A Brief Beijing

25^th – 28^th May

My original plan for mainland China was to be here for a few weeks. I choose instead to go the Philippines as most people I had met had been quite negative about China. Coupled with the fact that getting a visa is a bit of a faff when you are already on the move, I had decided to skip it. Then I found out about the free 72 hour transit visa which is easy to get. I thought it would be good to go to Beijing so that I could visit the wall which was the main thing I had wanted to see anyway.

Big Hong Kong airport

I was convinced that something was going to go wrong with this leg of my trip. Either they wouldn’t let me board the plane in Hong Kong or they wouldn’t let me in at the other end. The 72 visa is still a new thing and there isn’t that much online in the way of people’ experiences trying to use one. Everything went very smoothly, however, and by the evening I found myself in the capital city of China.

Funky Chinese Hostel

China Town?

Could say anything

My hostel was a cool little place on the edge of a central suburb. It was at the end of a street that looked like a Chinatown. I know that sounds ridiculous but I had expected the Chinatowns that I had seen in various cities in the world to be an exaggerated version of the actual place but they aren’t. China actually looks like a Chinatown. Well at least this part of the city did anyway.

The Great Hall of the People

Tiananmen Square

Given that I would only have two full days in Beijing I decided to book a tour with China Highlights in order to see as much as I could. It was a little expensive but it meant that I didn’t have to faff around with public transport and risk missing something good. I would also get a bit of a history lesson from my guide Melinda who was a very nice Chinese student.

Biggest square in the world

The tour is designed for small groups so I was expecting to be with a few other people. There was only one other person on the tour with me and he was only doing the one day. It would just be me and Melinda on the second day. There was the driver too but he didn’t speak much.

The weather was fantastic. I expected to choking on Beijing’s famous smog but it had rained just before I arrived which had cleared the air so to see a bright blue sky was a pleasant surprise.

The Forbidden City

Mao Zedong

The first stop on our trip was Tiananmen Square, the largest city square in the world. On each side are very important buildings. There’s the National Museum of China, Mao Zedong Mausoleum, the Great Hall of the People and, our next stop, the Forbidden City. There’s a large portrait of Mao Zedong at the entrance to the Forbidden City. He was the founding father of the Peoples Republic of China.

Inside the Forbidden City

Standard tourist photo

The Forbidden City (technically called the Palace Museum as it’s no longer forbidden) is a huge complex right in the heart of the city. It was the central seat of power during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Huge bronze guard

The Chinese Tourist Mob

Our guide had many interesting nuggets of information as we made our way around the complex. I thought it was pretty busy but apparently this was nothing. I found the scrum to get a picture of the throne room quite amusing and more interesting than the actual throne. I don’t consider myself a tall person but in China I am so it was easy to peer over all the heads to get a look at it.

The wardrobe and bedroom

The emperor's bed

The emperor had a big bedroom where he would sleep with several other guards. He would normally not sleep in his own bed so that assassins wouldn’t know which throat to cut. He also had a completely separate building for his wardrobe.

Some temples on the hill

We left the Forbidden City and set off towards the Great Wall. It took two hours to get there so I spent some time chatting to my fellow tour person, Aaron. He was from Australia but lives in Singapore. He was quite a bit older than me and has his own business so we were quite different but we still managed to find things to talk about. Melinda also wanted to know all about the two of us. It often gets a gasp now when I say I’ve been away for nearly four years.

Chair lift to the top

We arrived at the wall and were given two options. Take the cable car up and down or take the chairlift up and the toboggan run down. The choice was easy. The toboggan run was a completely unexpected surprise but I’ll get to that.

That famous wall

A few mountains

Epic scenery

No one around

The Wall was incredible. So much better than I expected. There was barely anyone here! I had expected to be shuffling along behind a massive crowd of people all carrying selfie sticks but there was none of that. There were no tour buses at all. Just a mere scattering of people along the wall. It was such a nice surprise.

East

West

The views of the wall and the surrounding area were stunning. I really didn’t expect it to be anywhere near as good as this. Aaron and I walked along it for a while but it was quite tiring with all the steps. After a while Aaron said he was going to sit in a café and would meet me later. I continued to the end of where you are allowed to walk.

So many steps

Awesome views

The last tower is up a massive set of stairs that nearly killed me. It was a section of the wall that climbs steeply up the side of a mountain. There is a tower half way up which is where you are supposed to stop but there was no way I was leaving a mountain half climbed. I saw others jumping over the wall (a smaller one) and continuing to the top so I followed them. The view from the top of the mountain was again, awesome. I sat there for a little while taking it in. The wall continues for many more kilometres and I really wanted to keep going along it but my time here was nearly up. I had to run on the way back to get to the meeting point on time.

