Beijing 1st – 7th Feb

On the first evening, Geraldine’s friend Brian kindly agreed to take us out for dinner. Brian can speak fluent Chinese and has lived in Beijing for the last 6 years opening two great cafes – he told us some very interesting facts about living in China, such as the government owns all the land, therefore no-one can be a freeholder in Beijing, only leasehold, which may explain the colossal amount of space in the city and sheer side of the buildings. He also tries to only employ people from the countryside in his café as he does not have to pay national security for non-Beijingers – interesting.

We met at a fabulous Dim Sum restaurant, sampling most items on the menu, including of course chicken’s feet, which were yum. We also indulged in the local beer, enough to persuade Brian that karaoke really was the best idea in the whole world – brings back the Japan days!
So Brian led the way to “Partyworld” (yep as fun as it sounds). Looks like a really posh hotel inside, but has individual rooms for karaoke & drinks service only a phone call away. After a few warm up songs, the tunes were bashed out – Oli really was Frank Sinatra for a night, I was the Barbie girl and we all shouted out Abba. Of course, we were all amazing singers. Until I went to the loo and could hear them all, which sounded similar to feeding time on a chicken farm. Hehe.

JG
2nd Feb
After a lazy morning enjoying being in a real home, we pottered over to Tiananmen Sq, which was absolutely mind-blowing. It is just so big, with the people’s museum & government buildings dominating the surrounding area.

It really put into perspective the scale of the 1989 protest and massacre. We walked down through the big gate and along a strange street which was derelict apart from the odd shop here and there. We noticed some people crowding down one alley and went to investigate – it seemed they were queuing for a restaurant to open. Just as we were deciding what kind of food they served, the doors opened and we were swept in with the crowd and ushered over to some seats set out conference style. We decided to just go with it as it was all quite bizarre and funny. On turning around, we noticed rows and rows of ducks hanging up & the plush surrounding of the restaurant. The ducks looked much happier dead and in rows rather than the poor buggers we saw strapped upside to the outside of a van in Cambodia, still alive. We had randomly discovered the oldest and best Peking Duck restaurant in Beijing. A funny little lady gave a speech to the audience and then it appears that she said ‘GO’ as everyone sprung up and ran for the tables, pushing, rugby tackling, you name it! It was total mayhem but very funny. Naturally the 5 of us went for the full duck set menu, and separately ordered a very special appetizer. The scorpions arrived on individual prawn crackers complete with stings. We agreed that we would munch them on the count of three, and so it was. Crunchy, not unpleasant, until I made the mistake of looking back at my plate of half a scorpion and wretched slightly! Lesson to self – never look, just eat.
The duck arrived whole at our table complete with chef (not cooked) who expertly carved our duck leaving nothing to waste. This was served with pancakes, hoi sin sauce, and various salad pieces/condiments. Verdict – utterly delicious. Duck soup was also served, as well as some oily rape – a delicious vegetable, despite the dodgy name. Pudding was pastries all exquisitely shaped as ducks. The service was amazing, and I was particularly impressed by the skill of the tea pourers who filled up our pots with huge brass kettles from about 2 ft above the pots without spilling a drop.
We tried to walk off the huge canard feast around the atmospheric little streets decked in lanterns and with some very quirky shops/lots of folk cooking weird and wonderful street food. JG



