Three Days in Beijing

So to recap, my China experience had been somewhat of a whirlwind tour. In 8 nights, one of them was the night I arrived (at midnight in the rain), two were spent on overnight trains and the other 6 nights were spent in 4 different cites which by the time I arrived in Beijing at 7:00am on a Wednesday, spanned over 2,700kms* of overland travel.

Having not planned much of my China adventure in advance other than the Beijing departure for the Trans-Siberian Railway, I think 2,700kms represents a pretty good effort on my part. And now that I've seen two of China's more notable sites outside Beijing (Huang Shan and the Terracotta Warriors) I can take it easy on the next visit.**

Leaving out the details about how the bus system from Beijing's Western Train Station doesn't intersect with the Metro system as one might expect from personal experience with public transportation in other big cities, or the fact that even though the ticket checker girl indicated she would let me know where to get off to actually find the metro but rather than actually do that she let me ride the bus all the way to the end of the line which was 10 blocks or more from the nearest station, I managed to get safely to my hostel. This was thanks largely to some friendly locals pointing me in the right direction and a super nice north-american sounding expat who gave me exact change for the ticket machine and asked nothing in return (I did it again didn't I...started a sentence with "Leaving out the details" then went on and on with all the details...oh well...too late now).

Tienamen Square and the Forbidden City

Certain places hold a global fascination more for what they represent than for the places themselves. Tienamen Square is one of those. It is unspectacular in that it is a wide open square of concrete surrounded on three sides by unspectacular rectangular concrete buildings.

But it represents the beating heart of the one country where communism not only still exists but appears to be flourishing.

It doesn't hurt either that 1) it is huge. and 2) on the 4th side, across the street lies the entrance to the Forbidden City with the giant portrait of Chairman Mao overlooking the Square generally adding a colourful and pictureqsque and unique atmosphere to an otherwise grey concrete pavillion.

Like any big city, where there are tourists there are touts. Most of the stuff they are selling is absolute crap with two exceptions.

1) It was February in Beijing and the wide open square allowed the icy cold wind to freeze my fingers off while taking photos which I was doing more or less continuously while I was there. Whether or not the gloves I bought for a reasonable price were actually North Face brand or contained Goretex as the labelling purported is debateable but they were warm gloves on a cold day at the time and place I needed them so it was money well spent.***

2) Even though guidebooks warn you about scammers trying to sell you art, the so called scammers do actually have art to sell, some of which is quite good**** and once you bargain them down to a reasonable price (somewhere in the 10-15% range of their starting price) then I figuered "why not buy some" and so I did.

That night I met the group I would be traveling with for the next three weeks and despite us all being at different stages of our voyage we unanimously agreed that the Great Wall should be the first thing we saw the next day. We celebrated our likemindedness by having Peking Duck for dinner. Mmmmmmmm, duck.

Great Wall (Starbucks et al.)

Four things struck me about the Great Wall.

1) It is pretty much the coolest non-mechanical thing***** ever built by mankind.

2) To me it makes absolutely no sense that they built it in the middle of the mountains.

Mountains make a kind of natural barrier or "wall" if you will (Switzerland doesn't need a wall for instance) so why not build a wall on either side of the mountains. Or I can see having watchtowers up on the tops of the mountains and connecting them all together for ease of transport makes sense so why not go from peak to peak in order to rain arrows down on the enemies from above. And surely a straight line would have been a much more intimidating and efficient barrier.

Maybe the Emperor just wanted it to look cool and envisioned that in 2000 years it would be a mega cash cow for the nation and would look significantly better on a postcard if it kind of slowly meandered all around and up and over the mountains.

3) The Great Wall Starbucks is pretty much the world's best location for a Starbucks. It's not actually on the wall and the guidebook that says it is the only place to get a coffee is seriously out of date (there are loads of competitors now) but when you visit the wall in February and there is still snow on it, a nice hot cup of Starbucks really hits the spot.

4) It would have been nice if they had taken down the Beijing Olympics - One World, One Dream sign. They Olympics had been over for 6 months by then and it kind of hindered the ancient and timeless feel of my photos (I did take about 150 photos so some of them are ok) besides none of the events actually took place at the wall so I'm not sure the sign was really necessary in the first place.

Olympic Village

Though we were all on the same page with the Great Wall, some people had not yet seen the Forbidden City and some wanted to see stuff other than the Olympic village so it was their loss that I went this one alone.