This towers falling down

Weeeee

I met Aaron at the top of the toboggan run. I saw a woman with a young child get on just in front of me and I knew she was going to hold me up. I told Aaron that I would go really slowly to begin with so that I could bomb it half way down. This sort of worked but the woman was going so slowly that I kept catching up to her. I accidently crashed into the back of her towards the end but I wasn’t sorry!

The Cube and the Birdsnest

Communications tower

We made the two hour trip back into the city stopping briefly at 2008 Olympics site. We went to a view point where you could see the Birdsnest and the Cube.

We are famous

There were a couple of women here who really wanted a picture with us. This happened a couple of times of the two days I was here. In fact I noticed a few times that when I looked up, a camera phone would quickly flick away from me. I found this pretty funny but I really hadn’t expected it here. Not in a capital city of a modern country. It felt like I was in Myanmar again.

That evening I went down the road to a bar where I got chatting to some people. There was a hostel attached to the bar that was much busier and much more social than the one I was in. I had a few beers with them before heading back to my hostel.

The Forbidden City

The smog returns

The next day Melinda picked me up once more (this time it was just me) and we went to a park just behind the Forbidden City. At the top of the hill there was a great view of the whole complex although the smog was back.

Hanging tree

Old people dancing

At the bottom of the hill there was a tree where an emperor and his wife had hung themselves. It was an odd tourist attraction. There were also many older people doing a gentle exercise class. Apparently this park is like a communal old person’s playground.

Dancing monk

Writing in Chinese

Then we went over to the Temple of Heaven and walked around the park. There was a monk doing some sort of weird dance and a man writing traditional Chinese on the pavement with water. The water would evaporate almost as soon as he had written it so I’m not too sure what the point in this was.

Real life Tinder

One thing I found really strange was this real life dating site. There were hundreds of people in a corner of the park that were swapping details of their children to other parents in the hope of finding a match for them. There were lines of paper on the ground each giving a description of an eligible bachelor and bachelorette and parents were just walking along casually browsing. It was very odd.

Temple of Heaven

Other temple buildings

After this we carried on to the actual Temple of Heaven which is a pretty impressive round temple in the centre of the park. There was a little museum next to it that explained various features of the temple. Melinda also told me a few things. It was a little weird it just being me and her. I would have preferred to have someone else on the tour with us. She was nice enough. It was just putting an annoying amount of pressure on me to seem interested in what she was saying when I wasn’t always.

The Olympic marathon line

On the way out of the park Melinda pointed out the blue line painted on the ground. It was to mark the marathon run in the Olympics.

Weird instrument

The population is so dense in China that people are living on top of one another. This means that anyone learning to play an instrument will inevitably disturb someone if they practise at their house so instead they come to the park. There must have been about fifty people here with instruments making an absolute racket!

Rose for you

Watering the trees

It was time for lunch. We ate at a local Chinese restaurant that did some very nice food. Melinda and the driver talked between themselves while we ate leaving me to look around the restaurant. I was the only westerner in there.

The cat fish horse deer lion thing

The corridor to nowhere

The last stop on the trip was the Summer Palace. It’s a pretty huge park but we didn’t walk around too much. Melinda showed me a few things but I think I would have preferred exploring this place by myself rather than be escorted around. The long corridor looked pretty cool and made for some nice photos. It was really busy here though so it wasn’t easy to get a good picture.

The Summer Palace

A stone boat

Melinda told me a story about one of the emperor’s daughters who was too afraid to get on a boat on water. The emperor built her a boat made out of stone so she would get over her fear. I’m not sure how this would really have helped.

The Palace

A tower in the distance

Very grand

Big bridge

We jumped on a boat of our own that took us back to the main entrance. It gave a good view of the Summer Palace and the surrounding gardens. I was pretty tired so I was quite happy for the tour to end. It had been an excellent tour and I had crammed a lot into the two days.

My tour guide, Melinda

As I mentioned at the start, the people I have met who have been to China told me about how rude and unhelpful the Chinese are, how the smog is so bad you can barely breath and how it’s just an incredibly frustrating place to be. I didn’t find this at all. In fact I was pleasantly surprised at how much I had actually enjoyed China. Maybe it’s because I had really low expectations but I found it to be a great place. The people were helpful and really nice. I actually wish I could have spent longer here. I think that one day I will return and explore China properly.

Sunrise on the last day

That night I got myself a takeaway pizza (BBQ Chicken, mmm) and had an early night. I was up very early the next day to get to the airport to catch my flight to Korea. There was an Irish guy in my room that had booked a tour to North Korea. Brave. I, on the other hand, was just going to the South.