Beijing Trip 2008

"One World, One Dream."

"New Beijing, New Olympics."

I was going to try and put as many of those annoying Olympic slogans at the beginning as I could, but I could only think of two. Needless to say, after my trip to Beijing, I have no doubt that China should have never been awarded the Olympics. They're going overboard with it! I even saw guys pushing little Styrofoam carts with Beijing Olympic stickers on them. People have started wearing stickers on their bare skin to show how patriotic they are (although the Chinese news channel keeps insisting the Olympics are "apolitical," especially after people started talking about boycotting the Olympics because of the Tibet problems.)

Yes, yes, we went to Beijing. It was an awesome trip, actually. I had a great time. It was a huge hassle, but we got to see some amazing things, and it was fun to see a part of China that wasn't littered with refuse and excrement (although Beijing had its fair share of those problems, it was nothing compared to Dao Xian.) We had our fair share of problems along the way, so I'll just start at the beginning and tell you everything I can.

I mentioned in the last post (I think) that we knew there was the possibility of a long vacation. So we tried to buy tickets online. It turns out that's not as easy as it sounds. Most of the places require you to pay through pay-pal, while you wait for them to confirm the price they've "quoted" to you. Sounds a little fishy to me, so I avoided those. Then we tried Air China. Well, you might not believe it, but they only take Visa. It looks like those Visa commercials were right about something. So that was out (because I don't have a Visa.) It looked like we were going to have to buy the tickets with cash, but that was going to cost us $200 each ONE WAY. Ridiculous. Then, on Wednesday, we had a break through. Somehow I stumbled across Expedia's Chinese partner, eLong, and I found out you could buy tickets with Mastercard. I booked the tickets, entered all my information, clicked buy, and then got an email saying that I needed to send copies of my passport, my signature, my credit card, and a few other things before I could buy online. It looked like that wasn't going to work out after all.

At that point, I wanted to just call it quits, but the thought of spending 7 days in Dao Xian with nothing to do gave me the motivation to keep trying. I called eLong and found out that we could pay in cash when we picked up the tickets, but there was the possibility the price would go up (if the airlines altered their prices before we got the tickets.) Josh and I decided it was worth the risk and we made reservations.

We packed our bags and left the next morning at 6 AM for Guilin. We got there 7 hours later. The bus rides were long, but not terrible, mostly because we were excited to get going. We paid a taxi to take us to the hotel where they were holding our eLong tickets, and he insisted on us paying him 10 RMB up front, instead of using his meter. I thought that was a little suspicious, but we needed to get to the hotel, so Josh paid him and we got in. He drove for exactly one block and dropped us off. Smart guy. In any case, we found the ticket office, paid in cash, and we were happy to find out the price was what they had quoted online. $250 round trip per person. I still think that was a pretty good price.

After getting our tickets, we decided to get something to eat, and we found a restaurant that had English menus (which is apparently somewhat common in downtown Guilin, because they have so many tourists.) Josh got fried pork, I got fried noodles with beef, and we split an order of wontons. The wontons were by far the most interesting, because they had ground pork wrapped around shrimp. They were very good but very different. I'm not a huge seafood person, so I think I would have preferred just pork, but they were still good.

Our flight was going to leave at 9 PM, and it was only 2:30. We decided we couldn't really do much, since we were still toting around our luggage, so we went ahead and caught the airport shuttle and headed up to the airport. We spent about 5.5 hours there waiting, reading, listening to music, and trying to sleep. There wasn't much else we could do. Aside from selling everything at an outrageous price, I didn't see anything extraordinary about the Guilin International Airport (I would later be proven wrong on this count.)

We caught our plane to Beijing, after a delay because of rain, and finally made it to the Beijing Capital Airport. It was amazing. After four months in Dao Xian, I was shocked by how nice the Capital Airport was. It's brand new, and it looks beautiful. We hurried and got our bag and then caught a taxi to the hotel. It ended up costing us around 100 RMB to get there in taxi, so about $15. Well worth it, I thought, to get from the airport to our hotel at 2 AM. However, the taxi had to drop us about a quarter mile from the hotel because of construction, and when we were walking through the narrow alleys of the hutong, I began rethinking the wisdom of our course. We got to the hotel without any problems, though, and checked in and went to bed. The hotel ended up costing almost $50 a night, but for a room with air conditioning and a Western toilet, located only 20 minutes away (on foot) from Tiananmen square, I thought it was a great deal.

