First few days in BEIJING

We're in Beijing!
One of the many hilarious translations

11 October, Beijing

Well today, day 4 in Beijing, has been just as great as the previous 3 days! First afternoon we arrived in Beijing around 3 in the afternoon. Our cabbie had some trouble finding our hotel, as we were warned he would from reading some website. He was circling around the main train station, but across the street from it. I remembered seeing a photo of someone who stayed at the hotel, showing the tracks right from her bedroom, so I realized we had to cross the street, which we did, and he soon found it.

Outside of Hotel in Beijing

We were all pleasantly relieved to find the place, spacious, clean, quite nicely decorated and comfy, despite being on the 4th floor without an elevator. The kids were pooped, as we were up early that morning to get to the airport early. Thanks Isono for driving us! Lianna and I left them in the hotel room and went to explore the area. We walked around the train station, which is quite close to the hotel. We immediately dove in and bought some kind of buns from a stand near the station. They were onion buns. Not what we were in the mood for, but tasty. There is lots of hustle and bustle around the station, but surprisingly clean, and there is a feeling of ease and safety, or lack of any kind of intimidation. We went to some grocery stores around, looking at the strange things for sale. It was all very exciting and interesting. We quickly realized that Beijing is HUGE, with huge buildings, and boulevards of huge proportions. Walking seems to take forever, as things are very far away, even if you can see them, and even if they seem close on the map.

Caleb riding around Beijing

We returned to the hotel and decided to eat at the hotel restaurant. Chinese food, with the waitresses speaking very little English, but enough. There were pictures in the menu, thankfully, so we had an idea what we were ordering. Things were very inexpensive: most dishes costing around 3.50 CDN, like a sweet and sour pork, or hot and sour soup. We ordered dumplings, which ended up stealing the show, as they were home-made, and great. After eating dumplings, sweet and sour pork, which had a bizarre spice, like anaise, which didn't quite sit right with us, and a beef and pepper dish, which was tasty, they brought the hot and sour soup we ordered. It was huge! Could have fed 12, and cost around 3 bucks. Needless to say we left over a lot of food, but had a good meal.

Caleb and I had energy, but the girls were pooped, so he and I went for a walk to see the famous Wangfujing shopping area. We walked by the station, and decided to go through a small little street. It was dark, but many people were out. There were tiny shops on this tiny street, which is kind of like a hutong - an old neighbourhood with winding, walled alleyways. People were out, eating on the side of the street. There were small shops, selling cigarettes, some fruit, the odd jacket and bag. Some were offering a variety of food like steamed veggies, pots of chickens, etc., which you could eat there on the street. But all in all quite quiet. We got to one of the huge boulevards, and were amazed by the massiveness of the buildings, the length of time it took to walk from one end of the block to the other, and how far it was to cross the street!

We finally ended up at Wangfujing. There were many people out, but not hordes or anything. I was expecting a covered outdoor market with stalls and food vendors. But this was brand-name stores like Dior and Channel! There were large shopping centres, pretty much empty, filled with high-end brand-name shops - all geared toward rich Chinese! These huge malls were basically empty. May have been near closing time, but still, the place was huge, filled with shops, and no people. Caleb was delighted to find a Sega arcade place, like we saw in Japan, but with older games for 1 Yuan, rather than 1 Yen, which is basically 1/6th the price. We went outside, where the people were (mostly Chinese tourists), and found ourselves in a small alley-like shopping area outside.

Market Area - Like the Chinese night market in Vancouver

Here, we saw some food vendors, and realized they were selling, well, there were selling skewers with LIVE scorpions on them, which one young Chinese woman had ordered. I saw the scorpions, and Caleb said they were live, which I didn't believe, but after staring at them for a bit, I realized they were indeed LIVE!!! They bar-b-qued the scorpions for her and handed them to her. She kind of looked at it, obviously just as squeamish about eating it as we. She asked the guy if they were bar-b-qued enough, and he assured her they were, so she dug in, and chomped one off the skewer. Caleb and I, and some South African tourists next to us, just looked at each other. This was obviously not usual food for anyone, as an older woman was eating a skewer, perhaps of snake, and laughing as she ate it. Truth be told Caleb and I went to the McDonald's and had an ice cream!

Bugs for sale

The next day we decided to go to Tianamen square. We had breakie at the hotel. About $1.50 for quite a spread of fried eggs, rice, veggies (salads with things like marinated cucumber, cabbage, noodles), toast, buns (with onions inside), coffee (actually not too bad, with sweetened and condensed milk), orange juice, and other weird stuff. We headed out after trying a variety of these items, walking the long boulevards. Apparently the subway is very clean and efficient, as are busses, although we've yet to try them. Cheap too at about 15 cents a ride. Cabs are cheap too, with a 30 minute ride from the airport costing about 14 bucks, and a ride across town (which is huge) at about 3 bucks, which makes the hassle of the subway seem silly. The main issue with the cabs is telling the driver where you want to go. One afternoon it was pouring and we wanted to take a cab to a market. But how to tell him? We went into a large supermarket called "Wu Mart" - I'm sure a take-off on you know what, and asked around if anyone spoke English. A cashier did, and a girl relieved him so he could help us. He wrote out the name of the market in Chinese, which we then showed to the cabbie, who took us there, for 2.50 CDN. So, we're heading down a boulevard toward Tianamen square, and this girl in her 20s says hello to us. She's with a guy around the same age, and we say hello back. We quickly start up a conversation, and the next thing we know we're spending the day with them taking us on a tour of Beijing.

