The Boy In Beijing

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Alright, alright, alright. I know. It's taken me far too long to start writing about my trip! I'm sorry, really, but actually not cause I've been having such an amazing time! Hehe! I've been here six days already but it honestly feels more like six weeks. Time has become a bit of a blur, and I often forget what day it is. It took me less than 24 hours to "decompress" from Korea and get into The Backpacker's Groove, and I'm absolutely lovin' it. Let me tell you about my trip so far. :-)

I arrived mid-afternoon on Saturday and recall that the first thing I saw in the airport when I stepped outside the security area was a Starbucks and a KFC. Hmmm.... Welcome to the socialist/free-market economy, eh? Being the brave little soldier that I am, I just plunged head first into public transit and luckily found my way to the hostel. After a ride on a bus, and then a swing around the subway, and then meandering through the streets I finally found my hostel. Beijing is hot and crowded and dirty and smelly and loud and humid and chaotic and more than just a little overwhelming at first. I love it. :-) Seoul feels calm and quiet and clean and orderly and very, very Western in comparison.

The great thing about Beijing is that it really lets you know where you are. This is a city that truly feels like a CAPITAL city, and not just any capital, but *The* Capital of a Great Empire. The city is one perfect giant grid with the Forbidden City - the heart of the universe according to the Chinese - right in the exact centre. Enormously wide tree-lined boulevards branch out in every direction, and all the major streets are flanked with colossal monuments, mammoth hotels, and gigantic, imposing government buildings that are specifically designed to make the visitor feel small and intimidated.

And the little side streets! Wow! That's where the 'real life'of Beijing truly thrives. The little side streets and alleys are exactly how you would imagine China to look and smell and feel. The streets are all ripped up, there's piles of garbage all over the place, old men with horribly crooked teeth sit and chat with each other, buildings are decrepid but bursting with activity and life, mothers push their giggling children in wooden strollers up and over the dirt, vendors are selling strange food out of their little stands or holes-in-the-wall with makeshift menus just scribbled on pieces of cardboard, armies of rickshaws ply through the noisy chaos, bicycles zip past you, music blares out of every store, eager salespeople clap and call out to try and tempt the passerby into giving up a few of their hard-earned yuan, and everybody just carries on their way.

I arrived at The Far East Youth Hostel and booked myself a bed in the dormitories. My hostel is built around a three-hundred year old "hutong"coutyard that used to belong to a Chinese warlord. There's a great gathering place right in the middle of this courtyard where everyone hangs out to have drinks and share stories. I share a room with two Korean guys and Cam, a really nice girl from London. On my first night she took me out for dinner with a Dutch girl named Rosa and we had a delicious meal at one of those little random makeshift restaurant/kitchen/so-not-sanitary-but-completely-delicious eating spaces you find on the streets.

Later, after dinner, I went out on the town to a Chinese night club with a group from the hostel. The club was loud and busy and fairly crowded with Beijing yuppies all dressed to impress, angry-looking security men clad in black, and plenty of friendly call girls eager to talk to the foreign boys. I had an interesting experience, to say the least, later in the men's room....

I was there in the washroom at one of the urinals just doing my business, when all of a sudden I felt hands on my shoulders... I jumped and turned to see that it was a male 'service attendant' giving me a complimentary massage while I urinated away. Being of the "Pee Shy"type, I found this to be rather distracting! However, not wanting to be rude, or mostly not really sure what to do at all, I continued peeing while the guy rubbed my shoulders and pounded my back with his fists. When I finished he ran to the sink to turn it on for me, and then eagerly handed me paper towel when I was finished washing. At this point I felt compelled to tip him cause he had been just so enthusiastic during this whole escapade that I felt kinda bad if I didn't. I tried to pee as little as possible the rest of the night.

The next day I set out to explore the city on my own. First stop was Tiananmen Square, which is just around the corner from my hostel. Tiananmen is the largest public square in the world and it really is a giant sea of concrete. It's also full of some of Beijing's greatest monuments, including the South Gate, Mao's Mausoleum, a requisitive ginormous penis-shaped obelisk in the middle, and blazing red Tiananmen Gate beckoning onlookers to tread forward towards the Forbidden City.

Next to Tiananmen Square I noticed a giant countdown for the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics and so I wandered over to have a look at it. (Only 1125 days left!) There I was approached by a friendly Chinese girl who told me that she was an art student at a university and that her class was having a free exhibition showcasing their work. She invited me to come have a look, and so I did. I ended up spending over an hour in the gallery with Lulu and really enjoyed chatting with her, as she showed me the various pieces of work, told me about the different art techniques that they learn, recounted the stories behind the faces and landscapes of China in the artwork, and discussed life as a student in China. It was really interesting!

