After winning an all expenses paid trip to Beijing through work I began to wonder what I'd gotten myself into... 5 days, 2 of which would be spent traveling with 25 other people I'd never met on a flight that went much longer than the minimal 4 hour experience that I'd had... nervous was an understatement. That was, until the itinerary finally arrived...
Day 1: Last minute packing, no matter how early I manage to pack for a holiday it all gets re-packed the day that I leave, don't know why I bother really. A 1 hour drive to the airport silently hoping that the flight would not be delayed due to fog as others had been that week. I arrived in Sydney about 5.30pm after a rather bumpy flight, located my bag and went off in search of the hotel bus, 20 minutes later I had a brain wave that you probably had to notify them that you needed collecting - a further 20 minutes later and I was happily dragging my bag across to reception. After reaching my room and making it my own I realised I'd learnt my third lesson of the day, one which I'd been aware of before, but one that had obviously only scratched the surface of my brain and not sunk right in: where-in your new shoes well BEFORE leaving home! I now had pea sized holes in the backs of my heals, nice. Ordered room service and wine (laughed...on the inside as the guy with my dinner made his way over and around my gear to reach the table), watched the usual crap on TV, made a few calls and had a minor disagreement with the air conditioning fan.
Day 2: 6.00am. Wake up call, alarm clock and mobile alarm... morning! Had a large breakfast delivered at 6.30am, checked out at 7.30am to catch the bus to the international airport, which took a while to leave the hotel thanks to some very grumpy Canadians. They were on a tour and took their time sorting themselves out and grumbling about there only being one bus and having to stand - meanwhile the other bus was parked right next to ours waiting patiently for them to board. After arriving at the airport I located my check in desk... along with 200 or more other Qantas passengers. Lesson 4: Wear light clothing and bring water when checking in. Met a girl from Jo'burg who was waiting in line behind me... more fun to have someone to complain with. After a quick scout around duty free, grabbing some chewing gum and a bag of lollies I headed up to the departure gate to meet the rest of the group. 20 minutes later we were boarding the plane, 40 minutes after that we were still lined up on the tarmac waiting to go - there had been a few delays. After taking off I made good use of the 11.5 hours that followed by watching 3 movies, eating copious amounts of food, if you can refer to plane food with the word copious. And politely, at first, reminding 1 particular member of a Chinese school group that he was getting a little too involved in the in-flight computer game, so much so that the back of my seat was coping a beating. Lesson 5: 'Cabin crew prepare for landing' should be 'cabin crew prepare for landing but you've really got time to watch another episode of CSI'. We landed in Beijing about 8.50pm China time and made our way to the baggage claim... 24/25 bags arrived in Beijing...the other went to Tokyo, not mine thankfully. We met our tour guide, boarded the bus and traveled around 25 minutes through the city to the Beijing International Hotel, we had a welcome drink and... zzz.
Day 3: Met everyone for breakfast around 8.00am after waking at 5am thanks to not shutting the curtains and not expecting the sun to show its face anytime before 6am. Breakfast was fantastic, everything you could think of, including stir fry, not at all appealing to me at that time of day! About 8.30am we headed to Tiananmen Square, amazing, huge and alive with people and colourful kites. After having time to wander and take photos we met up again at the entrance to the Forbidden City. Which appropriately is also the location of my first experience with the toilets of Beijing. After noticing the 4 star rating of the upcoming toilet I contently joined the queue safe in the knowledge that surely 4 star meant 4 star despite the wafting stench from the door ahead. After being shown to my cubicle by none other than what must be called a toilet conductor, I found that the door didn't lock and that the previous occupant was either an ill informed tourist who couldn't locate the flush pedal or a local who thought it might provide a tourist with a delightful memory of their first exposure to Asian toilets, congratulations. Anyway, after the initial shock I think I suffered stage fright 'cos all of a sudden I didn't need to go anymore, intelligently I found the flush pedal and went back to join the group. Lesson 6: 4 star is not 4 star. We spent the next hour or so making our way through the Forbidden City, still not believing that I was actually there. After emerging from the final set of doors and heading toward to the road we were met with a scattering of people begging for money, some of them were poor others had severe deformities, I'd never come across this before and found it quite disturbing and was not entirely sure how to respond. 