Beijing

 

 Day 1: May 18 Onto the Mainland and Beijing

We arrived in Beijing PEK airport at 2:00pm, a 3-hour flight from Hong Kong. A fast train moves passengers quickly from gates to the terminal. Immigration and Customs dealt with quickly and efficiently. Our organized tour starts at Beijing airport where we were met by guide April, holding a sign with our names. The tour, organized by Lycoris with Tibet Vista/Travel, it is a 19-day adventure, tour includes guide, car and driver, hotel rooms and breakfast. We are on our own for other meals.

Arrival at PEK

The Beijing (PEK) airport is a massive modern structure; western airports could learn a few things. Have to say the civil engineering and architecture seen so far, here and in Hong Kong, are amazing. April, and driver took us to the Howard Johnson Paragon in the downtown. April handheld us to the desk and made sure we were checked in, good process. A nice room, even above high-end western standards, a bidet seat was on the toilet, and as we later found, are provided in most China accommodation.

Nice Room!

 The WIFI did not seem to work, front desk told me it does work fine but western Apps are blocked. Need a VPN to access them. WeChat (China WhatsApp) does function and we used that for contact with travel agent and family. Found that our Freedom phone service did allow all western Apps to work, apparently the server they use is in Toronto and bypasses the State required censorship. 

The mobile service was excellent; China has cell towers everywhere that provide high speed service. At $30/5GB or $50/10GB, we did not bother with a VPN.

After a long day of travel, we were too lazy to go out for dinner, we dined in at the very nicely appointed dining area in the hotel. We enjoyed Peking Duck (they did call it that in this establishment, saw others later calling it Beijing Duck, some colonial vestiges still exist). The Duck was awesome, carved by the table, we enjoyed it with delicious fried rice.

There were small cubes of duck on bread topped with caviar nicely presented on a fine tray, outstanding! We had ordered another dish, but they wisely did not bring it out as an entire duck is a lot of duck. We soldiered on with and eventually the duck was consumed. This delicious fare cost was about ¥280($60cad) about same as a basic breakfast for two in Calgary.

 

 Day 2: May 19 Tours in downtown Beijing  

This morning after an excellent breakfast buffet our next guide Angela met us at 8:00 at our hotel. 

Paragon Breakfast Buffet

She will guide us for our remaining time in Beijing. 

First on the agenda was a visit to Tian’anmen square. A very busy place, a reconnaissance drive by revealed there was at least an hour and a half long lineup on entry. 

Monument to Peoples Heros: Ming Dynasty Gate: Mao Mausoleum 

We opted not to join that Tian’anmen Square fun, instead a drive by viewing from the car window was deemed sufficient. A few obligatory “we have been there photos” as seen above and we were onto the next one.

 The Forbidden city was next on the agenda; it is simply amazing. Our guide Angela was very knowledgeable, and we had many interesting conversations. 

The Forbidden City, located on 180 acres, was China’s Imperial Palace during the Ming and Qing(pronounced Ching) Dynasties. For almost 500 years (1420 to 1912) China was ruled from here. 

Fine Jade items

This is the largest Palace on the planet, 3 times the size of the Louvre. Took 14 years to construct by over 1 million workers including 100,000 craftsmen/artisans. It is said to have 9999 and ½ rooms, one half a room less than Gods Palace in Heaven was reported to have. Apparently, the rulers did not want to offend God by having equal or more rooms. Clearly, they felt themselves to be as near to Gods as could possibly be. Hardly any ego. Beautiful, well-maintained buildings, priceless furniture and appointments. The Chinese are very proud of their dynastic past.

 

The Imperial Palace was abandoned with the fall of the Qing dynasty. The dynasty collapse occurred directly from imperialistic colonial actions by Britian with the 1st Opium war from 1839-42, where China was offended that the British were trafficking Opium from Afghanistan into their county and destroying the fabric of their society. 

Queen Victoria a young Woman 
about to start the humiliation of China 

This resulted in Britain, under recently crowned Queen Victoria, utilizing Gunboat diplomacy to get their way. The war ended in China ceding Hong Kong and the opening of trade at Shanghai and other ports as well as punishing reparations. 

This was the beginning of 150 years of humiliation of China by “the west”. At the time the revenue from the China opium trade was a major source of revenue for Britian. No doubt funded the Industrial Revolution.

There is rule of law and folks to enforce

As well, Queen Victoria is said to have regularly enjoyed opium mixed with alcohol. (known as Laudanum, still generically sold by prescriptions as opium tincture, 10% opium! can still fly like a Queen) Of course she required this substance for “personal relief” and stimulation. With all the hard work of ordering brutal wars, one no doubt needed relief. Apparently, she also enjoyed cocaine, cannabis and chloroform as “medicine”, no wonder she lived so long.

