Beijing Day 1
I landed at about 2:00 local time, over 30 minutes later than our estimated arrival time of 1:20. We had to wait for a while because the airplane that we flew in wasn’t designed to be used at a terminal, so we had to wait for a bus to come and pick us up to take us to the terminal. I quickly noticed a big difference between China and Korea: the bus that took us to the airplane in Korea was fairly new and very clean. The bus in China was not. The seats were falling apart and the windows were filthy.
The bus arrived at the terminal and all the passengers got off, making our way towards immigration. There were only three lines open but since we had a completely full flight the lines were quite. One of the reasons we were so full was because there was a large tour group from Korea. I waited and waited and waited…finally an immigration officer came over and offered to process the group altogether. I’m not sure exactly why exactly it would be better to process them as a group, but oh well, not my problem!!! He tried saying something in Chinese, they looked at him, baffled, before he finally tried “group.” Thankfully they recognized that word (it’s a Konglish word) and they all followed him. MUCH better!
I finally made it to the immigration desk, she processed my passport and I was officially in China!! I found my luggage and then quickly went up to the arrival gate, where Sharon was waiting for me with her new guide/ friend, Zen. Turns out he was a friend of a guy that she had met and he had volunteered to show her around. I don’t think he expected me though…he didn’t seem too happy, but still very willingly helped us out.
We decided to head straight to the Olympic Stadiums: the Bird’s Nest and the Swimming Cube. With Zen’s help, we boarded an express bus to the Olympic Village. The ride through Beijing was fascinating: we drove through a part of town that had a lot of Korean signs, so I enjoyed reading things to Sharon. One of my favorite signs had the word “libro” (Spanish for book if you don’t know) written in Korean on a bookstore. We also spotted a large Lotte Mart, a Korean supermarket chain. Not too far from the Lotte Mart was a building that was obviously a Korean medical practice: I spotted a dentist and two internal medicine clinics, plus a few other clinics that I wasn’t familiar with.
We finally arrived at the Olympic Village and walked about 1 mile to the stadiums. Even though it’s been (exactly) three years since the opening of the Olympics, this is obviously still a very important site to them. The area was teeming with people: vendors selling all sorts of things, like souvenir stuffed mascot dolls and kites, as well as tourists from all over the world. Before we could go into the stadium area, we had to go through a quick checkpoint so they could x-ray our bags.
We walked through the checkpoint and just started heading towards the swimming cube and the Bird’s Nest. You could pay 25 RMB (about $3) to go into each building, but we decided not to: just being there was enough for us! We poked around for a bit before my poor suitcase’s wheel imploded: between the sidewalks of Korea (walking to my bus that morning) and the sidewalks of China (walking to the stadiums that afternoon) my poor bag couldn’t take it anymore. It looked like what happens when the tread becomes separated from the tire on semi trucks. So Zen volunteered to carry the bag the rest of the day!
We surprised Zen by saying that we were finished very quickly and decided it was probably best to go back to the hospital and drop off my poor maimed bag. We walked for a while before finally finding the subway station that we needed. Sharon already had a subway card, as well as Zen, so we tried to figure out what I needed to do before finally settling on just buying a one-way ticket. In Korea, the cost depends on how far you go but in Beijing it’s a flat 2 RMB: around 30 cents. We paid for my card and hopped on the subway.
Again, the subway is very similar to Korea just dirtier. I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but it’s really caught me off guard. It was also very crowded, similar to what the subway is like when I ride to work in the mornings. After about 20 minutes and two hectic transfers, we arrived at the subway station closest to our hostel. One of the many things that is on the Beijing must-see list are its famous hu-tongs-tight and winding alleys full of businesses, houses and life in general. We’re lucky enough that our hostel is in a hu-tong, so we’re able to experience it first-hand every time we step out the door. Our hostel is also brand new and very VERY comfortable for the crazy low price of about $7 a night.
You walk in the door into an entryway, then walk through one more door to check-in. Part of checking in requires registering your passport with the front desk so that they can register you with the police. After letting them scan my passport, we headed up to our room: two real beds, a private bathroom and a fantastic shower. This type of room would easily cost $50 plus per night, especially in a larger city. We have free wi-fi that kind of reaches to our room but is much stronger if you’re sitting in the large courtyard.
