So our last couple of days in Beijing were spent nursing our cooties and wandering the streets in search of Hong Kong Sevens Rugby tickets. A successful trip even if it did cost us cash and about 7 hrs of walking. We found a family sedan that seems perfect for the growing Mellis Clan. It has 4 doors, great fuel economy and seems perfect for Scotty and his growing tribe (see photo). 

We had our first lucky dip meal failure of the trip when we lobbed at a joint and pointed at random dishes. Alas we were met with a chilli Prawn dish that had more Habanero chillies than prawns and our sides to be put into the steaming broth ended up as seaweed that was the texture of polystyrene foam and iceberg lettuce. On the up side, Jill has been steadily acquiring an ever increasing tolerance for chilli.

We had an overnight sleeper car on the train from Beijing to Xian (a first for me). Managing the local regional train network proved almost as easy as the city metro however seemed much more daunting due to the sheer volume of people. The train ride was 13hrs overnight and we left at 8pm arriving at 9am. We got off the train and were waiting for our lift from the hostel, when I was set upon by the only (partially) english speaking drunk man at the train station. Clutching his beer and rambling incoherently, I instantly became his friend.

We checked in and immediately headed for the Muslim Quarter of Xian for a meal. This is one part of the world that everyone should see at least once. It was a 100%  assault on every one of your senses with so much crammed into such a relatively small space that you were in total awe of what was going on. We watched cooks pressing noodles using what looked like a set of bellows with a mincer on the end pushing the noodles into a boiling vat (we plan to go back so I will try and post a video). The meat on a stick men were everywhere and the pure cacophony of actions was astounding.

We found deli’s, bakeries, restaurants and shops full of items that we had no idea what they were. After our lucky dip menu excursions and our willingness to try lots of different things, this place took it to another level. There was a fight (physical with many punches thrown), hawkers, touts…this place had it all going on.

We settled on a venue for lunch in the Muslim quarter and Jill made her first major blunder of the trip when she ordered beer with her meal. We ordered a couple of different versions of a beef soup sort of thing with some chilli squid on sticks. Shortly following this we hit our first CRITICAL INCIDENT of our trip and I have determined that we need some form of codeword to emphasise the criticality of an incident.

About 40mins after my meal I found myself in need of the amenities. Upon conveying this need, Jill at this point decided to stop on the side of the road and discuss the manner and type of facilities that would be available rather than actually take any step towards a venue of relief. I entered into a Zen-like state of concentration while trying to maintain an olympic pace back to the Hostel. While on my power walk, I was set upon by a turkish hawker who walked next to me for an extended period offering to sell me every item available. I tried to maintain focus and pace while I was offered sex with prostitutes and tried to deflect by pointing to Jill, who was in the meantime wandering aimlessly 20 meters behind me and was holding the key to get into the hostel for hostage, while every element of my being was screaming.

We got there and the world was good again. We have booked our trip to the terracotta warriors for Friday (it is Wednesday today) and will spend the day tomorrow trekking about Xian. We have 5 days here than on to ChongQing where we will take a 4 night cruise of the Yangtze River and the three gorges.

When we left Australia we were limited to what we could take with us as we had to be able to carry it with us. As such we each had a luxury item. Jill took her hair straightening iron and I took an espresso coffee machine and ground coffee. To accommodate such items other things had to be forgone. We both chose to travel with limited footwear with a pair of boots each, some Jesus sandals, thongs for the showers and I had an extra pair of runners (not that I was planning to run). Upon departure we were joking with friends about the German backpackers wearing their Jesus sandals and socks and made a pledge that if it was cold enough to need socks then we could wear proper shoes. This went out the window last night as both Jill and I departed the backpackers in Jesus sandals and socks. Needless to say that we looked quite the fashionable couple.

Today we had our second crack at the Summer Palace or officially in China Garden of Nurtured Harmony, which is a vast ensemble of lakes, gardens and palatial buildings in Beijing. The Summer Palace is mainly dominated by Longevity Hill and the Kunming Lake. This time we took the train directly to the Palace and were left with a short walk to the entrance and the hike up the hill (with the obligatory stairs) to the palace. From that point on it was all down hill which made the journey that much more reasonable. It was still a long walk but the effort required was considerably less. That said we got to the bottom and Jill said that she wanted a boat ride. So after wandering the grounds we headed to the paddle boat hire joint and got a boat that required us to pedal for the next hour.

