Beijing Day 3 Tienanmen Square / Temples / Hatongs / Bell and Drum Tower

Qianmen Shopping

Tienanmen Square

Zhonghai Boats

White Pagoda Temple

 I hung out with Chad in the morning and got breakfast near my hostel.  He's a multifaceted man - photographer, food critic.. He recommended I visit Qianhai again by day and so I set off on a walking tour (map here).

I started off near the hostel and went to a new main Qianmen shopping street with its little tram.  There are a bunch of upscale stores (many foreign chains), I had a browse and bought a bubble tea.  I headed straight across Tienanmen Square (past Chairman Mao's Mausoleum), at the gates of the Forbidden City I headed west through Zongshan park and into Zhongnanhai.  Just before the park on the left I could see the shiny new    National Centre for the Performing Arts.  There are two huge lakes there - Nanhai and Zhonghai. 

Distant Drum Tower

Hilltop Temple

Cave Entrance

Caves

Right in the middle is a temple set up on top of a large hill.  It was kinda unique in that you had to walk through temples to get to the stairs at the back and continue up.  The view from the top was really cool. On the way down I went through a large cave structure (filled with weird religious relics and dolls), I saw a traditional Buddhist ceremony at the temple in Beihai park and Lama Temple.

Zhonghai Park

North Central Beijing

Summer Swimming

Silkworm Temple

I crossed over the main road to Qianhai park.  Its a rather upscale area, lots of bars and nice restaurants, swimming in the lake, and the hutong here was being demolished but carefully rebuilt with wide roads and proper houses.  I took a wander around Tea street and bought some green tea.  The I headed east and got lost in the nearest Hutong (traditional slumlike district).  The government is really trying to clean up the Hutongs, either by rebuilding, demolishing or simply trying to modernize them.  I saw examples of all three.  Close to the Forbidden city it seemed like they were just trying to make them livable, with new cables and lots of safety signs everywhere.  Be warned, it was really easy to get turned around and lost in the windy little alleys.

Bell and Drum Towers

Bell Tower

Ancient Time Systems

Next stop was the Bell and Drum towers (admission to both 20 CYN, 9:10-17:00).  As you're headed north the Bell Tower is the first one you see, presumably you could use the two towers to judge where you are in the city (like in Joburg with the Hillbrow and Brixton Towers).  The Bell and Drum Towers were used to keep time and were the official government timepiece for 700 years until 1924.  I visited the Bell Tower (Zhonglou 钟楼) first, unfit or fat travellors beware - both these towers had a steep climb of about 70 stairs to reach the top.

Ancient Drums

Stairway to the Tower top

Next up was the Drum Tower (Gulou 鼓楼), another steep climb up a bunch of stairs.  The view of northern Beijing from here was quite amazing.  After watching the drum performance and learning about the complicated time system Beijing worked on (the drums were beaten 108 times a day).  From there (a bit tired I'll admit) I headed further north towards the subway line.  I asked some locals for directions when I was a little unsure of the way but they simply pointed me back towards the Bell and Drum towers (I guess thinking I'd gotten separated from my tour group).  Travelers tip - don't point when asking directions.  In China and Korea people will simply agree with you to save face even if they have no idea.  I headed through another hutong, this one close to the new subway line being built, and the whole area was simply being demolish.  I guess by the end of the year skyscrapers and highclass coffee shops will be appearing.  Somewhat of a pity for a large chunk of old Beijing to lose all it's character - the subway station could be built with minimal damage.  Hopped back on the subway at Gulou Dajie.

View over the Hutong and Modern Beijing

Beijing Day 2 - Great Wall / Traffic / Qianhai

Got up and left Wangjing super early, Saturday morning rush hour with lots of luggage was not a good idea.  Should've asked the bf to take some stuff for me..  I checked into the Kings Joy Hostel near Qia'men station, it seemed nice enough although I only used it to store my bags.  The train to the great wall runs fairly regularly but Chinese inefficiency is apsolutely astounding.  You can't buy tickets before 11am (go the night before, upstairs window 8) and so according to the timetable the earliest train you can get is 12:42.  I met Andrew and Mark at the station and together we got a taxi to the wall.  First person we spoke to took us to an unmarked cab.  Dodgy, don't do it.  We agreed to 500rmb return (about 20 quid each).  It should've been an hour/90min each way, but Beijing traffic crept up on us and it ended up being closer to 6 hours.  Luckily the DC boys were fun to talk to, between naps.  At one point it took us a half hour to go 2km.  Crazy, don't do it!  If you'd taken the bus you would've been just as stuck.

The great wall was cool, winding its way up, down, around and through the huge mountains.  As with most of Beijing there were just too many people.  The Badaling section has been open to tourists for the longest time and there are 2 cable cars to either side with the main entrance in the middle.  You could take either up to the top and walk down to the middle, but we opted for walking up ourselves and then heading back.

After I got back I headed out to the embassy district to meet my second cser - Chad.  He was great fun, message him if you're going.  We walked round to a really nice, shiny, new area - more what I'd been expecting from China.  Had dinner with him and his two friends, before heading out to the Qianhai district - there were a whole load of bars, including the only strip club I saw there.  Finally we got a late bus back to the Chad's area - went the last km or two on the back of his bicycle - holding onto the back whilst sat on the bag part was certainly an exciting way to drunkenly head home!