The next morning we found out they had a Western restaurant downstairs, so we went to have breakfast. Granted, it wasn't the full spread that I had hoped for, but it did have some delicious food. Croissants, hash browns, toast, butter, cheese--all the stuff that doesn't exist in Real China appears to be available in Fake China (sometimes called Beijing.) We ate and then headed out on the town.

First we went to Tiananmen Square, which was very impressive (for a square.) I did not realize that the memorial to Chairman Mao is located on the square, and I wanted to go inside to look, but the line was ridiculously long. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but most Chinese people idolize Chairman Mao. We ended up avoiding the long lines and we went to the Forbidden City.

While Tiananmen Square was big and impressive, the Forbidden City was big, impressive, and old. It's hard to believe that people actually lived there--it's a huge complex of gateways and ceremonial halls, coupled with gardens and interconnecting buildings of all types. I thought it was awesome. A lot of it still hasn't been restored, and I actually liked those parts the best because they seemed to be more real. In some ways, the restoration felt artificial to me, like it was overdone. I don't know if I just don't know enough about 15th century Chinese architecture or if it really is over-the-top, but I still liked the older parts better.

We spent a while in the Forbidden City, then made our way back to the real world. We stopped by the Chinese Museum of Art, across from Tiananmen Square, but it was closed for remodeling. It now features a huge countdown clock for (guess what) the Beijing Olympics. Great.

Lunchtime. We stopped and grabbed a "hamburger," which was really just a cold slice of meat pressed between two buns. Still, it was edible enough, and after we ate we headed back to the hotel for a break. About an hour later we headed out again, this time for the Temple of Heaven (Chinese name, Tiantan.) We caught the bus over there, but I misgauged the stops and we got off one too late, so we hiked back. By the time we made it in, there was only an hour left before closing, so we didn't make it inside the buildings. Instead, we explored the grounds, which were very, very beautiful. It's like a huge garden inside a metropolis. I enjoyed it.

It started to rain while we were in the Temple of Heaven, so we headed back toward the hotel. Fortunately, the tourist map that Josh had bought marked out all the McDonald's within Beijing, and so we plotted our course home with a brief stop by a McDonald's. It was my first time eating on the second floor of a McDonald's (as far as I can recall.) The food was delicious. I was never a huge McDonald's fan at home, but it was so good to eat something Western again. And, I'm happy to report, a Big Mac in China tastes just like a Big Mac in Wildwood, MO.

We crashed at the hotel that night, just burned out from all the walking, plus the traveling from the day before. The next day we got up and, after another Western breakfast, started our trip to the Great Wall. Now, if you're a foreigner at a tourist site in Beijing, you will quickly learn that everyone in China is qualified to take you on a tour to the Great Wall. We had three or four people come up to us and offer to take us while we were at the Forbidden City, plus our hotel had a tour company operating on the main floor. We decided not to take any of them up on their offer, though.

Instead, we caught a bus to one of the bus stations, which took almost an hour. From there, we took another bus up to the Badaling section of the Great Wall. That took almost two hours. I don't know if you've ever driven up a mountain road, on a bus crammed full of Chinese people like sardines in a can. If you have, you'll know what I mean when I say, "I don't want to die this way." That's how I felt. In truth, the ride was perfectly safe, but the bus was insanely overcrowded. I'm still not sure why they let that many people on, but I guess that's just how things work in Beijing.

If you go to the Great Wall, you might want to consider a few things. The Badaling section is the most restored, from what I understand, and is definitely the most accessible. For our trip, it was the only feasible option. However, it is also the most touristy. We enjoyed the Great Wall a lot, even so, but I would suggest (if you have the time) going a little farther away to a section that is not quite so packed with other tourists.

The Great Wall is pretty great. In all honesty, it's amazing. We walked along it for a good while, and what I never realized before I went is that it's built right up in the mountains. Parts of the wall were so steep that we were actually climbing stairs to go up, which surprised me. It's also massive; it's hard to believe that people did all that work. Where we were at, we could see the wall curve along the mountains for quite some distance, and it was incredible. It's hard to believe that it stretched as far as it once did.

Before I forget to mention this, I just wanted to say that the weather in Beijing was perfect for the time we were there. Although there is a great deal of air pollution, the sky was relatively clear and sunny, but neither day did it get very hot, and it wasn't humid at all.