On the up side we got the best possible view of the joint from the water, on the down side we pedalled one of those boats around a lake. Jill took a photo of a very unimpressed husband as he bobbed up and down on the water. I am not sure if any of you have tried to pedal these boats but the effort of the pedalling does not translate to forward momentum but rather the tide just drifts you into the middle. Once in the middle we got some good photos and then tried to pedal back to the dock. After what seemed like an eternity of getting nowhere and watching others being towed back to shore by the motorised versions (the ones that Jill thought would be no fun) the wind shifted and we started to drift in the right direction and our pedalling was no longer in vain.

I am writing this in the bar at the hostel during happy hour which has half price local tap beer (actually the place and time most of these have been written). We are off for a short walk soon to go to one of the best places in town to get Peking Duck. We tried a local place last night which saw us randomly pointing at pictures on a menu. We ended up with a duck thing and a fish thing with some Chinese Broccoli with garlic and a mystery meat of some sort. The garlic was possibly exactly what my ailing bride required, and when combined with the trip to the fruit store that we took, hopefully she will be on the mend soon enough.

Two days later and we have made 3 separate and equally unsuccessful trips to find the Peking Duck place. There was a trip to the Lama Temple and another venture to the night markets so that we could get some photographs. Jill has successfully managed to pass her cooties on to me and I am struggling with a runny nose and a throat tickle. Which is aversely affecting my sleep but otherwise is just an annoyance.

We have hit all of the major tourist attractions in Beijing and now have a couple of days to experience the city and discover random treasures and sights before we jump on our train to Xian which is the home of the terracotta warriors among other things.

Just came across an amazing old dude who was staying at our backpackers. He was wearing lycra and pushing a bicycle that had saddle bags with patches from almost everywhere on the planet. He told me that he had just ridden his bicycle from Turkey to Beijing a feat that I thought was fairly impressive but in further conversation he claimed that in 2004 he arrived in Sydney and headed south and circumnavigated Australia finishing up in Darwin via Perth and Alice springs. His comment was that Australia was a beautiful place but that the flies in the desert were “a lot”. I had to laugh.

Well we have had a few interesting days wandering the streets of Beijing. The first item of note was that we sat next to a grotty Brit backpacker on the bus to the Great Wall and Jill picked up a cold so has been incredibly snotty and required a day of doing nothing but sitting in her room and feeling sorry for herself while going through tissues at a rate that will destroy small forests and increase global warming markedly.

We had a huge day in the heart of Beijing where we started by catching the train to Tiananmen Square and did the walk north through the square and into zhongshan park and then into the forbidden city. After that we headed to Jingshan Park which is a hill that offers the best views of all of Beijing on a clear day. All of this is a straight line from Tiananmen Square. All of this was excellent and the hike while long was worth every minute of it. The only detractor was when we reached Jingshan Park and found ourselves at the bottom of the hill and had to climb the stairs to the lookout. After our Great Wall hike our bodies were immediately reminded of the trauma that we had been inflicting upon them.

As mentioned above the view on a clear day was that of all of Beijing. This was not a clear day and we were lucky to see 200 meters. Jill took a photograph directly of the sun at 4pm that looked more like an orange moon. There was a huge highrise in the distance that you could hardly tell existed. From here we travelled down the hill and decided to walk home which took us on an impromptu tour of the Hutongs (narrow alleys with traditional courtyard residences). The next day was Jills recovery day.

Today we walked from our accommodation back to Tiananmen Square via a local dumpling house (our terminology as we are getting good at playing charades with restaurant staff) where we had a great breakfast for under $10. When we arrived we attended the National Museum and were pleasantly surprised to find it was free upon presentation of a foreign passport. This was a very nationalistic view of China and was in line with the message that the Government wished to portray. That said I got myself into a zone of lunacy that only my sister Karin can relate to (following a Canberra Zoo visit). In such a zone Karin found herself in tears of laughter however my musings were met with Uh Huh from my bride.

Tomorrow we will be having another crack at the Summer Palace when we are a bit fresher and we will be catching a train closer to the actual palace rather than the boat which dropped us at the extreme end of the complex.

