Back in Beijing

Sarah and I had been planning an overseas trip since before started walking Te Araroa.

So when we found super cheap flights to the country that I often choose as my favourite to travel in when pressed, that sorted out what the first leg of our journey was to be.

We arrived in Beijing at around 22:15 and after a long wait in the immigration lineup, managed to just squeak on to the last bus headed to our part of town.

We spent a total of six days in Beijing, doing a mix of things that included visiting old favourites, exploring new areas, meeting up with friends and dealing with travel administration.

This last took the form of getting Sarah a visa for Mongolia (Canadians don't require one, but Kiwis do.) The fact that it's a four working-day process and that we arrived on Friday night kind of enforced the minimum length of our stay in the city.

Other administration involved planning out the coming week or so of our travels.  It's interesting that this being our first big overseas trip with a smart phone and constant internet and GPS access makes it really easy to plan things.  On the down side, this compelled me to try and plan everything and to be disappointed and stressed every time any wrinkles or problems emerged.  It took a few days, but I think I've now got over this and am happy to have more information, but to still be willing to live with uncertainty or imperfection sometimes.

The old favourites included wandering the hutongs (ancient neighbourhoods made up of courtyard homes, labyrinthine alleys and all sorts of interesting nooks and crannies).  Also included was a visit to Ritan Park where Beijingers go to meet, relax and practice every imaginable hobby from table tennis to bullwhip cracking to hiphop dancing to signing traditional Chinese music to rock climbing.  And a wander around lake Houhai with its attendant tourist traps (primarily aimed at Chinese tourists). 

One of the best old faves was the Workers' Cultural Palace next door to the Forbidden City.  It was formerly the emperors' temple for worship of their ancestors, so it's very similar architecurally to its big (about 8 times the size) brother next door.  And more importantly, where the Forbidden City is loud, crowded and somewhat chaotic, the gardens and temples next door are an oasis of peace and calm.  We had it almost to ourselves, save for fifteen or twenty couples having their wedding photos taken!

New included a few highlights and a bit of a lowlight. 

The lowlight came when we went way out into the city's southeast in search of a gallery specialising in art from Mansudae, North Korea's national art "factory." We took a (necessarily) long route around a massive unfinished housing development, along a kilometre of muddy road with no sidewalk at all, stopped for some rather expensive and decidedly mediocre noodles featuring tubes of bright pink meat-esque substance that tasted vaguely like burnt plastic, had a rather fun walk through a wholesale food market before finally making it to the place.  And finding it closed.  Fortunately we also learned that walking from the nearest subway station was not the easiest route and ended up taking a bus home with only minimal navigational trouble.

Very amusingly, during one of the highlights, an exploration of the 798 Art District, we found another Mansudae gallery almost by accident. (798 was pretty cool.  It was a collection of contemporary Chinese art galleries in an old communist era factory complex.  The experience was only mildly dampened by the facts that A. It was never quite clear whether a gallery was welcoming visitors and B. It had become popular enough that an awful lot of space was taken up by expensive cafes and restaurants.  One particularly memorable gallery was the Cow Park Parade.  Lots of Cow themed art.  Interpretive displays lauding the positive qualities of cows (with particular reference to Chinese communism and nationalism). And a further displays laying out their plans for world domination. I had no idea what to make of it and still don't.

We also spent some time with an old friend of Sarah's, Amy.  We got to meet her daughter Ngaia (I quite like that name).  We also shared an absolutely fabulous dinner (including Peking duck, Sichuan fish, dry fried spicy beans and salty-sour julienned potatoes.) We also tried some of the products of Beijing's booming craft brewery scene with her (and later without her.)

The beers we tried were almost uniformly faultless and often interesting.  The only real negative was that a lot of them were a bit unbalanced towards sweet.  The pick of the bunch came from Great Leap Brewing.  We finally after four tries back in late 2011 early 2012 made it to their original hutong brewpub and enjoyed a few pints there (including a great chili stout called Pianos Filled With Flames).  This was another illustration of the difference a smartphone can make as, instead of wandering the hutongs for 40 minutes each time we wanted to find the place, this time we just walked straight there guided by the GPS and offline maps.

Aside from the great meal with Amy we did lots of other good eating, including a daily jian bing (Beijing's special breakfast crepe) and many delights from tiny local restaurants near our hotel.  Chive pancakes, noodles with veggies in chili oil, pork dumplings, soy milk, sesame and chili noodles with tofu skin, vinegar-y spinach with peanuts...

On our final afternoon in Beijing we picked up Sarah's visa (all good, no problems, Hurrah!)

After this we spent a while visiting the Dongyue Temple nearby.  This was pretty, but most memorable for its seventy three halls, each containing five to ten life sized figures each representing a different "department" in charge of the affairs of the world and afterlife.  Many of these focussed on obvious things (ensuring that people don't cheat or commit fraud, preserving the natural world.)  But I especially loved the large number of them that dealt with simple heavenly bureaucracy (e.g. the department in charge of cross-checking the conclusions of the good life tribunal, the department in charge of signing the documents prepared by the department next door, etc. etc.)

After the temple we carried on with another short walk to the train station.

The queues were more organized (or should I say more existent) than I remembered, so we had little trouble picking up our tickets (ordered online, also a new development, though one I probably won't make use of much more as the fee is a bit steep and buying them at the stations is more fun and gives a sense of accomplishment.  We just needed to do it this time because you can't pick up tickets without your passport and we were worried that the train we wanted would be sold out by the time Sarah had hers back [as, indeed it was.])

The rest of the evening was spent sitting out in the square in front of the station with hundreds, if not thousands of Chinese doing just what we were: waiting for their trains and passing the time.  It was really very pleasant, as the weather was beautiful, we had plenty to read, and we had occasional friendly locals to talk/make hand gestures to/be photographed with.

After a very slight delay we boarded our train to Datong, giddily excited at the memory of how much fun train travel in China can be.  Not that we had too long g to enjoy it, as very soon after departure we (and just about everyone else input car) were fast asleep in our cozy top bunks.