Firstly a shout out to my mate Glenn, here you go pal sorry for the delay.
My stereotypical thought of China especially Beijing was that everything would have a Chinese influence, the food, the building at just the general atmosphere of the city. How wrong i could be. We arrived in Beijing early sunday morning around 1am. By the time we got to the housing compound we were wrecked.
Our first sight fo Beijing during the day light was surprising. In the car heading into the city there was a lot of trees lining the highway and the streets were very clean. However the polution and traffic did live up to my expectations. Visibility was only a couple of hudred meters and the traffic was literally nuts. The chinese get full use of their car, horn and highbeams especially. They had no fear when it came to driving across lanes and cut in when ever they please of speeding through the emergency lane to beat the traffic.
Wang pronounced (rung) unfortunately, dropped us at Tienamen square mid morning. It is apparently the largest public square in the world and was obviously famous for the incidents that occurred in the 80's i think with the tanks drivers and the chinese man and his teddy. It was a huge place we walked around for about an hour or two where we were asked to be in photos due to our white skin, freckles and my red hair. It was fun at the start then it just got down right ridiculous and we feared to stand in the one spot for too long because we knew a child wold be throuwn in our direction for a snap. The guards here dont like photos taken of them but we got a few sneaky shots in (gropping pictures to come). It was really interesting the lack of western visitors throughout the whole Beijing trip, we rarely saw anyone who did not look chinese, korean or japanese.
On our walk to the Forbiden City El and i saw the funiest thing so far on the trip. WHile walking around Tienamen square we noticed all the kids had slits in there pants or onsies and we didnt know why until we walked under ground to the Forbidden City. A family tried to get their child to have a pic with el but the baby kicked and screemed. We continued walking to only look back the the mother holding the child spread legged over an open rubbish bin to do its thing in broad daylight. Classic chinese people
The Forbidden City, closed to the chinese public for over 500 years while the emporers were in power, home to inuendo and the overpowering of family members. Words will struggle to describe what we saw that as will the pictures due to the pollution unfrtunately. The scale of the city was breath taking, we decided to hire an audio guide after telling all the other human guides we were not interested in them following us the whole afternoon listening to their broken English. This gave us a better understanding of where to go and what we were seeing, it explained all the inticratsies and whatoccured behind the walls for all those years. We spent around 3 ours exploring and discovering new things about the city such as the couldrens in front of every building which they used to burn incense and wood so that the smoke would create a mystic feeling throughout the city. Again their were a lot of asian tourists and very little westerners spotted throughout the city. We continued walking north to a man made mountai over looking the city Jinshang Park. We scaled the steps and looked out over the city but visibiliy was still poor so the pictures and sightseeing wasnt greeat.
Hutongs:
These are little alley ways that had shops, bars and markets packed within its small confines. We decied to check out one called Nanluogu Xiang. It was fantastic, very busy with people selling food, jewellery, books and importantly alcohol. We had earned out first drink for the trip and moved around the bars for the night. When we were finished Wang was only a text message away to pick us up and take us back to the house (living the dream).
Olympic Stadiums:
The night after finishing the great wall walk we decieded to meet up with friends and go to the olympic stadiums which were lit up for the night. We saw the Birds Nest and the Water Cube stadiums which were home to the 2008 olympics. I didnt realize the sheer size of them until we stood under them. The design of both of them were great and lit up the night sky which had just started to spit with rain. We caught the local railway network to another hutong, which put Melbourne's Myki system to shame, it cost 30cents to catch a train anywhere in the city one way. After travelling for 10 minutes we got off at a station climbed the stairs to the road to witness the heaviest rain i had seen in my life. The streets were running rivers, with little tuk tuk riders struggling to ride up stream. The hutong was up the road and had no way of getting their without being drenched so we bout ponchos of a wryly little shit who saw us coming and wouldnt sell the ponchos for less that 10yuan per poncho ($4). We donned the ponchos and stepped out into the deluge. It was one of the most exillerating experiences dodging buses, cars and tuk tuk driver while we leaped rivers and lakes on the road. After 10min of walking we could find the hutong and had to put our pride i our back pockets and walk back to the station.
We spent the night back at the orginial hutong, where we finished up around 12.30. El and i had told Wang not to worry to pick us up instead we would catch a taxi. This was a mistake. We walked out onto a main road in torrential rain and tried to wave down a taxi. 3 stopped and we tried to explain where we wanted to go but they blatantly shook their head closed the window and drove off. Eventaully one was willing to wait until i called Wang on his mobile, which i them passed to the driver so he could explain the adress. We arrived home 1.30am, an hour later than we should have, but we were home!
