Beijing, the old meets the new

The forbidden city

I woke up. Day two of five in this massive city. So much to see, not enough time.

It is a Saturday and that means that Beijing is swamped with tourists from the countryside of China. This equals mental. Unaware of what was to lie ahead we hired some bikes off a man who'd probably been hiring bikes out his whole life from the hutong we were staying on. For only 10 Yuan (NZ$3) it was well worth it, especially seeing we didn't return the bike till about 9pm. So off we went to ride the bike lanes of Beijing. We only got about 300 metres to the first attraction being Tiananmen Square.

My name is Mao, I'm the face of China

Tiananmen Square is the worlds largest city square, home of Mao Zedong, and place of bloody student riots in 1989. It was pretty fascinating being here, much like Red Square in Moscow. Having similar meaning to the communists of China as to the communists of Russia, being here gave you a real feeling of what the underlying nerves of China are made of. It also gave a great perspective of the population of China. Being the worlds largest urban square it was also the most populated square at the time of visit. So we missed the chance to see Mao and had to come back another day. When we came back it was very bizarre experience, much like seeing Lenin's tomb. This time we were marched through with thousands of people at a very rushed pace, being strictly instructed on what to do and even had the chance to buy a flower to lay on a memorial which we passed on.

Tiananmen Square, looking over to the Forbidden City entrance, with the big famous Mao photo

In the forbidden city overlooking one of the many temples

The rest of the square is basically just a huge open slab of concert so not that great, but at the end is the entrance to the forbidden city. So we headed on in. Again the massive population of China was experienced here. It seemed that Chinese people can only see things in tour groups, so there was hundreds of groups in similar coloured tour hats everywhere. Seeing us westerners are so independent we quite easily made it around the place without being part of a tour. But it was kinda spoiled as the overcrowded place wasn't really fun to experience due to the constant pushing and shoving of tour groups.

This is a crowd, they are annoying

The new opera house is super cool

Getting out of there was pretty relieving and we quickly went back to our bikes to go on a pretty fun self guided cycling tour of central Beijing. A few crazy food streets were visited where we ate lots of not so appetising animals on sticks, then cycled around some nice hutongs, waterways and the new opera building. Riding around town was really fun as Beijing is really well set up for cyclists. There are cycling lanes on nearly all roads which are fenced off from cars, this should be the model for all cities as would encourage a lot more cycling for safety reasons. Go green!

Random food on sticks... YUM...!!!

The next day we chopped tourist things because it was a Sunday and therefore the curse of the weekend busy-bodies had to be avoided. So we went shopping... Markets, knock off malls, and food stalls kept us very busy all day. There isn't much better than a delicious hot pot at the end of socialist shopping spree.

All your expensive clothes are here for mega cheap

Finally the weekend finished and we took this opportunity to visit the great wall. This was a very long day... I can't really explain easily how frustrating the great wall is to get to without being on a tour. So my advice for everyone is just join a tour at your hostel and don't even bother following the lonely planet guide on how to get out to the wall for cheap, as it basically won't be. Some smart Chinese people must have got hold of the instructions in the lonely planet and realised they could make a scam out of them. So we bused to this small town on the outskirts of Beijing, hoped off the bus into the scammer's traps. The wall is another 30 km from the bus stop so you have to take a shared taxi to get out there. Unfortunately tourists like us stand out like anything, so we were followed all over this town by the taxi group ring leader trying to get us to pay about NZ$100 for the three of us to get out this final bit. After doing things like grabbing and throwing the persons sign with excuses for the high price into a rubbish bin we finally got the price down to a reasonable $5 each.

Great Wall is great

Tom strides up the Great Wall's impractical 70 degree stair cases

The actual wall once we got to it was really good. Me and Tom walked from the Jinshanling to Simatai sections, while Arnika just explored the Simatai section. Many a classic great wall shot was captured and being a really nice blue calm day made it all the better. That was until we had to go home again. Another scam was gone through to get back to the bus to Beijing this time costing about NZ$15 each which was really annoying especially because the scammers knew it was our only way back so could basically charge whatever. The whole scamming tainted the day a bit as after all the arguing the amazing sights of the wall were a bit diluted. If someone from the tourism board of Beijing ever reads this, then get a public bus that goes all the way to the wall, seriously.

The Great Wall curves around the hill tops

Our final day was spent at the summer palace. The day was again a brilliant calm day, a little polluted but this made the palace seem quite beautiful as made the sun a saturated hazy yellow. We wondered the grounds for about four hours, and every moment was thoroughly enjoyed. The palace was so serene and so well presented. I managed to only walk about five metres at a time before coming across another amazing view to photograph. I think my photos will probably explain it a lot better than my writing, so enjoy.

All the bridges at the Summer palace were amazing pieces

The random old school street at the palace

The lookout to the lake at the Summer Palace

Travel team assembles at the Summer Palace

Polluted sunsets are beautiful sometimes...

A quick stop was made on the way back to the hostel past the new CCTV tower, which in my opinion is the coolest building in the world right now. Then a final diner was had down our amazing hutong then we took off to our over night train to Xian via the ridiculously over size Beijing West Railway Station.

Over sized? Yes.

CCTV building, if only I could live in it