Beijing Day 1 - Forbidden City / Tienanmen Square

Forbidden City Gate

Old Beijing Map

A few hungover hours in Amsterdam and I napped a lot of the way into Beijing. My first thought was that it was really foggy again. Turns out it was the usual smog. Instead of getting the airport line and changing 3 times I got a bus into Wangjing. 

No English anywhere and the bus driver told me to get off too early at Dazhoung Electronics. I honestly wonder how tourists coped here during the Olympics.  Tried asking for directions to the subway using a subway map, first person walked away while the second apologized because she was korean and didn't speak much English nor Mandarin. Chatted to her and her North Korean friend for a while (there seems to be a Koreatown near Wangjing) and we got a bus and directions from a branch of Hana Bank.
















It was my first host couchsurfing family. The dad was a journalist for a newspaper that covered a district north of Beijing and the kid Jerry was 4 and ridiculously sweet. He kept on speaking to be in Chinese, despite being told I didn't understand. Had lunch in a Korean restaurant and then headed downtown.  

 My first stop was the Forbidden Palace (紫禁城). In one word - huge. I've been to smaller towns. It's about a square km, 980 surviving buildings with 9,999 rooms. After wandering around the Palace top to bottom I headed through a big beautiful park to Tienanmen square (天安门广场). 

As with the subway there is no way for you to get there without having your bags scanned. Presumably because of it's past during the protests in 1919, 1949, 1973 and 1989. There was the Monument to the People's Heroes (人民英雄纪念碑) and Chairman Mao's Mausoleum (毛主席纪念堂).  There was enough other things for me to do and see so I didn't bother going to the Mausoleum.  I met a gayboy Chinese artist who walked me on a tour around the square and explained some of the history and the buildings. He showed me his studio, wrote my name in Hanja and then tried selling me all his art.. I made my excuses and headed back to the couchsurfers who cooked me dinner whilst I bullied their kid.  I got an early night as had to leave at 7 the next morning.

London Olympics / Driving the DLR / Heaven Foam Party

After visiting Faversham and Canterbury (the latter being kinda nice and quaint) I decided Kent as a county is not really worth visiting again and then quickly headed back up to real civilization - London!
I'd managed to get myself a cheapish ticket to see the Men's Freestyle Wrestling Championships (60, 84 and 120kg) which was out at ExCeL.  All the Olympic tickets came with free travel cards which was a really good idea and all the years of weekend works definitely paid off as the Underground was actually running better than any time I remember.

ExCeL during the day

ExCeL was impressive, nicely connected up to the DLR and fairly easy to get around.  The security check was straight forward and food/beer inside was predictably expensive even by London prices.  Some people didn't turn up so I got to steal front row seats, right behind where they stand on the podium to receive their medals.  Good view of the ceremony and bums in spandex.  I was near where the winner would come out and celebrate with fans from his country so got sweated on by a few Olympic medalists (not a claim I've ever heard before, nor probably will since).  Sadly I lost my spare battery in Amsterdam so my camera died.


I won't bore you with the rules or a run-down of all the matches but would like to point out a few highlights.  Skip to the next paragraph if you like.  Both the 60 and 84kg were really exciting, lots of flips, doggystyle holds, a couple boners (on the wrestlers, guess they were excited too).

I sat between the Japan supporters and the blonde
haired lady. The group to the right  is where the
winners came to greet their fans.

The Iranians were very vocal with their support - at one point nearly breaking the seating supports as they spent nearly 3 and a half hours stamping or jumping up and down to make noise.  It got really annoying with 20 guys shouting "IRAN", especially if there was no contestant from Iran.  The Iran - North Korea match was really fun, the Iranian got the NK and spun him over and over (it looked a bit like they were the hands of a clock slowly rolling anticlockwise).  He got 7 or 8 points from this and the NK didn't bother the last 10 seconds and just gave up.  Cuba got their first ever medal for this event - it was really close but he came in second.  The 60kg ceremony was interesting too as the medals were given out by North Korea whilst the flowers were handed out by South Korea.  I kept on watching them they didn't even make eye contact.  Azerbaijan got gold in both 60 and 84kg, while Uzbekistan beat Georgia to win the 120.  The 120kg was more like sumo than the lighter classes, no flips just pushing.  I saw who won and then left before the medals were given out so I could beat the crowds heading back into London.

On the DLR train back I sat at the front left so I could look out onto the tracks (the DLR is driverless).  The conductor asked me to move to the right "sorry son, that's my seat" and proceeded to open up the controls.  We got talking and he explained they 'drove' manually Friday and Saturday nights in case drunks fell onto the tracks as well as Sunday mornings just for training.  Driving is a strong word - push the lever up, press the button, pull the lever down and then the train drives itself.  At Westferry he even let me press the button to drive it to Limehouse!

Back in town I met up with a few friends and hit a few bars.  Including one with a couple pole dancers, one of which who was quite the gymnast.  Then we hit the Heaven foam party - saw TK outside but couldn't find him again after.  (Picture not from that night).  Had no swimshorts so we ended up putting all our clothes in the locker and jumping into the foam in boxers and shoes.  Both of which got super wet - squelching out foam for days!