Beijing

Beijing the cultural, political, religious and centre of China's universe. At a population of 16 million also one of the biggest cities in China and on our trip the most north our journey will take us.

We pick up the story after a 16 hour train journey and not a lot of sleep.  Beijing would house the first hostel we have stayed in since Kyoto and our longest stay in one place so far.  Not only because there is lots to see but we needed to just be in one place for a while.  The hostel was conveniently next door to Tiananmem Square so as soon as we arrived we dumped our bags and went for a walk.

Tiananmen Square is world famous for both good and bad reasons and is one of the biggest squares in the world (I hope you have noticed a theme in the blogs by now....everything is bigger and better in China....according to the Chinese of course!).  So after 30 minutes of walking around looking at government buildings and watching the biggest TV screens I have ever seen, we both asked the same question, so where is Tiananmen Sq?  After a look in the book and more wandering we realised we had been in it for the past 30 minutes at which point I said very loudly "Is that it!" (probably dangerous bearing in mind we are in a communist country and there were lots of Chinese tourists around).

Next was the Forbidden City, the home to a number of Emperors and closed to anyone but them for 500 years.  That's why it's called the Forbidden City. The book suggested that you could spend days looking round the buildings and museums.  After 3 hours we had done it and again a little underwhelmed.  Don't get me wrong, it is very impressive and it's not that we are getting blahsay about this stuff, but some of these sites are very over-hyped and massive tourist traps designed to make money rather than reward the visitor.

The final must see tourist site we went to was the Summer Place, a little way out of town but was used as a summer retreat for the Emperor living in the Forbidden city. I have to say that these Emperors had a good thing going.  They could build what ever they liked, wherever they liked and used thousands of peasants to build them. The Summer Place has a very large lake which according to the book was dredged deeper by thousands of peasants.  What they tend not to tell you is that in building a lot of this stuff, many people died and became part of what they built.  We really loved the Summer Palace.  It was a beautiful sunny day, there was lots to see in amazing surroundings and just a nice place to sit and watch the world go by.

 

Being in a hostel has many advantages, one being that you are around people you could talk to. The last few places we have stayed we were the only Westerners for miles around so it was really nice to hear familiar language.  One night having dinner in the hostel we overheard a guy telling the story of his first few hours in China and Beijing....very loudly I might add.  He had been walking Tiananmen Square when a very attractive Chinese lady approached him and began to talk to him.  As they chatted she suggested they went somewhere for a cup of local Chinese tea.  Being just of the plane and open to friendly locals he agreed and followed the girl to the place of her choosing.  Once in the tea house and given the tea he came to pay the bill and was presented with a $200 bill.  Not knowing if this was normal he paid it and left.  Back at the hostel he told the receptionist about it at which point he was told he had just been scammed by quite possibly the oldest one in the book.  It was, in fact, in the book under the heading Scams!!  When he was telling this story he was getting more irate that someone could do such a thing and how he thought she was just being friendly.  Apparently he went back to the place and after much shouting and arguing with several very large Chinese gentlemen he got some of his money back (I know....I was surprised too). Cruelly myself and Emma sat in the corner listening to this trying not to laugh.  We'll leave it to you to guess where this chap was from ;) 

 

We really enjoyed our time in Beijing and even after 5 days we were sorry to leave and felt we could have spent more time there. It was far calmer than all the other cities we have visited in China so far. The guide book warned us it was far more communist.  We did not feel that in fact the only sign of that was the lack of western shops close to the political centre - no MacDonald's in sight and perhaps the size of their government/public buildings which were very grand and the architecture very Russian in style.  Overall, Beijing was a really nice place to wander around and explore with loads to see and do.  Definitely the best place we have been in China so far.

 

Next stop Xian and the Terracotta Army.