Nearly a quarter of our time in China was devoted to the capital. Yet at no point did we lack something to do there, in we were constantly busy. We arrived on a bullet train and from our hostel, located in the traditional narrow streets called Hutongs, explored the city. We wandered round the sites, having our photos taken by Chinese people at the expansive Tiananmen Square, in the centre of which was a giant red memorial of the 90th anniversary of the communist party. While here we guffawed at the ridiculous kilometer long queues to sea Mao's Mausoleum, and climbed atop the gate of heavenly peace. The end of the day too us to Behai park, a pretty example of classical Chinese scenery, but we have seen better in places gone.
Beijing had a different feel to most of China. Our area round the Hutongs had far more symbols of creativity than seen before, numerous guitar shops, private retailers selling colourful clothing(some of which was fake) and shops selling videogames(we haven’t seen it yet). There was an appearance and sense of true freedom. I had presupposed that China would have eeriness about it, that there would be a feeling of being on edge or perhaps a sense of caution among the people. Yet things were so normal, throughout the whole time there. Police looked like police anywhere in the world, whereas I imagined them to look more militaristic. Mcdonalds was everywhere, alongside comical T-shirts of Barack Obama dressed all communist (I never thought such imagery would be allowed and barrack would be a bit of a no go- having said that there was no premier Hu holding an American flag!).On the streets, vehicles and restaurants ranged from top high end brands to cheap local imitations(a Mercedes contrasted by a cart packed with boxes, the same beer costing ten times more in one restaurant than another on the next street). I didn’t imagine such a wealth gap to exist in China, that such obvious capitalism would be shown. The worst example was having to pay to enter Beihai park, even in the west we arn’t so ruthless. The only noticeable signs of suppression were the inability to access certain websites, and the sometimes strange reporting of events (yet I wonder if I noticed this because I was looking for it?). The media is clever here, it doesn’t blatantly slate the west as a bunch of greedy money loving capitalists and tell the people that they are all part of some glorious revolution. Instead, the state news CCTV discusses democratic systems (including press freedom), in contrast to the one party system, but gently promotes advantages of the Chinese way of doing things(“the west believes that having two parties arguing over a point solves problems but in China we think that being rational within a party is the best way forward”). In fairness their media have it easy with all the prosperity as proof that their way is best.
Our second and third days in Beijing were spent at temple sites-took us to the Lama temple and a Confucian temple on day two and the temple of heaven on day three.
The Lama temple is one of the most important Tibetan Buddhist temples in the world. Built in 1694, it managed to survive Mao’s cultural revolution due to personal intervention from a minister. It is extremely ornate, with the hall of Harmony containing three bhudda statues, representing the past present and future. The Pavillion of Ten Thousand Happinesses holds a giant 26m tallstatue of Bhudda. It really was exquisite.
The Confucian temple was also impressive(Confucianism isn’t a religion, it’s a set of rules, a moral code of guidance created by Confucius, with aspects being central to Chinese culture).
 |
| Lama Temple |
One of Beijing’s top destinations is the Temple of Heaven which we took a trip too. Again it was extremely impressive. All of these temples in china really were, far better than most in Thailand and elsewhere.
The ornately coloured building was spectacular, the main temple with its four pillars, one for each season, was fantastic although unfortunately smothered in tourists.
One evening we visited the Olympic park, where we went inside the famous birds nest stadium. Going up close, the birds nest wasn’t as graceful as the images suggest, and the inside was a generic, however it was spectacular when lit up at night. After taking some pictures, the thunder and rain, a part of every evening we were in Beijing, rolled in. We ended up waiting around in a shopping centre at the end of the Olympic Park where I surrendered to hunger and cold and gorged on a McDonalds. The streets around our subway station were ankle deep in water, having suffered from a flash flood, so we headed straight to the nearest restaurant Here, Robs patience was rewarded, as he ordered one of the best dishes we ate in Beijing-Kung Phao chicken. The dish, labeled politically incorrect during the cultural revolution and consists of lightly spiced chicken, served in a rich red sauce. We ate this for several of our meals. For £1.40 it was an absolute bargain.
 |
| Kung Phao Chicken |
Through our hostel we booked our trip to see the great wall. We carefully planned this, so as to try and avoid tourists, yet not only see but get a great experience of seeing the wall. We booked a trip which took us to the Simitai part of the wall from which we walked 10km along the wall to Jinshaling. Our choice was excellent, the wall being the most spectacular thing seen in Asia, and quite possibly the entire trip. After a cable car up to the wall, our unguided walk took us from the watchtowers, guardposts and battlements restored to their original grandeur at Simitai up and down to the original unrestored half towers and semi collapsed section of wall of Jingshaling. Everything was as fantastic as expected, the mountain scenery alone was worthy of national park status. The wall extended up, down and around the hills as far as the eye could see. It was one of those places where anybody could get a photo and it would look fantastic, you couldn’t get a bad picture if you tried.
We went to Beijing’s most visited attraction the next day, and the world’s largest palace complex, the Forbidden City. Just off Tiananmen square, this walled behemoth contained grand ornately decorated wooden halls used for various functions from resting areas exclusively for the emperor to areas for civil servants to be to take imperial examinations.
There were gardens for the emperor printing houses and places for weddings.
Unfortunately the forbidden city was ridiculously crowded. It was so bad that I actually felt the experience was affected by it and would like to return one day when things are less crowded.
That evening we went on one of one of my most anticipated culinary experiences, heading to King of Duck for Peking’s famous dish. For a tenner each we got a whole duck with pancakes, Hoisin sauce and the usual strips of cucumber. The chef was swish, carving the duck up for us at the table. It was defiantly the best duck we have ever eaten, extremely tender, with juicy fat and some excellent full flavoured Hoisin sauce. Unfortunately the meal just didn’t fill a hole, there just wasn’t enough of it(we even asked them for the carcass which we stripped bare in the fine dining restaurant- they didn’t look impressed!) so we ended up filling up on fast food.
The last full day in China gave us some blue skies and sunshine, something not seen for weeks and took us to our third UNISCO world heritage site in as many days, the summer palace. I think we were suffering from sensory overload form the preceding few weeks, and so didn’t really take it’s lakes and palaces in. That night we purchased some gifts in Danedong market, where you have to barter the price down to at least a twentieth of what they are asking. We left China the next day, looking forward to having a bit of a break from touristy stuff in South Korea.
