Beijing or some call it Peking - Sept 27th/Oct 1st

It's been a long time since our last entry but here is a brief summary of our time in Beijing....

We started our Chinise adventure by staying in Beijing for four days. It was our first impression of China after arriving for Tokyo, and the contrast was stark from the moment we arrived. The pollution in Beijing, and much of China, is as bad as they say and you can see it in our pictures. We couldn’t see very much through the smog as the plane approached the runway. There is always an opaque haze around the outside. We heard that spending a day in Beijing is the equivalent of smoking 70 cigarettes. There is also a very pervasive smell in the air around Beijing. I can’t describe it, but would not call it pleasant. We only drank bottled water.
We kind of knew this all before we arrived. All of the news coverage of Beijing prior to the Olympics talked about this stuff and know we had firsthand knowledge. Beijing was our first true Asian experience outside of the first-world luxury we had experienced in Japan. The airport was first rate. It is brand new, just in time for the Olympics, and seems massive when you walk in.

The airport seemed to be very far away from the city and the traffic was reasonable as we arrived in the early evening. That soon changed when we got close to the epicentre of 5 concentric circle roads around the city. As you get closer to the center, the traffic becomes more congested, which is quite a feat since some roads were 10 lanes wide. The taxis were either Hyundai’s or Volkswagens (all produced in China). The cars have to compete with bicycles, scooters, and little motorized rickshaws that are half motorcycle / half carriage.

We pre-booked a hostel just outside of the Forbidden city. We really hadn’t planned to stay in a hostel; however, we needed proof of accommodation to obtain our Visa and this was the cheapest and easiest way to do it. We decided that we would check it out and then look for our real accommodations. It turned out that our Hostel was a little treasure inside a very busy and hectic area. We all agreed that we could live in the Hostel forever had it not been for the one shared bathroom for 15 people or so. Our hostel was on an old hutong, which is what they call the traditional streets of Beijing. Beijing used to be made up of nothing but these dirt streets with buildings flanking both sides. Shops and residences stand side by side and during the day food vendors set up their stalls right on the street. Yes we were brave and tried the “street meet” it was quite good....and NO we did not have any bathroom side effects (something we were quite concerned about knowing we only had one bathroom in our Hostel). Some of the houses on the older Hutongs did not have running water and toilets, ie. Ditches, were outside. This is likely the cause of some of the unknown and unpleasant smells in the city. In recent years, in the race to modernize, the government has been tearing down these hutongs and replacing them with large tower blocks. There are some who criticize such decisions and claim that the essences of Beijing is being destroyed. I would wager that these same people who make these criticisms are not or haven’t lived in a hutong house either. We had a tour through the hutong houses via a rickshaw carriage on our last day in Beijing and loved it. It would be a shame to see them all destroyed and we understand that they are considered heritage type buildings.

Our hostel had running water and a bar and cafe. It was a great place to base ourselves and the room with two sets of bunks reminded us of being at the cottage. Our small little room opened up into the lovely gardens in our hutong house.

On our first evening exploring we decided to get haircuts for Jeff and I; however, we did not find anyone who spoke English. We both got extremely short haircuts as Elaine had attempted to use the translation book we had. She thought she would be funny and use the Mandarin phrase for “just take it all off” as a joke. We don’t think Chinese people can necessarily understand the sarcastic humour of the Misner family as Jeff and I both looked like we were on our way to becoming Buddhist Monks! We really enjoyed trying to converse with the barber and his sister, a simple exercise turned into a lifelong memory.

On our first day exploring, we walked over to the nearby Tiananmen Square, that serves as the center of Beijing, which serves as the center of China; both culturally and politically. To illustrate the point, all of China is on “Beijing Time.” China is a large landmass that would otherwise entail 3 time zones, but officially there is only 1 time zone and it is for Beijing time.

Tiananmen is the world’s largest city square and measures half a mile long and is capable of holding over a million people. It’s hard to see the entire distance when the smog is at it’s thickest. To the south is Mao’s mausoleum , to the north is Tiananmen Gate, to the west is the Great Hall of the People, to the east is a museum. Security is pretty tight. The roads which encircle the square are at least 4 lanes wide and fences prevent you from crossing. You can only enter the square via underground passageways that have random police bag checks. I think there were numerous plain clothed police in the square at all times. Everyone is definitely being watched (CCTV cameras, uniformed police) but it wasn’t overly intrusive and maybe it was because of the Olympics? Certainly the immense size is the perfect target for protesters and demonstrations.

