers outside the front door. Based on the number of Chinese people taking selfies with them it seems these are the only flowers in Beijing.
Beijing Day 2 arrived and with blessed relief the pervasive smog appears to have been hiding rain clouds! It was still humid as the inside of a fat man's underwear but it was closer to 24 degrees than 34 degrees with a light wind which made a huge difference. I mean ... I got rained on a lot of the morning so I was still soggy and uncomfortable but at least it wasn't 100% sweat!
I did the first of the big touristic (as is written on all the posters here) things yesterday morning .. Tianneman Square and the Forbidden City.
Both were giant bloody things and packed to the gills with locals and tourists alike. Many many more Chinese than tourists though as far as I could tell. It's like there's this comraderie when you find another tourist ... Nod, smile, maybe crack a stupid joke then move on.
Got there via the subway system which is EXCELLENT. The ticket machine has an English version, the system is simple to figure out once you know what station to go to, it's clean, it's fast and trains come along extremely regularly. It's like a nicer version of the London tube and it shits all over the Australian trains. It's the quick and the dead for a seat though ... a person hasn't even finished getting up yet and someone is already sliding into their seat.
I don't quite know what to say about the 2 places other than to remark on their scale. Both were interesting and the forbidden city was quite beautiful though it did become very same-same after a while (similar to any temple expedition).
I got propositioned by 2 prostitutes on the way out. The first was far more attractive than the second. There was also a very uncomfortable moment walking down the path outside the forbidden city with a couple of disfigured buskers. Bad burns, disfigured faces and missing limbs ... just sitting there singing for coins in the middle of the walkway. Not a very pleasant sight. They did appear to take great pleasure in staring straight at people to make them uncomfortable though.
One thing I've noticed so far is a real lack of signage about where things are. You get off the subway and there's a sign in the subway station saying "Forbidden City". Cool. You get out of the subway and it's very difficult to tell which way you're supposed to go. Similarly on the way out. I did not see any signs saying "subway this way". Very odd for a tourist attraction.
So once I got out of the Forbidden City I just picked a direction and walked assuming I would see a subway sign. I did eventually ... I think I should have turned left instead of right at the start. Ah well.
Got back to the hostel and had a shower then a couple of generic Chinese beers and tried to plan out my next couple of days without Google. Amazing to see how much I rely on that when I don't have access to it. Yahoo search works but I haven't found a decent mapping tool. Google maps kind of works ... Gives an approximation of where something is. It's good enough and that's part of the adventure right?
I met the other English speaker in my dorm today. Lars is a German dude who has been living in regional China for a year studying the language. He's stuck here in Beijing apparently until a friend comes to visit then he's going back to Germany for a while. Seems a nice enough dude. The others in the dorm are very quiet. Many of them seem to spend a lot of time here laying in bed staring at their phones. I get hiding from the humidity.
After reading for a while (I'm almost halfway through Crime & Punishment) I went back out for a wander around. I found a nice park with some ladies doing some sort of exercise routine to terrible music. A traditional dance I assume. Then I found another park and another dance party. A little square with a car blaring out really bad music and about 30 couples dancing. A lot of them seemed to be doing the same dance so I wonder again if it was a traditional thing.
Day 3 Beijing
I slept really well on my new regular length bed! I feel for the other occupants of the room ... suspect there was much snoring going on. Their problem not mine. First person asleep wins.
So Lars told me that I could visit the Summer Palace via the subway system which seemed like a great idea to me. I was originally planning to do it on the same day I do the wall (which I still haven't organised) but I decided to do it today on its own instead. Boy am I glad I did.
Getting there was easy ... I turned the right direction (left) out of the subway this time (hooray dumb luck!). And again this place was huge!
It's a beautiful forested mountain with a lake at the foot of it and a small island in the middle of the lake. The palace itself is at the top of the mountain (fuck you stairs) and gives a nice smoggy view of the surrounding area. I enjoyed this much more than TS / FC. Architecture was similar if not on as grand a scale. But it was just lovely. Beautiful scenery, lovely forest, well maintained. There were a couple of the smaller structures which were quite captivating.
I ended up spending about 5 hours wandering around climbing up stairs, down stairs, up paths and down paths. Again ...many many more Chinese tourists than westerners.
I'm spending a small fortune on bottled water when I go to these places. Nowhere in Beijing that I've been has refill stations for water so you've got to buy bottled water as you go. Costs about the same as Australia (6 yuan ... About $1.20) so it's not expensive but I shudder to think how much plastic goes to waste here. I bought this fancy bloody water bottle with a filter and I'm only using the thing a couple of times a day. Ah well.
I haven't been hungry since I arrived so really haven't partaken of the food much. I've really only had a couple of snack type things. A bao bun, some Chinese variation of takoyaki (the batter was sweet), a roast duck wrap and a giant xiolongbao dumpling.
The dumpling was cool. It's about the size of my fist and it comes on a little box. You stick a straw in the top of it and suck the juice out then eat the dumpling skin and filling afterwards. I put the straw in the wrong spot (... that's what she said anyone?) and juice started leaking out so I had to quickly drink it and burn my god damn mouth. Anyway ... Interesting way to eat a dumpling and it was tasty.
Found a craft beer place about 10 minutes walk from the hostel on my afternoon wander! Score! Great Leap Brewing ... owned by an American guy who lives in China. All the brewing is done in Beijing and they have 3 locations. Their schtick is using Chinese tea leaves in their beers. The beer was OK ... nothing amazing. They had a banana wheat beer which was OK (but a bit watery) and the Honey Ma Golden & Honey Ma IPA were tasty (honey and peppercorns I believe). I think the venue was the best part about it. Hidden away in the hutongs with a nice outdoor area under some trees and a nice bar inside you can sit at. Place was about half / half expats and locals.
Then later I went for some drinks with a couple of guys from the hostel. They said they had found a cool bar nearby. So I sat at that same craft beer joint twice in one day ... woe is me!
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