A brief visit to Beijing

I finished class at 3 in the afternoon on Friday (Fridays are shortened by three periods) and biked home, walked to the bus station and made it there in time for the 3:30 bus. I got into Shanghai just past five, so I could have made the same flight as Andy at 8 o’clock, but I had booked a later flight at the other airport, which is closer to the city, just in case anything like bad traffic held me up.

So I had some time to kill and I walked around and had a bowl of noodles. The last couple of times I was in the city it was raining or there was simply poor visibility, but that afternoon it was warm and clear so for the first time in months I was able to walk along the river and get a good view of the other side.

I tried to take the metro to the airport, but it didn’t quite get me there. The metro system was originally planned to be extended out to the older airport, called Hongqiao, where my flight was to depart at 9 p.m. The metro map in my guidebook shows one line connecting with the airport and I assumed the existing metro line was the same. I forgot about reading somewhere last year that the plans were changed for some reason, so that line doesn’t exist yet. I took the line as far as I could and got off.

My flight time was quickly approaching and the traffic looked pretty bad so I opted for a motorcycle taxi. Guys on motorcycles hang out near train, bus, and metro stations, where they offer cheap rides. I went to the one motorcyclist who had an extra helmet with him. We negotiated a price and I hopped on the back. It was a cozy, little double-seat to share with him and the helmet was too big and the chinstrap a little too loose. Several times the helmet blew off, like when a baseball player sprints around the bases, but the chinstrap did keep it from flying away. It was a fun ride weaving around buses and accelerating down the dimly lit and narrow side streets that he took. We went down a quiet, windy road with only trees on either side. I had no idea where he was taking me until we passed a bunch of warehouses and courier vans. It started to look more like an airport when I could see a tall fence and rows of lights. It must have been a short cut to the airport.

The Hongqiao airport was reworked in the fall to accommodate a new Shanghai – Beijing express service. There is a dedicated terminal for the flights to Beijing that leave every 30 minutes throughout the day. The separate check-in and security was nice and efficient, although they confiscated my water bottle and toothpaste. The largest tube of toothpaste you can carry is 100 grams, even though mine was 120 grams and nearly empty.

I sat next to a Chinese student who is graduating with a degree in English from the Beijing Language and Culture University, which is where I plan to study Mandarin in July and August. It was nice to hear more about the university because I’ve never seen it.

When my plane arrived around 11:30 pm, Andy was already in the airport with two colleagues. He sent me a text message to tell me that he was waiting outside of Terminal 3. I was confused because I could not find any sign of terminals other than the one I was in. I wasn’t even sure what terminal I was in. I asked a security guard who told me to take one of the buses outside to get the other terminals.

It turns out I was at the old terminal, and the airline Andy flew on went to the newly built terminal. The bus ride to that one took me down a big highway for several miles, until we approached a gigantic building with a sweeping red and silver roof over what turns out to be the largest airport terminal in the world. It’s one of Beijing’s new upgrades for the Olympics, and, because of its size, it’s not the best place to try to find someone.

The bus dropped me off just a few hundred feet from where Andy and his two colleagues who traveled with him were waiting, and we got a ride into the city with a friend of Andy’s Chinese colleague. We collapsed in our beds at 1:30 am for a few hours of sleep before heading out for a day at the Great Wall.

After much wrangling over whether to take a guided tour or to simply hire a taxi for they day, we decided to go with the tour. It left at 8 am and the first stop was a Qing dynasty tomb in the foothills outside of Beijing. It was a cool compound of old walls, a courtyard, and buildings that housed a big statue of an emperor, some old silk clothing, and other artifacts. We were with a small group of English-speaking tourists – a couple from England, a couple from India, and a couple from Australia. We went through the tomb along with several enormous groups of Chinese tourists, who jostled for space at each exhibit only to snap a picture and hustle on to the next one.

Waiting outside of the tomb for the rest of the group to catch up, we listened to a number of women pushing drinks and souvenirs with shouts of “Hello… Water! Hello!” It was only the beginning of a long day spent among souvenir and snack peddlers.

The next stop was a jade store and factory. We saw some jade craftsmen at work and listened to a brief presentation on jade and the Olympic medals that will feature three different hues of jade stone. It was a huge place, basically an outlet factory, with all kinds of jewelry and house ware made out of jade.

We were anxious to get to the Wall, but were stuck there for a bit longer as our tour included lunch at the jade place. It wasn’t even 11 a.m. yet when we were seated in a large and empty dining hall but the food was great. Andy’s Chinese colleague burst out laughing in the middle of the meal at the absurdity of eating lunch so early and sharing dishes around a Lazy Susan with a group of strangers.

When we got to the Wall, we had to hike up a long parking lot past lots of people selling Great Wall coffee mugs, hats, and sweatshirts emblazoned with “I climbed the Great Wall” (and referred to as “sweaty shirts” by the vendor).

The others in the group took a rollercoaster-type trolley up the steep hill to the Wall, while Andy, his Dutch colleague Sander, and I hiked a just a few more steps to reach the Wall at a low point in between two hills. The climb was a steep up-and-down trek that had us shedding layers and stopping to catch our breaths after each ascent.

There was always a handrail and sometimes there were steps but they were usually really big. Some steps were so steep and high that some people had to pause and calm their nerves before slowly descending. On the way up it was easier to just use our hands and climb the steps like a ladder.

Andy and Sander obviously had not gotten out much during their first five days in China, because they were surprised and a little bewildered when people stopped and asked to pose for a picture with them. Inside the dark Ming dynasty tomb no one paid attention to us, but out on the Great Wall we stood out and were treated like rock stars by old guys and teenage girls alike who wanted our pictures.

