I love Beijing
Yep, I really do love Beijing. Maybe it was the contrast of having average food over the previous 6 weeks and too much wide open space, and the unfriendly-ness, expensiveness and language problems of Russia. And lots of cold weather. Because by contrast Beijing was warm, friendly, food everywhere and good, cheap, english speaking, big buildings, ally ways bursting with character, so much to do and see. Basically it was awesome. We spent about 4 and a half days there which wasn’t enough time to see even half the stuff there is but we did pack a lot in! For the first time we started getting up early, and actually leaving the hostel before 9am to fill the entire day with stuff and arrive back exhausted in the evening. Needless to say we didn’t actually go ‘out’ in Beijing as we were shattered every day from seeing so much stuff.
Our hostel was not exactly the ambient courtyard as described in the LP, more a hotel with a small courtyard across the road. So our windowless basement dorm wasn’t the best but it was cheap and clean as situated in the perfect location. Beijing used to be all hutongs which are little alleyways, most have been knocked down for high rises but they still remain and we were staying in the best hutong ever (I swear really its the perfect street). It was only about 15 minuted walk from Tienanmen square and pretty had everything you could need down it.
Firstly the food, which is really the best part about China. Down the hutong was full of every type of food you could want. There were little hole in the wall restaurants serving noodles and veges, hotpot places, dumpling places, a guy who made these yum omelet things in the morning. Some people who had seaseme balls in the morning and kebabs in the evening, a Muslim grill which did lamb kebabs and amazingly good bread with chilli and cumin, a place that had egg muffins, fruit shops, and of course lots and lots of duck. Different times of the day meant different food and the morning was steamed buns, big towers of bamboo steamers overflowed onto the streets and for around a dollar you could get a big plate of vege or meat buns. In the evening the more typical chinese places would fill up with huge piles of meat and vege dishes with hilarious names on their english menus like “exploding pigs belly” and “dressed vinegar potatoes” and more which were so ridiculous I can’t even remember. So of course I love food so I was very happy.
Our first night we headed straight out to check out the Olympic park. Everywhere you look is Olympic stuff, from coke cans and snickers bars to billboards and street sellers. Everything is Olympic branded, and why not as the Olympic areas are truly amazing and you can see why Beijing is so pumped about it. We went in the evening on the newly expanded metro, the Olympic line was pretty empty but you can just imagine it being packed with people during August. Coming out into the Olympic park the huge birds nest stadium was all lit up, looking even more spectacular than on tv screens, the tv tower had different light sequences lighting it up and the swimming pool, blue bubble thing was mind blowingly cool. There were still a lot of people hanging around taking photos and buying merchandise. The whole thing was really really amazing. Hard to see how any other Olympic city could compete with this. And it wasn’t tacky over-the-top amazing, it was all well done, stylish and just cool. Despite the fact they probably made thousands of people homeless to build it, it was very impressive.
On the way back to our hutong for dinner, I suddenly felt very, very hungry and a bit dizzy, mostly because I had hardly eaten anything all day as we were on the train and back in Mongolia I was too lazy to go buy train food. So feeling a bit faint I had to sit down on the subway platform for a rest, while I said to Tom and Rdoc that I really thought I was going to faint. Well turns out that I did faint, I just couldn’t remember the last few minutes. So as I lay on the ground spinning out a bit and getting funny looks, Tom ran off to get me some coke. Coke made me feel a lot better and soon we were back, sat at the first restaurant we saw and had an awesome dinner with duck, spicy veges, tofu, beer, tea, all for about $5 each. Awesome.
(Before)
(After)
Tags: 1, China, TRAVELS 2008, videos 2008
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