I then proceeded on toward The Forbidden City. A lot of people have said that they're disappointed when they see The Forbidden City (which used to be called The Great Within, by the way), but I was anything but. I was blown away by the sheer size, majesty, and planning behind a palace that is truly fit only for an emperor. I took the self-guided audio tour and was led through the sprawling city-within-a-city by none other than Roger Moore - on my headphones - who was more than eager to point out various points of interest. "Look at the ceiling inside this temple. Notice the splendid colours and the magnificent workmanship. Isn't it fabulous?" in his trademark 007 voice. I had to laugh. :-)

I spent at least two and a half hours wandering through the palace, and after taking way too many photos of the beautiful grounds I crossed the street to visit a neighbouring park. In the middle of this park is a large hill overlooking the city. I climbed to its top and was rewarded with a breathtaking bird's eye view of The Forbidden City laying out before me, and the hustle and bustle of Beijing sprawling in every direction. It was too cool to be true!

Since then I've been busy seeing many other sights, including the beautiful Lama Temple, (home to a gigantic wooden Buddha made out of a single sandalwood tree trunk), the famous Beijing Silk Market (not what I expected, actually. It's all indoors and is basically a cleaner, less crowded, but more persistent version of Seoul's Dondaemun Market), and the majestic Summer Palace (a grandiose weekend retreat for the Empress consisting of colourful temples surrounding a large lake on the city's outskirts.) I also went to see the famous Chinese acrobats one night and was blown away by their gravity-defying performance (picture a guy walking across stage holding a spinning, open umbrella, and on top of the umbrella is a woman balancing on a unicycle, and she's got like 20 spinning plates whirling furiously on her fingers...how the hell!!!???)

As incredible as all of that has been, nothing can even come close to comparing with my day spent on The Great Wall of China. The Great Wall is another place that you hear other travellers whining about in disappointment, as most of them only visit the Badaling portion that is notoriously over-crowded, covered in the most persistent hawkers known to mankind, and has actually been restored so that it has nearly completely lost any feeling of historical authenticity. This was NOT my experience.

On Tuesday I went on a four-hike, ten-kilometre hike ON The Great Wall and it was, without doubt, the most amazing experience of my entire life. EVER. It was so incredibly beautiful and magical that words really cannot describe how unbelievable it was. I went on a tour organized through my hostel that took us on a part of the wall that is a good four hours away from Beijing, up in the mountains to the north. Here we hiked from Jinshanling to Simitai, and it was more amazing of a Wall experience than I ever could have dreamed of.

The Wall was still fairly busy, but not enough that you ever felt crowded or herded through. It was a very hot day, but despite the heat I never stopped smiling from ear to ear. Picture me clambering along the Wall as it snakes like a sleeping dragon up and over the crests of the steep terrain, the gentle wind blowing through my hair, the warm sun on my face, and being surrounded by lush, green hills with nothing but the Chinese countryside to my left and the distant whispers of Mongolia to the right. Incredible!

The beginning and ending portions of the Wall, on this hike, were in fact restored as well, but most of the hike was along unrestored, original stretches which have not been touched for at least four hundred years. In parts it really is crumbling apart with toppled bricks and half-collapsed guard towers, ruins lying scattered on the ground exactly where they fell. It really doesn't get any more atmospheric than this! The Wall is extremely steep in places, requiring you to climb and pull yourself up staggering inclines and tread cautiously down slippery, jagged slopes. I loved every single second of it and truly wish I could have stayed there forever.

What was strange, and a little distracting at times, were the hawkers which still exist (although in smaller numbers than at Badaling) despite the remote location of this part of The Wall. For the first *two hours* I had several of them follow me along, all the way, as I hiked on the Wall. They were actually really friendly and offered up some interesting facts about the Wall as I hiked along, but it was odd to have your own little personal entourage as you sweated along. There were 32 guard towers along this portion and almost every one of them, during the first half, had vendors inside selling water, Coca Cola, postcards, and T-shirts. It does take away a little from the general atmosphere of one's Wall Experience, but China is a poor country and most of these vendors are farmers who rely on us tourists to put food on their tables.

When you reach the 'half-way point' they turn back and leave you on your own, but not before giving you the mother of all sales pitches in the hopes that you'll buy one or more of their souvenirs. Most hikers, after spending half the day with these univited guides, do end up buying a "I Hiked The Great Wall" T-shirt cause they feel bad for them. I didn't want to buy anything, so instead I shared part of my lunch with my guide, giving her a peach and a box of Ritz crackers. She was none-too-pleased with this compromise of mine, but took the food anyway.

By the time I reached the end of my hike I was completely soaked in sweat and really exhausted, but absolutely in love with the Wall. I was really tired but was actually rather sad when I saw the end in sight. My afternoon spent hiking on The Great Wall was one of those amazing, surreal moments where it's so incredible you feel like you have to pinch yourself to check if it's real. I really feel like I got to *know* the Wall on my hike, like I spent some quality time with it and that we 'bonded', became friends for a day, and then had to say a sad goodbye. It was an experience that I'll remember for the rest of my life, and even just thinking about it now brings me back to that blissful Cloud 9.

So that's six days in China for you! As I said before, I feel like I've been gone for so much longer, and am having a truly fantastic time. Beijing has been a wonderful host to me, and thus kick-started Project Wanderlust with an incredible, memorable start. Bring on the rest! :-)