In 1856, the second opium war was instigated by Britian and France to further expand western trade into China and to legalize opium. This concluded in 1860 with expanded trade granted, foreign presence in Beijing and further reparations. The Qing Dynasty became a puppet of Britan, essentially colonizing the country.

Forbidden City moat

Queen Victoria near end of Reign 
Still subjugating China

In 1898 the Boxer Rebellion (named for the Northern China martial arts experts that initiated the uprising) again tried to remove foreign influence; nope didn’t happen, 7 European nations and Japan prevailed and subjugated China again to continue to rob and pillage the country. 

Dynasty Costume Dress

Queen Victoria (or her bankster handlers?) did not give up cash cows easily. Not until Mao pushed the western backed “nationalist” government of Chaing Kai Shek into the sea and onto Tiawan did China regain real self-government. It took until 1997 to regain Hong Kong from the British and 1999 for Macau from Portugal. Thus the 150 years of humiliation by “the west” ended as the rise of China moved forward.

At Forbidden City we first caught a glimpse of ladies dressed in period costume, more later.

We followed up the Forbidden City with a visit to the Temple of Heaven, part of which is a huge outdoor park where citizens participate in fitness and social activities. This beautiful area occupies over a square mile(685 acres) in downtown Beijing. Many trees and green spaces, as well as amazing buildings. 

The Temple was used in the Qing Dynasty as a place of prayer to heaven for good harvests. It suffered vandalism during the “Cultural Revolution” with the main alter being destroyed. Today it is a highly regarded and well-maintained world heritage site.  The Cultural Revolution was another disastrous policy of Mao, no doubt to maintain his firm grip on power, not as bad a death toll as the Great Leap but still a few million perished as many cultural and religious buildings and icons were destroyed. 

Dynasty Costumed Ladies

The Cultural Revolution inflicted much hardship from 1966 to 1978. The chaos finally ended with Mao's death. Eventually Deng Xiaoping gained power and stopped the madness and started the rise of China. At the Temple of Heavan, we again saw many examples of young ladies dressing in dynastic period costumes and posing for photo shoots.

These extensive tours complete we were in need of sustenance (Angela for sure, as did not have the luxury of the extensive buffet breakfast). Someone also wanted a beer. We found a place for lunch that my friend Jackie would have described as a “Hole in the Wall” . We shared a tasty noodle soup and a beer. (Angela enjoyed a meal to herself).

The afternoon plan was to attend a Chinese acrobatic show
at 2:30, we still had some time to kill so we went to a tea shop near the theater. There we were treated to a demonstration (sales pitch, possibly a commission-based event?) on how to properly drink tea, the correct hardware and of course various types of tea. Even had a Cricket pet inn a cage! 

This was very entertaining- the lady was a true salesperson. We did purchase 

Pet Cricket

a tin of tea and some hardware. She also suggested how to hold a teacup and what the proper position of the pinky finger is. I believe she said it should be pointed away for ladies and not for men. Who knows? The internet says it is rude to point the pinky like Shirley Temple does, it also notes that it may have been a way for ladies to indicate interest in a male or to signal that for at least, for French ladies, that they had syphilis. The latter seems very unlikely as the facial scars would give that it away and who would advertise that?…

After the fascinating tea adventure, it was time for the acrobatic show. Very difficult to describe this event, a fast-paced show of acrobatics, all amazing and some pretty campy. As entertaining as any Vegas show could be.(many of the Cirque de Soleil performers come from China). 

Can another body be piled on the mass of contorting humanity? Can another chair be added to the tottering pile? How many ladies can hold onto a bar with their mouth? 

Can that lady riding a bicycle load another body on her shoulders? Yes Indeed!

Can another motorcycle enter the spherical cage? Is 1, 2 or 4 not enough? 

Exhausting to watch, absolutely an hour of pure entertainment! Spent, our driver brought us back to our hotel.

Beijing is a city of over 21MM people, massive road network, with at least 4 ring roads . The traffic is pretty busy; motorbikes, bicycles and cars co-existing, mostly harmoniously. The motorcycles/scooters are primarily electric as are many of the automobiles and buses. Their noiselessness, particularly scooters on sidewalks, can be unnerving. They are the world leader in uptake on electric vehicles as well as their manufacture. Very smart for a country with limited oil reserves who imports most of their needs. Not quite as much a driving free for all as India, but still less angry drivers than in North America, didn’t hear many horns honked in anger. The city is very clean and manicured. The medians of many roads are full of lovely rose bushes, a beautiful city.

After a rest we ventured out on the streets of downtown Beijing. A very safe city, no issue walking around in downtown after dark. Chinese cities are some of the safest on the planet. 

And Cats!

There is a significant police presence and people respect the rule of law. (almost like canada in the 1950’s/60’s). There are also no homeless, everybody seems to have a role. Maybe because there is little or no drug problem? Trafficking is dealt with severely.