The highest peak of the Wall along the stretch that we hiked was packed side-to-side (wall-to-wall?) with people. And, of course, there was music blasting and souvenir vendors on and along the Wall, too. So crowds and commerce are unavoidable almost everywhere here (especially on a Saturday at the Great Wall), but we were lucky to have cool, dry weather and great visibility. Everyone I know in China who has been to the Wall seems to have had rain or fog and never quite experienced the famed view of the Great Wall snaking across the rolling hills and disappearing over the horizon. Our views that day were not spoiled by poor weather. And, to my surprise, I couldn’t see any roads or buildings in most directions, either.
We got to the top of the trolley after about an hour of hiking and waited for the others, who did a down and back trip from the trolley, to get back. We cooled off by snacking on some ice cream. It was Andy’s first time trying corn-flavored ice cream. It was okay, and it beat out the green bean-flavored bar in a taste test.

Our trip back to the city took us past the shiny aqua-colored Olympic swimming complex and the unconventional Olympic Stadium, also referred to as the Bird’s Nest. We took a taxi to one of the best-known Peking duck restaurants, the 168-year-old Quanjude Beijing Duck restaurant. The meal was awesome. A deep-fried whole duck was expertly sliced next to our table, like a Chinese Thanksgiving dinner, and we ate the duck along with several vegetable, pork, shrimp, and tofu dishes and washed it all down with locally brewed Yanjing beer. I love those capacious Chinese restaurants where big groups share different dishes around a round table. And eating duck in Beijing in one of those large restaurants made for a remarkable meal and was the perfect cap to our daytrip out to the Wall.

After dinner, Andy, Sander, and I walked around the neighborhood, where we stopped in a grocery store, before venturing to Tiananmen Square, which was closed off and empty at night, save for a few guards. We were exhausted so we saved the sightseeing for the following day.

We did Beijing in one day on Sunday, beginning with a visit to Mao (his dead body at least) in the Mao Memorial building, which is right in the middle of Tiananmen. He died in 1976, and ever since his preserved body has lain in a glass. We waited in long line that wrapped part way around the outside of building. Luckily it moved briskly through the security and into the first room of the memorial hall, where people laid flowers at the feet of a huge statue of a seated Mao. His body lies at rest in the next room, clothed in a grey suit and wrapped in a red blanket. It was surreal–it’s not every day you get to see a 32-year-old dead body. It was neat to see one the most significant historical figures and very interesting to see the somber mood of others as they walked by his body and bowed. He certainly hasn’t gone away as his face is on the front of the 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 yuan notes (all but the 0.1 and 0.5 yuan notes) and a giant portrait of him hangs above the Gate of Heavenly Peace, which is the entrance to the Forbidden City at the north end of Tiananmen.

We spent the next couple of hours exploring the Forbidden City, where we enjoyed the 75-degree weather and blue skies along with thousands of tourists from around the world. At least this place was expansive enough to accommodate a ton of people and not feel to overcrowded everywhere. At the sites we saw on Saturday it was sometimes hard to walk faster than a slow, shuffling pace. The downside of its size is that it probably takes more than a single day to see everything. We left in the early afternoon to go eat lunch and visit the Temple of Heaven, where goats were sacrificed and prayers to the gods were conducted to ask for bountiful harvests.

When Andy and his colleagues left for the airport in the late afternoon, I took a taxi back to the hotel to pick up my bag. I spotted the top of the new Central China Television headquarters way down at the end of a street, so I decided to head in that direction. It’s a stunning new building that seems to defy gravity. On my way towards it, I walked through a neighborhood full of stores plastered with Russian signs. There were a number of big buildings that appeared to be wholesale markets for clothing, bags, and watches, and for some reason, it was all in Russian. People on the street were either Russian or Eastern European, or they were Chinese and were trying to sell me stuff and made their pitches in what sounded like Russian. Kind of odd.

The subsequent few blocks were just as international and had me feeling perplexed again. There was a sprawling park that was surrounded by two- and three-story buildings ringed with tall fences and barbed wire. When I first saw an armed guard standing inside the fence of a discreet complex, I thought it was a prison. Then I saw more of the same, and noticed the large satellite dishes and national flags atop many of the buildings. There were dozens of embassies, as it turned out, and all of them were heavily fortified. There were security cameras installed on the streetlights and uniformed soldiers standing outside each gate and at every street corner. The entrance to virtually every school, factory, office tower, and apartment building in China has a security guard in a little building. In addition, tall walls, gates, and steel bars on windows are common, so I guess it makes sense that embassies have some additional security, but it seemed a bit excessive. I didn’t take many pictures because there was almost always a guard watching me.

The CCTV building was on the other side of the park and the diplomatic area. It looks nearly finished and I stared at it for a while, wondering how it stays upright and how they could possibly get all those cranes on top of it.

I took the metro to the train station to catch a sleeper train back to Shanghai. The first two metro stations I went to were under construction, so I had to rush down the street to where someone told me the closest open station would be. That one was being renovated, too, but remained in operation. The city is installing ATM-style ticket machines and turnstiles to replace the tellers who sell paper tickets and take your ticket before you board. The station and the ticket process were certainly out-of-date.

I arrived in Shanghai around 7 a.m. and made it back in time to shower and get to the school in time for my 11:15 a.m. class.

Pictures are up online at http://gallery.mac.com/sambrummitt. I left my camera’s memory card at the hotel on Sunday, so no pictures of the Forbidden City (and none are allowed in the Mao memorial).