15 minutes later we arrived at the bus and were driven to the Hutong area where we were due for lunch, we were dropped at the end of a road which looked more like a lane way and led to a nearby 'rickshaw rank' 2 passengers per driver and we were off and racing, or maybe it just felt like it since we were weaving in between cars and other bikes! That and the traditional lunch that followed was definitely 1 of the highlights of the trip. We were just entering the Hutong houses where we were to have lunch when I realised my camera battery was flat, big disappointment as it was only 1pm and we still had so much left to do that day. Anyway we met our hosts, a lovely elderly couple who with the help of their son were going to cook our lunch/banquet! All 25 of us found a seat at a table in a very small lounge room... what can I say the food was the best that I was going to eat in my 3 day stay in Beijing, fantastic. Enhanced by the fact that it was the last place I'd have expected to have found an Australian power point... yippee! And these great people gave me my first taste of Beijing beer, definitely a new favourite. A group rendition of Waltzing Matilda and our hosts Chinese Opera performance (which initially, to my horror I thought was a joke, luckily my smile stopped before a laugh and resumed a respectful blank look before anyone noticed)and we were on our way. Back on the Rickshaws we headed back to what I like to refer to as the Salamanca Place of Beijing, we tipped our driver, mistakenly offering him 4 Yuan, (was still thinking in Aussie dollars and had basically offered him 75 cents!) after changing this to 20 his face lost the initial look of horror and we left him almost smiling again after some routine photos. Right, now I really needed to go to the toilet, what with a morning of walking in 30+ degree heat and refueling with multiple bottles of water, not to mention the plentiful supply of beer during lunch which I took the liberty of making the most of... I now had no choice but to master the local loos. A few of us left the group and proceeded to join the queue, we watched the 'toilet conductor' opening doors to see if the cubicles were occupied, more often that not they were so she'd shut the door again, I vowed to figure out some way of completing the necessary task whilst holding the door firmly shut. My turn next... all I’m going to say it that it's a shame that the Winter Olympics aren't being held in Beijing 'cos the down hill skiers would definitely have the overall advantage! From that moment on any reference to the toilet was known as 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' (thanks entirely to that unfriendly, intrusive toilet conductor). Next off was a post lunch boat trip on the lake, with speeds that would not challenge my Pop on his gofer we still managed to run into at least 3 other boats... picture dodgem cars that float... no, I think maybe they go faster, anyway it was very enjoyable because we were full to the brim with Chinese cuisine! Later we arrived back at the bus, oh not before managing to squeeze in some skewered strawberries covered in a light layer of toffee, yum and highly recommended. We then made our way to the location of the best performance I've seen in a long time, perhaps ever (Kung fu). Unfortunately we were not able to take photos so any description I give will not live up to what I remember seeing... so if you're ever in Beijing... go see it. When the performance ended we met outside and spent the next 10 minutes fending off street sellers whilst waiting for the bus (they'd been around wherever we'd visited that day but you get used to saying no and walking away). Next off, time to eat again, we were dropped at a restaurant for another banquet, and to my surprise they had western toilets yay! The meal was great, though not as good as lunch and we seemingly had an endless supply of beer, great way to end the day. But... it didn't end there, we went back to the hotel to get changed and our trusty bus driver dropped us at a 'nearby' pub, took 30 minutes from the hotel, and I was nearly asleep by the time we got there. We wandered along a street lined with pubs trying to decide which one to commit to since each pub's staff would try to get us all to stop at theirs by dragging tables together so we'd all fit. After being seated we ordered a carton of beer (cheaper and there were quite a few of us), an artist stopped by our table and asked if anyone wanted their portrait drawn - 2 from our group did so he sat down and joined us. About 1am most of us decided it was time to brave the taxi back to the hotel, taxi's are cheap, they all seem to think they're Michael Schumacher but despite braking at the last minute and occasionally driving down the middle of 2 lanes or on the wrong side all together... they are quite good drivers, I'm serious!
Day 4.