TECHNOLOGY NOTE

We have hit some tech snags in China with facebook, wikipedia, skype etc not functioning. The last couple of blog posts and photos were e-mailed to shorty in Canada who posted on our behalf. This one seems to be working. There is no picking what will work on any given day. We are enjoying the comments on the blog so keep them coming we are not posting them for all to see.

I must say this beauty is named appropriately.

We started our morning at about 7am with an included breakfast followed by a bus ride to the wall. There were 3 options available as a tour from Beijing and we chose the Mutianyu section that is possibly the most famous and the one where most of the Great Wall photos are taken from. Upon arrival you are greeted with paying a further 80 yuan to take the chairlift to the wall otherwise you have a 40 minute and 2000 step hike just to get to the wall. We paid the extra 80 and thank god that we did.

As you get to the wall the Mutianyu section is about 8kms long which seems perfectly reasonable on the face of it. You enter from the chairlift at gate 6 and can either:

1. Go right to gate 1 which is the end of the renovated section and has the original wall in its un-renovated state

2. Go to the left and wander the relatively flat beautifully renovated sections through until gate 23

We went right. I am perfectly comfortable at this point in reiterating a point from an earlier post. You need to be fit to do this. The trip to the right was best suited for mountain goats as it reached almost vertical sections and we found ourselves stopping every 20-25 meters as our lungs, thighs and calves were burning. Gate 6 to 5 goes down to a valley and then 5 to 1 starts climbing up the other side of the mountain until it reaches the next summit. Despite this an hour later we had made it from gate 6 to gate 1 and started the wander across the top of the mountain range on the old section which was level and a welcome change.

We returned to gate 6 which took less time as the return was mainly down the steps and we mused at the people doing the bit that we had just finished. People seemed to be dying in the 5-4 section and they (like us an hour earlier) had no clue that each section got progressively steeper. Upon reaching gate 6 we thought we would do the wander left. While still a steep walk it was on a paved level surface which undulated and was comparatively serene. We ambled a few gates before returning to gate 6 for our return down the mountain and the included lunch.

The return had 2 options…you could do the chair lift or you could take the toboggan ride down the mountain.

The toboggan was incredible, The only detracting point was that you had to slow down due to a wowser in front who rode the brakes all the way down. You get on and push the brake forward for speed and pull back to slow. We had a group in front and we waited as long as was reasonable, without holding up the whole line too much, so that I had a good section of free track in front of me. I jumped on and pushed the handle forward. Chewing up track rapidly I was having a ball and the laughter from the sled behind me indicated that Jill was too.

Then it ended. Some idiot had let their 8 year old daughter (or there abouts) ride alone and she sat on the brakes. At the speed I was going I had to slam on the brakes so as not to plow into the person in front of me. Now is probably a great time to mention that OH&S in China is not what it is in Australia and you would never get away with such a thing back home. Anyway I slammed on the brakes and stopped before rear ending the person in front and immediately became concerned as to whether Jill would see the sudden stop in time to avoid rear ending me. She did. Needless to say there was a queue of about 20 stuck behind the 8 year old and we all stopped dead hoping to put some track between us so that we could move again.

It freed up after a pause but alas we caught her quickly enough and we got on the brakes hard again. Jill did not notice as quickly this time and I got off the toboggan with her boot prints on my back. No major damage done. A quick meal at a local joint which saw us both stuffed with food and 1.2 litres of beer with change from $20. I found the local bakery option the night before on the walk back from Ghost street and am now addicted. We stopped and grabbed 2 custard tarts, 4 chocolate and 4 vanilla biscuits and something that resembles a vanilla slice (but not too sweet) for about a buck.

Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City Today

So…after a huge couple of days of hiking (the volcano and the temple of heaven) we decided a nice quiet day at the zoo was on the menu. So we hopped on the Beijing metro and about 25 stops, 3 train changes and a short walk we were at the zoo. At this point I really must stress how simple the Beijing rail system is. A train comes every 2 mins, the maps are simple, english and Chinese characters and announcements for a sum total of 2 yuan (about 30-40 cents per trip) no matter how far you go.