The water cube might be the 2nd coolest man-made structure ever. Although the whole ticketing system which made me walk about 2kms back the way I had come to queue up and pay £15 just to wander around was pretty stupid (it did take me past the building they used to house the athletes which is now a 7, yes 7 star hotel), the place was pretty amazing. If wandering around inside six months after the Olympics had been over was this cool, competing there must have been off the charts.******

In fact the whole Olympic village had an amazing aura to it. Still. In February. Months after the games had been over. When it was freezing out. It must have been unreal to be there when Phelps was dominating the pool or Usain Bolt was lightning-ing up the track.

It helped that so much of the area had been specifically designed just for the games. Only in China could the appropriate so much land in the middle of what was previously a business park specifically for the Olympics.

The only disappointing thing was that, having paid to tour the Bird's Nest Stadium, I was unpleasantly surprised to see that the track had been covered up by artificial turf and in place of a podium where elite athletes might have recieved their medals there were stupid inflatable animals and displays for children. Didn't stop me from having a go at the 100m record though.

Silk Market - Why is everything so cheap? Is this stuff fake or stolen or what?

I didn't actually see any silk on sale here but that was the only thing. Specifically I went there to get a winter coat for the wintery climate ahead******and I was successful in that mission but even with a bit of forewarning from others I was shocked at both the selection on offer and the pressure sales tactics.

From the minute you step off the escalator from the metro you are offered everything from shoes ("shoes? shoes? you need shoes?") to gucci handbags ("how about a present for your girlfriend") at a "good price" and all in perfect english right up until you have another question or want to question the validity of a brand name item (although "it's real" is definitely part of the vocabulary lesson).

Bargaining is essential at the silk market. You would loose a lot of respect if you paid the initially quoted price. Not that gaining the respect of random vendors in a Chinese knock-off market was particularly important to me but paying the lowest possible price was and besides which the initial price was outrageous anyway. From the Y5,000 price initially quoted for my "real" Canada Goose winter jacket finally set me back a mere Y300. And I probably still overpaid.

I'm obviously no expert but as far as I could tell it was real as well. The labelling all apeared genuine and was even bilingual as you would expect from a Canadian product and it is the warmest article of clothing I've ever owned. There are a few things wrong with it which make me think that a lot (probably not all) of the brand name stuff here is genuine, the reason everything is so cheap is that the silk market is where all of the finished goods that don't quite meet the quality control standards end up.

The main defect with mine was that every time I took off my coat I would be covered in goose down feathers. A small price to pay considering the price I paid.

Photos 1) DG outside the Forbidden Palace. 2) Finally made it past security and into the square. 3) Little girl with 2 China flags just in case you weren't sure this was China. 4) In the 21st century Mao keeps an eye on things from beyond the grave. 5) If there's another photo that says "China" better I'd like to see it (not including Great Wall shots). 6) Me and Mao. I tried to read his little red book but it's really hard to get through. 7-13) Some stones that someone arranged in a sort of fence type thing. I'm led to believe it took several weeks to set up.14) Water Cube exterior. 15) Water cube interior. Note the revised olympic slogan "Go Beard or Go Home. 16) Water cube interior. Not pictured here the souvenir water cube kleenex box which I nearly bought but didn't and now wish I had. -17) Foreground Water Cube. Background Bird's Nest Stadium. 18) A light jog in the Olympic Stadium 19) DG modelling the new coat. Not shown the thousands of feathers that escaped from the lining and stuck to the wool sweater.

*Hangzhou to Huangshan 206kms,Huangshan to Nanjing 307kms,Nanjing to Xi'an 1,144kms, Nanjing to Beijing 1,125kms (according to google maps driving directions)

**The winter festival in Harbin looked particularly awesome from the highlights on Chinese tv and the Great Wall Marathon caught my attention though I'll probably never actually do it after getting tired from just climbing the stairs on the great wall as a tourist.

***I set my other gloves down on the steps of HuagShan to take a photo and they miraculously disappeared by the time I was finished. With a tour of Mongolia and Siberia in the winter time awaiting, replacement gloves were a good investment.

****I may not know much about art, but I know what I like!

*****I had to qualify it a bit because the space shuttle, porches and dive gear are all seriously cool. And while the mini skirt is really really really awesome I wouldn't say cool exactly.

******It was probably a bit optimistic of me to have brought along my swimsuit. I knew from experience though that the outdoor pool used for the Barcelona games was now a public pool but I guess it's still too soon for this one especially when so many people will pay just to see the place.

*******The last time I checked it was -40 in central Mongolia and while that was a few weeks beforehand I sort of thought that my NBE hoodie and polar fleece might not be warm enough.