Travel China Planner

I arrived Beijing, much to my surprise to glorious sunny weather and crystal clear blue skies. I managed to a locate a hostel just south of Tiananmen Square and right in the middle of one of the cities historical ‘Hutongs’ which quite literally means ‘narrow alley’ They are a trademark feature of the city and a home to many of Beijing’s fifteen million inhabitants. The Hutongs are the best place to witness Beijingers up close.

The street I stayed on was awash with life, bustling restaurants, barbers, snack stands and souvenir shops all blended in with local housing. The houses are a fascinating sight, often just consisting of one storey and at times a ramshackle like appearance. However recent attempts to modernise Beijing in the run up to the Olympics have seen many of these historical neighbourhoods levelled and replaced by ultra modern skyscrapers perhaps in an attempt to make the city more pleasing on the eye.

Prior to arriving in Beijing I’d drawn up a tick list of things to do. Having already seen the Great Wall and the Forbidden City I decided to miss these out this time around. The list was as follows; Tiananmen, Hutongs, The Summer Palace and the Olympic Stadium. I headed out on the first day to see the largest square in the world, Tiananmen Square. It’s one of those places which is great just to wander around.

I was a little disappointed that the Mausoleum which houses the body of China’s most famous leader was closed. To get an idea for anyone who hasn’t been to the square before just how big it is, after Mao’s death in 1976 one million mourners poured into the square to pay their respects.

Jingshan Park is situated just north of the Forbidden City and the main reason for heading there are the great panoramic views you can get of the Forbidden City. Once again I couldn’t believe my luck with the weather and I did just begin to wonder whether the rumours I’d heard about the air being sprayed blue in preparation for the Olympics were actually true!

The park itself makes for a nice place to just simply meander around and, for anyone with a historical interest in all things Chinese you can actually find the tree where the last Ming emperor, Chongzhen hung himself from!

From Jingshan Park it’s possible to look across to another park, that of Beihai (Beihai Gongyuan) The park itself is more or less made up entirely of water and perhaps the most famous site in its grounds is that of the Jade Islet (pinyin: Qiongdao) on which stands a 36m high White Dagoda (pingyin: Baita)

I was up bright and early on the second day for a trip to the Summer Palace (pinyin: Yihe Yuan) The place is so vast that in all honesty you could probably spend a couple of days there taking in all the things to see. Unfortunately my timetable didn’t spread to two days and instead I spent the best part of five hours walking around. The Palace was built primarily as a summer retreat for the royalty who wanted to escape from the stifling summer heat of the Forbidden City. In a similar fashion to that of Behai Park much of the park consists of water, around three thirds to be exact, is taken up by Kunming Lake

The ticket I purchased enabled you go into all the extra parts of the park such as museums and temples. It soon became apparent to me though that the Summer Palace was also on the tick list of others. I suppose it’s one of the three major things that most people do when visiting Beijing.

After five hours of being on my feet and some extensive sightseeing I was beginning to fade and even though there were more parts of it to see I didn’t think I would be doing them justice by just going inside and taking a few pictures so I made my way back to the hostel. That evening was rounded of by some delicious local cuisine but not as you might expect some of the legendary Beijing Duck (AKA Peiking Duck.

By the third day in Beijing my mind was beginning to roam to thoughts of returning to Xi’an that very evening but there was still one more thing I needed to see before leaving. I doubt I will get the opportunity to go up to Beijing to see any of the events. So with this in mind I made my way to the newly built Olympic stadium. I love stadiums whatever shape or size they might be but this most definitely has to be one of the most impressive I’ve ever seen.

The “Birds Nest” as it’s commonly known is a bizarre yet incredible creation which, as the name suggest looks rather like a bird’s nest, albeit a steel one. In fact the stadium is made up of 36km of unwrapped steel. Unfortunately it wasn’t possible to get right up close to it as construction work is still continuing on both the stadium and the surrounding area which includes the equally impressive National Aquatics Centre.

Once completed the stadium will hold 91,000 people although the capacity will be reduced to 80,000 after the Games. Having seen it I only wish I was going to be one of those lucky people there to witness some of the events.

I was planning on going to visit the Temple of Heaven but to be quite frank there really is only so much sightseeing a person can do in one day and with that in mind I headed back to the hostel to pack up my backpack. It was a little strange as I left the hostel and made my way to Beijing train station that I had reached the end of my journey.

Perhaps I will find the time to sum up my trip in the coming weeks but that really is all there is for now. As for now, well it’s back to Xi’an and preparing for my move to Shanghai. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my trip.

A friend of hers who joined us for the day and paid for everything today – took a taxi to the Summer Palace, the countryside retreat of the imperial family. The recent bad weather has kept a lot of tourists away from Beijing this Spring Festival. So the crowds have been much smaller than usual, we are lucky. The Summer Palace is a vast park around a frozen lake, with “don’t step on the ice” warning signs happily disregarded by the visitors.

We watched outdoor stage performances , strolled along the “long corridor” – a kind of cloister with individual hand-paintings decorating the entire length of more than hundred metres, played some open-air percussion instruments, and took lots of pictures that kept us mightily entertained.

Hopping in taxis is cheap and easy. So after the Summer Palace shenanigans we hopped in a taxi to an indoor market in Beijing. Here my friend showed her prowess as price chopper extraordinaire, almost leaving the shop assistants weeping. Her ruthless bargaining at the bag shop probably means the owners will be hungry for a week. It’s a harsh world, shopping. Before we left the market we tried the Beijing delicacy called tang hu lu – little pieces offruit smothered in some oily sugary sticky cherries or strawberries on a long stick.

Dinner on this occasion consisted of food from the south-western province of Guangdong. I’m sure it was totally delicious and unforgettably satisfying. We sat at a window seat, where we could enjoy the many impromptu and momentary fireworks displays over the low roofs, and amused ourselves greatly with my friend’s recently purchased headgear.

Continuing down this street we chose one of the many pubs that would be the envy of every one-man-and-his-guitar: Silent drinkers relaxing on couches listening attentively to every word and every note and every meaninful statement coming through the quality sound system.

Anyway, I have now made my debut in not one but two Beijing pubs, singing songs and dancing. All ordeals were helped by the effect of Tsing tao beer.

We are now sitting in Beijing’s major train station at a computer that costs 5 RMB per hour after two days of hard foot exercise.

Yesterday we tried to get into Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum and look at his corpse. Unfortunately it was closed so we went back to hotel to get our cameras. Back on the street again we decided to get some lunch before heading out to the Forbidden City.

The Forbidden City was very big…huge. The experience seems much better today when we’re warm and rested. There were so many palaces that we actually got tired of them. One of the things you really have to see if people come to Beijing. The major buildings in the Forbidden City were restoring.

Directly following the Forbidden City we went to The Temple of Heaven. The park around the Temple was as huge as the Forbidden City. The Temple of Heaven itself was cool but quite a bit smaller than expected.

Today we tried again to get into the Maosoleum but were once again disappointed. We caught a cab to the North Beijing Train Station looking for tickets to Xi’an. Unfortunately it was small and very worn down so we didn’t even try to find tickets. We ate lunch at KFC and then took a taxi to The Summer Palace. The park was a playground dream for any kid. No one would ever win if they played hide-and-seek around the hilly, stony garden palaces and temples. There were, in comparison to the Forbidden City, actually quite a few buildings with a genuine look.

After uselessly trying to find the right bus home, we took a taxi to the real Beijing Train station.