The zoo cost 40 Yuan ($7-8) per person and we headed in…we turned left to avoid the Panda rush upon entry only to find that we walked about 45 mins without seeing a single animal other than enclosures under repair, closed paths and concrete moulds of the animals that were meant to be there. We did find the water fowl exhibit which had 2 sad looking ducks and some blow in crows who were poaching the food that was laid out for the real animals. After many derogatory comments from me and complaints about attending “Piss weak world” we came across the penguin enclosure (which required an additional 10 yuan ($2)). Upon entry we saw no penguins but a bank of goldfish, the comments escalated. Then all of a sudden OMG penguins.

From this point on the zoo got good. There were some logical issues whereby if you enter the exhibit labelled African animals you actually find yourself in the reptile and amphibian house. Once you actually find the animals and ignore the signage it is pretty damn awesome. I saw a bunch of animals that you only get to see on TV documentaries along with the obligatory zoo style ones that we have in OZ like the giraffes and rhinos, tigers and elephants etc. And of course there were the giant Pandas. Claudia would have killed us if we did not post our Panda pics.

From here there was a boat ride to the Summer Palace so we jumped on the boat. A 50 minute ride up the Beijing canal and Lock system (which I never even knew existed) and we arrived at the Summer Palace. We were a little tired after the zoo hike and found ourselves at the extreme end of the Summer Palace grounds (a 720 acre property on the outskirts of Beijing). After walking for about 3kms around the lake towards the palace and still being about the same distance away we decided that we would come back on a day when we were fresher.

We stopped at a restaurant for a late lunch and a few points were solidified:

1. I should never be allowed to order if I am hungry.

2. I am only allowed to order 2 meals initially.

3. I have been banned from ordering any more than one dish with Chilli in any seating.

After 6 dishes were delivered to the 2 of us (3 of which were Brad and Mike Chilli specials) we set the above rules in place. One of the meals was Chilli donkey and garlic. It was pretty good. This was washed down with a new local ale ( Yanjing Beer) which was pretty good and ranked a solid 6/10. At this point I need to make a comment about the percentage of alcohol changing between different bottle sizes. If you buy the 500ml bottle it is 8% but if you buy the 600ml bottle of the same it is 3.6% and if you buy the one with Chinese and not english characters it is different again.

We needed a break after we found our thighs, calves etc burning after some serious trekking. So we had a planning day and made arrangements for our Great Wall trip the next day and Jill booked some train rides for India which is to follow. That said we did go for a cruise around Beijing to Ghost Street, a strip of restaurants that seems never to end, with the lanterns and touts everywhere. One restaurant was seemingly indistinguishable from the next so we randomly stopped at one and had a meal which was excellent. Jill has found a new favourite dish but we still do not know what it is called but she has pointed to the picture 3 times now. The dish is similar to duck pancakes but has pork instead and the pancakes are very different too. One of the restaurants had it listed as Beijing Heaving but they had so many translation mistakes it could have been anything.

BEIJING

The flight to Beijing was delayed by 2 hrs which meant our driver had left but we made a call, waited an hour and were scooped and found ourselves in yet another excellent hostel (with a slab of concrete for a bed). We headed to the hostel bar for a local ale (Beijing Beer) which was so nice that we had many. We met a German tourist who was leaving the next day and we all decided that after about 10 pints that it was time to walk 40 minutes to the night markets. We still dont know if we found the night markets but we found a night time strip of street vendors that had every kind of animal on a stick being BBQed.

Jill started us off with BBQ squid on a stick, which was quickly followed by a plate of pot stickers and a bowl of pork balls in Chilli…and then Richard and our new German mate got started. Things that followed included: Crabs, bugs, snake, and scorpions. Needless to say Richard and Stefan did the freaky eats and Jill just shook her head. After a few of these we decided that the pot stickers and a meat on a stick thing was actually pretty tasty.  All of this came for about $2.50 a plate (or stick). Back to the hostel for more Beijing beer.

The morning saw a slow start and a trip to the Temple of Heaven. This was to be a cruisey kind of day that ended up starting our walk at 10:45 and finishing 7 hours later a little tired and emotional. This first challenge was to work out the Beijing Metro which proved remarkably easier than we expected. The temple was awesome but a little sideline saw us lost within a massive park that needed about 7kms walking to get us back to where we wanted to be.