We took another bus back to Beijing, and by the time we got back, we had spent over seven hours on the Great Wall trip. We had a very late lunch at KFC, which was also delicious, and headed back to the hotel for a rest. Now, I think I need to defend our Western choices. Most people would think that, on a trip to the most prominent Chinese city, we would of course choose Chinese food. Not so. I was so glad to try some Western food after four months that I didn't even care about trying Beijing food. However, Josh and I both knew that it was our civic duty to have some Peking duck while we were in Beijing. After all, I 'd always heard about it, and that might be our only chance to have the "real thing."

Don't ever make that mistake. Beijing duck, as they call it, or Peking duck, is no good at all. We ordered it, and it cost us 200 RMB. That's about 10 times what our McDonald's meal cost. The duck was terrible. They carved it in the kitchen and brought it out on platters to us, and there was nothing but skin and bones. I've seen other people prepare duck in China, and I have a fair idea of how much meat there is on one, and I have no idea what they did with it. They brought out a huge plate of skin, a smaller plate of bones (with a little bit of meat on them,) and that was it. I think they must have saved the meat to put in another dish. I honestly don't know what happened to it. Really, truth to be told, it was one of the worst meals I've had in China. Maybe we picked a bad restaurant, or maybe I'm just not refined enough to appreciate what I had, but I would not ever recommend Peking duck to anyone.

The next morning we had our last Western breakfast and checked out of the hotel. We grabbed a taxi over to the airport shuttle stop, and then took the shuttle to the airport. I had a scare when I saw that the shuttle was supposed to take an hour and a half--lesson learned, never expect something to take a reasonable amount of time--but it only took 45 minutes, so we had plenty of time to make our flight.

We made it back to Guilin, where there was a fierce rainstorm, and we realized that neither of us had packed an umbrella. I stopped to use the bathroom at the Guilin International Airport, and had the unpleasant surprise of finding out that there is at least one international airport in the world that doesn't regularly stock toilet paper in its bathrooms. Fortunately, I'd been carrying some paper in my bag since February for such an occasion, and I was well-prepared. When all that business was taken care of, we took the bus into Guilin city, in hopes of catching another bus back to Dao Xian.

It was too late for any more buses to leave for Dao Xian, so we stayed in a hostel about a block away from the bus station last night. We met some other foreigners who were backpacking through China and had dinner with them, but they turned out to be a rather irritating group of know-it-alls, so we left them rather early. Dinner hadn't been that good, so we grabbed KFC one last time (probably for my last time in China) and went back to the hostel.

This morning we were up again at 5:30, and we were home by 11:30 AM. The bus ride was terrible. We took the direct bus this time, instead of going through Gongcheng, and although it was faster, there was a 2-hour stretch where we were going over unpaved roads. It was amazingly bumpy and not really a pleasant experience. It got us back a lot faster than if we had gone the other way, though, so I suppose it paid off in the end.

And here we are, back in Dao Xian. We have about 2.5 weeks of teaching left, and I'm excited to be heading back to America soon. I'm sure I'll have a few more good posts before I head home, but I don't know how exciting they will be. After all, I'll be in Dao Xian. I've posted some pictures of our Beijing trip on picasa, but Josh still needs to put his up, so check them out when you have time.

I almost forgot to tell you my best story. Apparently, I'm either an incredible bargainer, or I have an incredible luck for deals, or (most likely) I think I got a better deal than I did. While we were in Beijing, I bought a few souvenirs. One, this great looking chess set, I bartered down from 580 to 360 RMB (around 40% off). That was pretty sweet, although I may still have paid way too much (I just have no way of knowing.)

My true masterpiece of bargaining, though, were these jade and agate bracelets that I bought. I figured they'd make nice gifts for family members when I got home. I asked the lady how much one was, thinking I might pick up a couple. She told me each one was 380 RMB. I was a little shocked--I had only brought 200 RMB to the store, and I had no idea a bracelet could cost so much. I told her that I had wanted to buy six, and that there was no way I had that much money. She asked me how much I had, and I told her 200. After a great deal of me telling her I didn't really want them, and her insisting that she could make me a deal, I walked away with 6 bracelets for 200 RMB. Now, that's approximately 33 RMB each, or less than 1/10 the original asking price. Either: a) I'm amazing at bargaining (not likely); b) the bracelets weren't really jade or agate (likely); or c) they were originally extraordinarily overpriced (also very likely.) Still, it makes me sound like such a cool world traveler, bargaining things down to less than a tenth of their original value. Now, I just hope no one ever gets these bracelets appraised.

Ok, that's all for now. If I remember more funny stories from Beijing, I'll put them up here soon. Talk to you guys soon.