With the students

They were students and wanted to practice their English. They took us to a building downtown, in the basement, to buy Great Wall tickets. The next thing I know I'm shelling out 150 bucks for tickets from some Chinese speaking booth in the basement of this building. I have a moment's hesitation, and then think, go for it. Turns out it was all good! Had a great day, but more on that for tomorrow's entry. Dough (his name) and Xia-qi (as she spelled it; their spelling of things in English tends to help very little, as they right away start with the "Xia"s and "Qi"s, which I have no idea how to pronounce, as it's all about these schia-shou-shi words)

They take us on a tour of the hutongs; take us to some shopping places, and after we invited them for lunch, take us to this very dicey looking place in the middle of the hutong. Dough looks at it and says, "This place looks good", and I'm thinking "!!!!!???!!!". But we go in, and have an amazing lunch. I see a plate of chips, potato chips, on the table next to us, so I ask him to order that. And then he orders some lamb on skewers (scary looking, but very very delicious, including the fat); a noodle dish; a chicken dish; and then this huge stew thing. All were very tasty, and washed down with some large bottles of good old Coca Cola! Beer here is available everywhere, like in Japan, but here it costs about a buck for a large bottle.

Lunch with students

After lunch we walked around a bit more. Dough then called his friend and got us a deal on tickets for the Chinese acrobat show. We met the guy at a bus stop. He got off, gave me the tickets for below face value (25 bucks instead of 30), and he then left.

Tour of streets with students

We said good-bye to them, thanking them for a magical first day in Beijing.

We then took a cab to the Silk Market, which is a white tourist shopping area specializing in brand-name knock-offs - which is what Artemis has been waiting for since we left. The place is four floors of shopping madness, with each floor specializing in different items: basement, purses and shoes; main floor, jackets and jeans; second floor electronics, and third floor, who knows, as we never made it there. Each floor is broken up into small alleys, with small stalls along each alley filled to the brim with goods, and the most aggressive young women you will every meet, grabbing you, physically, and pulling you physically into their stall to buy stuff. You have to bargain HARD, as they try their hardest (and usually succeed) to rip you off. We got Liana a silk jacket, which started at 1,600 RMB, and was eventually purchased for 120 RMB (about 18 bucks), as I absolutely refused to budge on price. She begged me, holding on to my arm, pleading with me loudly, but with humour (some go to the verge of tears) to offer her more. When we were ready to leave, she finally relented, although we fought for about 5 minutes over the last 5 RMB, as she wanted 125 and I refused to move from 120. Quite funny, but tiring. She was smiling when we left. The thing is, they are actually quite honest, and when they say something, they do it. So although she wanted 125, I gave her 200, and she gave me 80 back. I bought a Gortex jacket with a soft-shell lining, and nearly killed the girl, who relented at 360, but only if I bought her and her associates ice-creams (for 3 bucks), which I agreed to.

Artemis New Juice Bag

Upon returning to our hotel that night, we got a call from our Great Wall tour leader. We were supposed to go Saturday, but he thought we were going to next day, Friday. Anyhow we did, and he picked us up at our hotel at 9, and we had a magical day at the Great Wall of China! The bus had about 8 other people: a couple from Iran, Tennessee, Toronto, and a Swiss student and us. We went to the Ming tombs, which was cool, a jade factory, where we had lunch - which was excellent Chinese food, then the Great Wall, which really was great (see our flickr shots of this, if I've uploaded them yet: www.flickr.com/photos/travelallplanes).

The Great Wall is one of those famous attractions that really astounds you and delivers everything - and more - that you expect. There were many many people there on this spectacular sunny clear day. Tourists from all over the world, including many from China itself. We met people from Montreal!!! Toronto, Malaysia, Singapore - you name it. We climbed to the topmost part of this part of the wall. It was really one of those moments when you say, "Holy shit, we're on the Great Wall of China!!!". Started in 700 B.C., it is truly amazing, and were all very impressed and moved by the experience.


From there we went back to town and found out they were taking us to a Chinese medicine place as part of the tour. We got an explanation of Chinese medicine, as part of the government's desire to share cultural traditions. We all had a Chinese foot massage (3 bucks), which was great, and had a 20 minute lecture on Chinese medicine. The place was very high-end, clean, nicely decorated, and everyone spoke very good English.

From there our guide dropped us off at his recommended Peking Duck restaurant, DaDong's. Well, WOW! What an experience that was. It was very high-end, posh, and gorgeous, with the ducks being roasted right there in the very fancy and elaborately decorated entranceway. Many rich Chinese and Western visitors. Waiters in chic black suits with earpieces to talk to each other. There were 5 wood-burning ovens cooking up ducks as fast as we could eat them. We waited for an hour for our table, and were not disappointed.


They bring the perfectly cooked little fella right to your table, neck, head, beak and all! They then proceed to cut it up right there. We ate one, and it went down so quickly and easily we ordered another! All this was only $35 CDN a duck! Dinner followed by fruit and then an iced dessert. Truly a magnificent experience, and a perfect end to a perfect day. We ended up walking 3 Kms back to our hotel. It was 10 p.m. on a Friday, and there were many people out walking. At one subway station dance music was playing and people were line dancing! We all took part in this ad-hoc event. What fun! Dancing in the street in Beijing on Friday night. Back to the hotel pooped, and very satisfied.

And much more to come!!!