Something we were not expecting.....so we are walking around Tiananmen and we noticed toddler wearing trousers with the crotch out (basically a pair of chaps). We don’t think the concept of diapers have caught on yet and when the kids need to go, they just go wherever they happen to be!

Tiananmen is of course the sight of the famous 1989 protests for democracy by students from all over the country. They were timed to coincide with a visit from Mikael Gorbachev from the USSR, and Gorbey's motorcade had to be diverted so that he didn't see the demonstration. The protests were peaceful and lasted for more than 3 weeks. At that point the government lost patience and sent in the military to disperse the students. The resulting casualties were either in the hundreds or thousands, no one knows for sure. There hasn't been as large a demonstration for democracy within China since then (that we know of). We read this as we would never discuss these things in China!

At the north end of the square is Tiananmen Gate. This is the famous gate with the large portrait of Mao Zedong. Flanking either sides of the gate are large sets of bleachers. The wide boulevard in front is the site of all their military parades. Several people asked us to be in their photos . We kind of felt like a rock-stars, but this would be repeated again and again throughout our couple of days in China. I guess they still don't get too many white guys over there.

Behind Tiananmen Gate is the Forbidden City, which was the home to China's emperors for nearly 5 centuries. It puts European castles to shame. There just seems to be an endless number of halls and gates behind the walls. Most of the buildings in the inner court seemed to be where the Emperor's concubines and wives lived. Basically the emperor couldn't be bothered with the day-to-day work of running the country and just used to spend all day shagging. Most of the important decisions were made by the empresses or the eunuchs. The Forbidden City was used as an imperial palace until the last emperor of China, Puyi, was forced to abdicate in 1912. He was only a child and was allowed to remain in the inner court until he was finally evicted in 1924. He later went on to be installed as head of the Japanese's puppet government in Manchuria. He eventually came back to China after the CCP had taken over and was "re-educated" in the ways of communism. The Forbidden City is a magnificent site, but we found ourselves suffering from palace fatigue by the time we reached the end of it. I suggested we call it a day, even though there was a lot more to see, and save our energy for the Great Wall.

On our way back to our hostel Jeff said to me, “Dad that looks like our underwear!” The night before, Elaine and I had found a drycleaners to get all of our dirty clothes cleaned and some kimonos we purchased in Japan. On our way back from the Forbidden City we saw ALL OF OUR LAUNDRY HANGING IN THE MAIN STREET. We are certain that the smog laden street did not clean our clothes. It is a memory we will certainly never forget and gave us the biggest laugh of the day which we all needed.

We stayed in our Hostel for two nights and then had to move as they weren’t able to accommodate us for two additional nights in the same room. We ended up staying in the Somerset Residence apartments. They were outside the main city but truly 5 star accommodations by any standards.

Our trip to the Great Wall was amazing. Our driver took us to Jinshanling, a less touristy area of the wall about 2 hours from Beijing. The car ride was crazy and no one in China follows traffic rules. It was a good thing Elaine fell asleep in our taxi on the way to the wall as she would have never been able to handle the passing on the roads.

Throughout our trip many of our incredible experiences have been the result of having no preconceived knowledge (a polite way of saying we are uneducated Canadians about the world) about where we were. We found out our walk would be over 10km and the kids were starting to have reservations. Even I thought you could ride a bike on the wall! The plain fact is that you have to be a “billy goat” to walk the wall. The terrain is very hilly and the wall is very steep. Our taxi driver told us that our walk should take about 4 hours. We asked him what his fastest group ever walked the wall in and he told us that is was 3 hr 40 min which didn’t help alleviate our apprehension about our walk in the hot sun. Like many of our friends know, we can be a little competitive and I immediately started the family out on a record setting pace (yes me not Elaine). We were almost exhausted before we even got onto the wall to start our journey. Then when we arrived we couldn’t believe the terrain and how difficult the walk was going to be. We were accosted by several Mongolian women who tried to befriend us before we understood that ultimately we were the potential buyers of their cheap T-shirts and warm beer. I eventually got very harsh with them when they were causing Jeff to be very concerned for his safety. The good thing was they kept us on a pretty good pace during the first 1/3 of our walk. There are many other memorable things to tell you about our walk on the wall but I’m running short of time and we need to pack.

Needless to say the walk was difficult at Jinshanling as the wall was in poor shape in several places, but well worth the effort. In several sections we were the only people on the wall which was incredible. At the end we think we all could have gone on for another couple of hours but were glad it was over. Guess what.....WE BROKE OUR DRIVER’s RECORD...3 hr 25 min...thanks to our fast start and our Mongolian stalkers!!

4 Days is not enough time in China.....maybe we will be back again sometime?