July 18th 2009
After being delayed on both of our outbound flights (apple infused Smirnoff ensued) we finally arrived in the humongous and newly opened Beijing airport.
It took us over 3 hours just to leave the damn airport due to general failures (both ours and China’s), communication breakdowns and wily elevators and lack of directions. I’m not even exaggerating.
Despite my months of preparation, I also failed to bring the address of our first guesthouse with me. I had ignorantly not expected such a communication challenge in China’s capital city, I had assumed the main tourist hub of country would ah w a level of English to get by. Never Asuume… It is 100% not the case. No one but people working tourist related jobs speaks an iota of English. So, hotels and airports, is pretty much it.
After fruitless back-and-forth conversations with a taxi driver, us in English, him in Chinese, we went back to the airport to hunt out the hostel address using their wifi.
We found the address, got it translated in to Chinese by a lady at the customer service desk, found a taxi who could read Chinese (not all do) and the taxi deposited us in Tiananmen Square – with no indication that we were anywhere near the guesthouse or where we should walk to find it. He literally dumped our bags on the road, took our money and drove off.
Tiananmen Square is quite large. there are LOTS of streets off its
We walked in the general direction we hoped the hostel would be, away from the hustle and bustle of the square. We were lost, could not speak the language at all and were carrying aloft our mighty backpacks. 10kg (mine) and 16kg (Lizzie’s).
We wandered for about 20 minutes in 30 degree heat randomly trying to get Chinese people to help us but noone could understand us.
Eventually, we found an English-speaking hotel and asked for directions. They directed us another 5 minute walk down “Construction Street”. I do not use this term lightly.
The street would have been cordoned off for health and safety in England, but no bother… stepping over masses of live wires, piles of rubble and avoiding huge holes in the ground via a plank of precariously placed wood is no problem for us!
On finally finding ‘Leo’s guesthouse’ down Construction Street, we were told there was ‘No room in the Inn’ and were directed another 10 minutes walk down the road. This time however, a nice young man delivered our bags on the back of his bike. Nice touch.
We are now in Shanglin Hostel, a 20-25 min walk from Tiananmen Square. It claims to be one of Beijing’s most famous ‘hutong’ courtyard structures, over 350 years old. It is down some little winding streets, with plenty of original courtyard homes, all stretching off the main pathways.
We’ve whiled away the afternoon eating in our guest house, going through Lizzie’s excessive backpack (3 x toiletry bags!! lol) and wandering around the city.
It took us an excessive amount of time to exit Tiananmen Square, as everyone kept approaching us, requesting to have their photos taken with us and trying to divert us to their ‘art displays’. Lizzie has a good nose for dodgy characters. Luckily!
We have been told that the majority of tourists in Beijing are Chinese from other provinces, who may never have seen a white person before – it definitely showed! We saw very few other westerners, which I found surprising for a capital city. The Chinese tourists are amazed at the sight of us, wanting photos with us constantly. Who are they going to show them to?
Beijing initial thoughts – it is not as anticipated. On first impression it appears much poorer and less grand than I imagined, especially for the Capital, although I am sure hidden delights await us later in our stay and we are only seeing one little bit at the moment I suppose.
The streets in the Hutongs are small, winding and bustling with activity – which gives you a feeling of real old China The majority of the main streets are a juxtaposition of new Chinese neon tackiness and modern architecture built-in a traditional style – in an attempt to recreate old China.
The general feel and smells are the same as the other Asian countries I have visited; a mix of dust, markets, street sellers and hot bodies. I don’t know whether it’s the time of year, but we seem to be one of the few western tourists around – even in Tiananmen Square.
You would think we were the only westerners in the history of China the way the locals react to us. I wonder what it will be like in the more remote places we are heading to?
There seems to be a distinct lack of traditional Chinese architecture. I assume everything was demolished during the Cultural Revolution. Such a pity, even from the books I have read I had not expected destruction to this degree. We fly to Lanzhou tomorrow.
danilovescats 