3rd Feb
We got up early and were outside the Forbidden City by 9am to meet our guide, someone we had met the day before who was a Chinese History teacher in Beijing who could speak English and did guiding in the holidays to earn some more cash. The palace is breathtaking – absolutely enormous with gate walls at least 10 metres thick. The total area is more than 20 football fields, with temple after temple, and beautiful stone gardens. Tom (our guide) told us some very interesting facts about the temples/history so it was good to have him with us. It was also very cold, so we were glad to have tea breaks, etc! We got a cab to the Temple of Heaven (had lunch first in a great place with Tom ordering us everything we wanted, quite a novelty after the usual trick of shutting your eyes, pointing and seeing what turns up!) The Temple of Heaven was beautiful, set in lovely oriental style parks & again just huge. It was interesting to see the sacrificial area to the Gods, although I had a very real experience when the boys put me in one of the big pots for burning which I could not get out of on my own – swines! The grounds seem to be a gathering place for the people of Beijing, with many playing cards and dancing. I joined in with some very friendly old Chinese ladies who were doing a funny dance and got quite into it – great way to keep warm and made the others laugh!
We went to the Silk Market, which was a huge area dedicated to fake goods and some very over-excitable sales staff. Oli bought a jacket from one stall then joined us with the lady asking how much he paid and then she laughed hard saying “you are stupid, you pay too much” while pummeling him hard on the chest, much to our amusement. I started bartering for a warm jacket too – started at £35 and got her down to £17 for a ski style fleece lined “gortex” “North Face” jacket in a very amusing set of exchanges. It involved photos of face expressions before and after giving our prices, shaking each other, cuddling each other – all a very fun game and we were both happy with the price in the end, and it meant that I was warm! JG
4th
We went to cuddle some pandas at Beijing zoo, which is set out in beautiful grounds, although the animals did look a little bored, as in all zoos. One naughty man threw some old meat pieces into the Siberian tiger enclosure causing them to have a fight, and the man to get a good communist telling off by the zoo keeper. Zoo was a bargain at only £1.50 each. London’s attractions should be like this too!
5th
Mark and I went for a potter around the shopping centre, laughing at some of the translations and stopping for lots of coffee breaks, which was fun. For a communist country, Beijing is very commercialized and seems to promote capitalism. I also had a run-in with a waxing salon where I do not think that waxing was their specialty – running out half covered in wax was funny about half an hour later when I regained my sense of humour. Maybe they used that waxing technique as torture for interrogation??!
In the evening, we met up with Brian again who took us to a shabu shabu restaurant (well, that’s what it’s called in Japanese anyhow). At first I thought all the staff were being really lazy as it seemed they were eating first at the tables wearing their aprons, before I realized that everyone is issued an apron, or bib as such! Essential. Food was great – raw plates of meat, tripe, veg, etc that you cook yourself. Very sociable and fun.
6th Feb

5am rise to go to the Great Wall of China. It was just us in the mini bus, and we were very happy to arrive alive, as our driver seemed to think it was a great idea to go extremely fast and overtake uphill on blind summits and around bends. There were a few near misses and I wished I had stayed asleep in blissful ignorance like the boys at the back! We arrived at Jinshanling, a far less touristy part of the wall after 2.5 hours of driving. We hiked up a hill and there is was, absolutely breathtaking. Words cannot describe how beautiful the wall is – it stretched for miles as the eye can see on top of steep cliffs and dramatic mountains. You are literally in the middle of nowhere as well. There are towers every 500 metres or so, of which you can climb up inside and investigate. We had a beautiful clear day with just a little mist settling on the mountains creating a truly magical atmosphere and literally had the place to ourselves making it very quiet. We hiked up and down along the wall for about 10km to Simitai, a small village just south of the wall. Some of the climbing was very steep, with eroded steps leading off onto sheer drops. It was clear that in some places the wall was eroding quite rapidly, with many walls leaning outwards and looking like they could collapse at any time. All the way along the 10km, the feeling of amazement did not wear off – it felt like I could walk along there for a week and not get bored of the dramatic scenery! The hike down to Simitai was fun, crossing a rickety rope bridge and walking past waterfalls which looked like they had frozen mid-flow. We were all happy to have lunch before heading back to Beijing. We got our driver to drop us at the Olympic Village to check out the Bird’s Nest Stadium and other buildings. As predicted, the scale is grand, awe-inspiring and very practically thought out. It made me a little concerned for London at how on earth it could compete with this for 2012! JG