A few blocks walk in the evening took us to section of an ancient city wall in a nearby green space area, a pleasant outing amid much traffic on the adjacent roads. Felt very safe. 

Evening Walk in downtown Beijing 

Hot Pot Delight

Angela had recommended a Hot Pot restaurant that was between our hotel and the wall. We amazingly located it and enjoyed an excellent Hot Pot dinner. Beef, fish and vegetables that we cooked ourselves at the table. Well, we did require a tutorial for the cooking, the server used Google Translate to guide us through the process, how long to cook each item, very first world.

 

Day 3: May 20 The Great Wall and more!

Today was our visit to the Great Wall. Another experience that we hadn’t thought that we would ever have. After a another over the top buffet breakfast at the hotel we were picked up just after 8 for our trip to visit the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. 

This is one of several sections open to foreigners. About a 75km drive to the site from our hotel, took about 1.5 hours. 

The Great Wall of China is a massive structure built over more than 2 millennia by multiple dynasties. Supposedly a physical barrier to keep the “Mongol Hoards” from pillaging the more sophisticated Chinese. Nearly 22,000 Kms in length (a little over ½ way around the globe at the equator). Possibly this was merely an excellent make work project that kept on giving for centuries to keep the peasants busy and not thinking about changing government. 

Not a continuous wall, rather many sections that are parallel and some are isolated.  The most recent segments were built by the Ming dynasty between 1368 and 1644 when the Ming dynasty fell and Qing was initiated. Our visit to the Mutianyu section is to a rebuilt segment from this era, a little over 2kms is open to visitors, did not quite see the entire 2kms. 

The Mutianyu section of the Great Wall has been meticulously restored and is the said to be the most accessible location to visit. There are escalators, elevators and a cable car to provide easy access to most.

 

A partially cloudy day, but still pleasantly warm. On arrival we took a shuttle bus for a short distance, then walked for a while past the obligatory souvenir shops and into a cable car. The cable car takes you near the wall crest to a paved/cobblestone path that leads to watchtower Number 14. There were a few steep uneven steps to the top. Some difficulty for us with aging joints. There were many people jostling for the best photo spots but we persevered and had great views of the wall stretching out in both directions.

 

We didn’t walk too far past the watchtower as the terrain was fairly steep and we thought that we had had enough fun climbing. Our guide pointed out people say that ”they climb the Great Wall” not walk it. We spent about half an hour exploring the gate house before heading back down on a slightly different route avoiding the steepest steps.

 

We reversed the cable car and we visited a couple of the souvenir shops and picked up a few trinkets including a Mao green cap with red star, a have to have.  Suitable retail therapy and back to the shuttle bus. 

Once again folks were obsessed with my beard and asked for selfies with me. Leaving the bus a lady wanted her photo taken with me, I complied (not free had been advised by a friend to charge $5, rather than cash I requested that they allow me to take a selfie too) she then insisted that her whole family have their photo taken with me too. My ego has been massively inflated.

 

Mobile Coffee Station

Off the bus we are reunited with our driver for the journey back to Beijing. We saw an interesting coffee station in the parking lot as we exited. There was a Bus with a man looking into his mobile (don’t we all?) sitting on a stool tending his espresso maker and an adjacent fridge in the underside luggage storage area. The driver was brewing up a Java while sitting back waiting for his load to return.

 

Soon we were headed back toward Beijing and to lunch. Our guide had played up a certain dish as a local delicacy, something that we have, not unsurprisingly, had not previously dined on(think Shrek/ Eddie Murphy). 

Donkey Burger

Indeed, it was donkey on a bun washed down with a beer (the guide and driver did not have a beer). The donkey bun/burger was quite tasty, a largely nondescript flavoured meat that certainly was not chicken. Was just the meat on a toasted bun. We also had a very fine spinach and egg soup. All the food has been good. Back to the car and a long restful drive back to our hotel. Today was not as strenuous a day as the previous few days. For dinner we weren’t very hungry but were very lazy. 

Excellent Dim Sum

We went downstairs to the fancy restaurant in the hotel again, this time we ordered four delicious dishes from the dim sum menu. Mmmm.

 

Tomorrow, we take the train to Xi’an(Shian), will explore Xi'an for a few days. Train day should be an easy rest day? It’s just the two of us with our guide who will get us to the station and onto the bullet train. We’ll have a different guide in Xi’an our next city. When we go to Tibet we’ll be in a larger group tour.

 

Day 4 May 21 Bullet Train to Xi’an

 We are up at 5:30 enjoyed another fine buffet breakfast and packed our stuff. In the car by 8AM, train station at 9. Angela is very kind with excellent attention to detail. She got us train tickets, took us to the gate and walked with us all the way to the platform. Didn’t want her "elderly" clients to get lost. 

On to the Beijing to Xi'an bullet train by 9:30.