We said goodbye to Zen, who had to go get some work done and thanked him for all of his help. We sat down to discuss our plans for the week and based on the weather, decided to head to the Great Wall today. At the front desk you can reserve your choice of four different tours of the Great Wall. The closest part to Beijing is also the most recently restored as well as the most crowded, so we ruled that out pretty quickly. We ultimately decided to go to the Jingshanling section of the wall, which has been restored in some parts but not others. We paid 260 RMB (about $40) each and they told us we would leave at 6:30 the next morning.
By this time, we were quite hungry. I had eaten on the plane, but it had been quite a while since Sharon had eaten so we decided to explore the hu-tongs around our hostel and see what we could find. Sharon was quite excited to be able to show me her mad Chinese food ordering skills, but the food in Beijing is almost completely different from the food in her area of China! She had no idea what most of what we were seeing was, so we decided to check out a restaurant that was next to the subway station called “Grandma’s Kitchen.” We went in and sat down, received our menus and quickly figured out that it was an American-style diner! Chicken-fried steak, pasta of all kinds, a full page of milkshake choices, and BEEF. Expensive, not Chinese, but absolutely amazing. Sharon doesn’t get to eat Western food very often, so I offered to make the sacrifice and eat Western food with her ;-) We drooled over the many choices before deciding on the classic American hamburger with a milkshake: peanut butter for me, strawberry for Sharon. After a few minutes, our milkshakes arrived: HEAVEN! A few minutes after that, our hamburgers arrived, shocking us at their size. Literally, the same size as our faces. We played around with the camera for a few minutes before sinking our teeth (as best as we could) into the massive slab of meat. Easily the best hamburger I’ve had in Asia.
We scarfed down our hamburgers (at least we tried to anyway, they were HUGE) paid the bill, and walked back to the hostel, picking up bottles of water for the next day on the way back. Took a shower, played with the internet, and went to bed.
DAY 2
Day 2 started way earlier than we wanted to…the curtain was open enough that at 5:30 am the room was flooded with light. We tried to go back to sleep but were unsuccessful: we were just too darn excited! We got out of bed, got dressed and ran downstairs to find our driver waiting for us. He led us through the hu-tong to a van that was waiting for us with one other foreigner, David from LA. We drove for about 5 minutes before parking in front of a building, where a waiting man gave us a McDonald’s bag and cup of coke. So my first meal in China was a hamburger, my second was a sausage McMuffin. After 2 or 3 minutes, an older, somewhat rundown bus full of sleepy looking foreigners pulled up and we hopped on. After we left, our guide filled us in a little bit of the history of the wall and some information about lunch and other things. She let us know that it would be a three hour bus ride, so Sharon and I settled in and started talking. She’s so funny: she doesn’t get to talk to many foreigners, so her English sometimes fails her (as does mine.) We’ve both noticed that we forget words much easier than we used to because we just don’t use them as much: most of our conversations are simple and revolve around a few key topics. Today, on the bus, we were talking about how people stay warm in different countries. In many areas of China, they sleep on a bed of straw (I think) on the floor, warmed by something Sharon wondered out loud what people in Europe used to do before bedpans. I looked at her, and said “Do you mean bed warmers?” We both got a kick out of that!
We finally arrived at the Wall at around 10 am. We hopped out of the bus, got some instructions from our tour guide as well as our lunch tickets and we set out to climb the wall! We decided to take the cable car up to the top of the mountain, which was beautiful and surreal. It gave us plenty of time to reflect on what we were about to set foot on. On the right side and the left side of our cable car, we could see the wall perched on top of the mountains: it took my breath away. Absolutely stunning.
We finally hopped (quite literally) out of the cable car and started the final ascent to the wall (the cable car had taken us most of the way but not quite all the way.) As we started walking up the trail to the wall, we saw these two middle-aged Chinese women who were watching us. We knew pretty quickly that they were going to expect something (although we weren’t sure what,) so we decided to just ignore them for the time being. We finally made it up to the Little Jianshin Tower, where the view was indescribable. The wall stretched on as far as you could see in either direction, formidable and imposing. We climbed up to the top of the tower, took a few pictures and climbed back down to start our trek. Our goal was to make it to the tower that is 9 towers past where we were at the time.
