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Beijing, China
The Great Wall was grand. I hiked along it for a few hours, beyond where most of the tourists went. The Summer Palace was amazing. Such a beautiful, landscaped walk around the lake with pagodas and bridges. Tiananmen Square and the famous Mao painting (at the Gate of Heavenly Peace at the North end of the square) was interesting to see. The Forbidden City was ok but a bit sparse.
I wish I could have walked across the middle of the square but they had it locked down both times I visited. The first time was 8pm or 9pm and it was locked down for the night. The second time was strange. My subway car skipped right over the 2 Tiananmen Square stops. I got out and walked and hit police and roped off sections. It was 3:30pm and at the guard said that at 3pm they started evacuating the square. Because it was some sort of anniversary. He could not have meant the June 4 anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square “incident” because the day I came was Sep 12. Another policeman said it was because National Day was coming up on Oct 1. Then why was the square to be re-opened the next day, Sep 13? And why wasn’t it closed in the morning? Why at 3pm? They had the army in as well. I was able to walk to the Forbidden Palace and look out across the empty Tiananmen Square from there. I then went on a bike ride (Lonely Planet suggested a good path to take). They expanded their territory while I went on my bike ride. Perhaps 15 guards were stationed in the intersection where I returned my bike. All casually just hanging out, stationed at regular intervals throughout the square. When I got back to my hostel, a 45min subway ride to the NE, there were even 2 army men at the intersection there! With a box beside them holding a flashlight, food and supplies. Who knows what happened or didn’t happen or why they blocked the square off suddenly. Sometimes China seems progressive and modern but sometimes it seems scary.
I was happy to ride a bicycle in Beijing because it is so famous for that. Just like in the movie Beijing Bicycle!
One annoying thing were the tea-shop scammers. Super-friendly, super-nice people who approach you, usually outside the Forbidden City, and start chatting with you. Then offer to have a drink with you. Usually tea. Maybe food. Maybe a beer. I had 2 tea ones, 1 food and 1 beer. They hit me twice on each of the 2 days I was near the Forbidden City. For some reason, they usually they work in 2s, with an older and a younger one. One pair told me the subway was closed when it was not in an effort to get me to have a beer with them instead. I read that what usually happens is that they disappear and the bill ends up being a couple hundred dollars for a few teas. The tea shop bouncers refuse to let you out and maybe you get the bill down near $100? Then your 2 “friends” get a kickback from the tea shop. Is there anything illegal about that? If I wanted to “catch” them, what would I do? The beer girl started being slightly insulting about me being too cheap to buy them beers! It was an odd situation. A pretty, innocent, friendly early-college type girl and a motherly older woman chatting with me for a couple minutes while walking down a street and then insulting me about not wanting to buy them beers! I asked the girl “Are you an honest person?” She was taken aback and didn’t answer directly. I told them I thought they were scamming me and they got really defensive. They tried insulting me some more about being cheap so I flipped them the finger and said bye. The girl just laughed! An annoying thing about it is that I’m never 100% certain that they aren’t perfectly honest, nice people. It a bit disturbing to realize that seemingly normal, friendly people are this unethical just for a few bucks (I bet the shop makes most of the money – it’s probably just a crappy part-time job for them). Probably it’s hard to find student jobs in China. I wish the police would clean this up. Thankfully, people (and the guidebook) warned me about tea-shop and art-shop scammers so I never fell for it. But I met multiple friends who fell for it.
I lost my guidebook in the Forbidden City! I searched for it 30 min later but it was gone. There are oodles of tourists pumping through so someone probably grabbed it in less than a minute. Oh, no, I am blind! Which hostels do I go to? What things should I see? How much should things cost? Where do the trains go? I tried to immediately buy a new guidebook but they don’t carry it in most Chinese bookshops! You can get any other Lonely Planet except China! Apparently it’s because the picture on the back shows Taiwan with a different colour than China. The officials apparently aren’t as concerned about the Tiananmen square information (as well as many other interesting facts not mentioned in Chinese sources). Lonely Planet’s position is that they refuse to alter their books based on one particular government’s orders. I ended up reading the pdf of the guestbook off the Internet (and photographing the computer screen with my camera!) and buying a new one as soon as I got to Hong Kong. The new one I guarded with my life.
On the Wall, I met a student entering Medicine in a university in Cuba. He was from Inner Mongolia (the province of China bordering Mongolia) and was flying to Cuba the next day to spend 2 years there before he visited home again! They have a whole community of a few hundred Chinese students who do this. An interesting connection between Cuba and China. I liked him. His English was quite decent so we were able to talk without much difficulty.
I am not really a fan of visiting big cities but Beijing was nice to see because there are so many must-see things here. If I could only come to 1 place in China, it’d have to be here.
from: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kyewix/2/1253010621/tpod.html
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