I'm kind of over writing this now, so the next couple of days might be a bit short on detail. This morning we headed out to the Great Wall, took us a bit over an hour to get there, after the regulation pit stop and a change of shoes - one look at the wall is all you need to realise that thongs probably just won't cut it! A short debrief from our guide and we were off to walk the wall, well a small part of it, and not alone either, we shared the place with what felt like the population of a small country. At times it didn't even feel like you were on the wall, more like Myer in Melbourne with a 50% off sale. It was amazing though and very steep! After about an hour wandering, calling people back home who weren't standing on the Great Wall of China and dodging a sudden down pour by diving into a souvenier shop only to be reprimanded by a sales person for putting the small t-shirt that I was looking at back in the large section, I decided it was time for coffee, found a friendlier souvenier shop that sold coffee AND left you alone. Hit by caffeine we were then transported to another part of the wall where we had lunch and took another large amount of photos, less people at this part so we really got the full effect of just how extensive the wall really was, I'd say it would definitely have kept the rabbits out, because they'd have all died of heart attacks trying to reach it. The afternoon was packed with visits to the Ming Tombs, The Sacred Way and two drive bys of the 2008 Olympic site. About 5.00pm we had 'free choice', 4 of us decided to check out the Wang Fujing shopping mall over the Chinese massage (figured could get someone to walk on me at home should that ever be something that appealed to me!) and the Silk Markets which we were going back to the following day anyway. The mall was being renovated so there were large amounts of rubble to sidestep, but once in the stores themselves... immaculate. After wandering for a while we came across something resembling an alley way that led to what I would say was one of the most traditional Chinese experiences I had during my trip (aside from the Hutong lunch). There were people selling, scorpions, seahorse, starfish and lizards... on sticks, a Chinese opera performance from a balcony above one of the stalls, heaps of little bars and really friendly locals that weren't continually grabbing at you trying to sell you stuff. We sat at one of the bars and ordered Beijing beer, at the cheapest price we were to come across, 10 Yuan, bout a $1.60 for a huge bottle. I could've stayed there all night, it was great. No time to relax for too long, we had to be back at the hotel for dinner at the revolving restaurant, only we slightly underestimated the size of the blocks after referring to a map, 4 blocks in Australia is not 4 blocks in Beijing, so we ran, almost to our demise due to the regular appearance of underpasses! We crossed one overpass over 6 lanes of traffic to which someone said 'is this moving' bad... bad timing, I ran the rest of the way just to get off! Flying through those annoying revolving doors that hit you in the butt if you're too slow, we raced to our rooms... got changed in 3 minutes flat and road the lift to the top floor. Revolving restaurants make you a bit nauseous, not to mention disorientated after one to many beers! The view was great! Dinner finished at 9.30pm after which we caught the bus back to the 'Salamanca Place' of Beijing, we then settled in at a local bar until about 3.30am when we braved the taxi back to the hotel after a quick detour to McDonalds! Got to bed about 4.30am. My room mate set her alarm, but what neither of us realised was that she'd not changed to local time on her mobile so the alarm went off 30 minutes later at 5am and thanks to a malfunctioning snooze button it proceeded to go off every 20 minutes for the next hour! I got up at 7am feeling understatedly worse for wear!
Day 5: Our last day :-( Off to the Beijing Zoo to see the pandas, followed by a few hours doing the loop of the Summer Palace, by which time I'd eaten 3 icy poles thanks to it being 30 degrees and nursing a minor hangover. We had lunch at a local restaurant and then to the Silk Markets for one last shopping session. We were all to meet back at the bus at 5pm in time to get back to the hotel to pack and shower and rush off to the airport. I nearly missed the bus thanks to being cornered by a stall owner whilst bartering over a Buddha and then taking a wrong turn which some how put me at the wrong end of the market...got there just as the bus engine rolled over and was about to leave without me...phew! Back to the hotel to jam everything into my pack. We checked in at the airport had some tea, duty-freed and crashed out in the standard uncomfortable airport chairs. After boarding the plane and following some subtle assigned seat relocations we 'found' that we were 'lucky' enough to have 4 seats between 2. 3 glasses of red later and we were still awake at 4am - tried to get some sleep from then on but to no avail. We landed at 11am ish and after clearing customs the first thing I did was locate the nearest surf shop and buy a new t-shirt and a pair of thongs, couldn't wait to get my shoes off! 2 flights to go, Sydney to Melbourne, Melbourne to Launceston and an hours drive home finally got to bed at 11pm with work to look forward to the following day! All in all, a fantastic 3 days in Beijing!!!