We knew going into the excursion that there was going to be hiking involved, but it was nothing like anything either one of us had done before. The stairs were incredibly steep and since that part of the wall hadn’t been completely restored, the steps were often missing or precarious. Adding to that the sun was beginning to beat down on us and the humidity was climbing; we were quickly drenched with sweat. We noticed quickly that the two middle-aged ladies were sandwiching us between themselves, and decided to continue to try and ignore them. Eventually, after two towers worth of climbing, we met up with our guide, who encouraged us to let the local farmers help us: they are truly kind women who know the wall very well. After that we were a little bit more friendly to them , especially since they offered to take pictures of us together and helped us up and down the steps.
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| The front tower is as far as I went, while Sharon climbed up to the higher tower. The incline doesn't look too bad here, but it was brutal. |
In several different areas of the wall, you had three different choices on how to proceed: you could go down some steep and shallow stairs and then straight back up another set, or you could go on either side of the stairs, walking along a ledge that was usually about a foot wide. Sometimes there was part of the wall to prevent you from just walking right off, other times there were literally inches between you and a deadly drop. It was petrifying and exhilarating at the same time. The ladies were very helpful in telling us which way to go, especially I explained to them that I was terrified of stairs. I really, really don’t like stairs. Ever since falling down my parents’ basement stairs about 5 years ago I’ve had difficulties with descending them.
We pushed on for quite a while, stopping every once in a while to drink water and rest our legs. Parts of the wall involve stairs while other parts involve ascending a 70 degree incline, so our legs turned to jelly before long. Soon we reached a tower called the Flower Tower; it was there I decided I couldn’t go on anymore. Not only were my legs week but the next part of the wall involved climbing some of the steepest and scariest stairs I have ever seen in my life. Sharon decided to tackle the stairs, while I sat and waited for her in the Flower Tower. She got some pictures of me sitting down, I got some pictures of her climbing and on top of the Corner Tower (the tower that I didn’t make it to) and we decided to call it a day.
We had two different options for going back: we could go back exactly how we had come or we could take a shortcut down that would take us through the dense forest next to the wall. We decided to take the shortcut down because we both enjoy wooded hikes. One of the ladies led us down while the other one helped me through the woods, every so often stopping to hold my hand to steady me on the loose rock and dirt.
We made it to the bottom of the mountain pretty quickly, where, as expected, they pulled out a few souvenirs to sell to us. We looked at books that they were offering, debated for a while and decided to buy them. We found out later that we had overpaid, but I honestly didn’t mind too much. The ladies were quite helpful, stopping when we stopped and sharing their large fans with us.
We left them and walked back to the area where we had started, where we decided to buy some water and just relax for a while. We went back to the visitors’ center and washed our hands, as they were quite filthy by this point, and found a shady place to sit and talk while we were waiting for lunch time. Eventually David, whom we had met that morning, joined and we talked for a while. He has been to China several times for business, but he was very curious to hear about our lives in Asia.
Lunch was a delicious buffet, although because of the heat I really wasn’t too hungry. Finally we hopped back on the bus and began our three hour trek back to Beijing. It was interesting to hear all of the different languages on the bus: Russian, Italian, English, German, and a few others that I’m not sure of.
By the time we got back to Beijing, traffic had started to pick up, so the bus stopped at a subway station and our guide told us that we had the option of taking the subway back to our hostels, because it would probably be quicker. The guide told Sharon and I that our hostel was about a 15 minute walk away so we ventured off in the direction that our guide had indicated.
I wasn’t terribly sure about where we were going. Sharon was pretty sure that she knew where we were but everything around us looked incredibly unfamiliar. I hadn’t really had the chance to really explore outside of our hostel, but Sharon had walked from that subway station to our hostel, so I trusted her. We walked and walked and walked and walked…As we were walking different restaurant owners would try to get us to come in and eat, sometimes yelling things at us in English but mostly just yelling at us in Chinese.
We finally found our hu-tong, walked back to the hostel, and collapsed for a bit. Between my nasty sunburn and climbing the wall I was sore and exhausted. Sharon was gracious enough to let me lay down for a bit, which was a godsend, while she went out to find some street food for supper. The sun had zapped my appetite, but what I did eat was absolutely wonderful! We laid down in the courtyard for a while, got caught up on Facebook and did some research for today, and just relaxed.
Day 2 plans: Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and Temple of Heaven and the famous walking/shopping street in Beijing!
