HOME ALL CITIES Toronto San Fran Catalina Ensenada Anchorage Tokyo Beijing Cairo Petra Prague Munich Madrid Ibiza Mallorca Granada Morocco Gibraltar Seville Barcelona Athens Mykonos Santorini Venice Florence Cinque Terre Rome Helsinki Stockholm Oslo Dublin Edinburgh Loch Ness London Paris Brussels Amsterdam New York L.A. Las Vegas
|
 Beijing's a bustling vast city combining modern huge megamalls just blocks away from ancient palaces. During the day, streets are jammed with more than 10 million bicycles, buses and choking pollution. The hustle continues into the vibrant night with street vendors selling you fried squid-on-a-stick on neon-lit street corners. Beijing delivers on expectations: Yes, the stern navy-green clad police march around, - you'll never find these police at the donut shop! And Yes, billboards trumpet Beijing's Olympics in 2008. Two things surprise me: 1: Everything's Super Sized in Beijing: malls, streets, palaces, are all ridiculously huge. 2: There are a ton of other historic sights -- a few thousand dynasties of history will do that -- we never hear about. Beijing has so many gates, halls, and walls, they blur like the castles, churches, and cafes in Europe! Here's the sights:
FORBIDDEN CITY. Yes, think scenes from the Last Emperor or Mulan, with red walls, big doors, gates and more gates. And it's all completely huge, the size of several football fields combined, making our White House seem like a summer cabin. I explore some maze-like passages in the rear palace grounds and find some random little mini-museums with jade and bronze artifacts. The Imperial Garden at the north end is a nice place to take a break and nearby are the concubine's quarters - not too shabby! Then I head south to... TIANANMEN SQUARE. This huge grey plaza is also the size of a football field or two, with a great view of the Forbidden City gate, Chairman Mao's Memorial Hall, a museum and some other ridiculously huge impressive buildings I've already forgotten the names of. Many children are flying bird-shaped kites in the misty breeze; it's hard to imagine this is the Tiananmen Square where the tanks rolled into crackdown on the student protests more than a decade ago. I see some Chinese soldiers marching in formation, and I can't resist breaking my Beijing Rule #1: Don't Photo the Soldiers. I take some photos, hoping the police don't decide to arrest me like they did this other tourist a few months ago (well, the other tourist was taking photos of the police arresting a guy so I'm tame by comparison). SUMMER PALACE. The Empress Dowager took a break from hectic Forbidden City life by retreating up to her Summer Palace on a lake in the NW outskirts of town. The Palace complex includes a huge Palace, a garden island, and the longest painted hallway in the world, each panel on the ceiling of the hallway depicts a folk story scene. OLD SUMMER PALACE. The neighboring Old Summer Palace consists of the ruins of several European style palaces that were ransacked by the Anglo-French in the 1800's (see, how educational!). There's some controversy in the local paper over whether to restore the ruins or leave them to remind locals of the past. MING TOMB. If the Forbidden City is proof that the Chinese emperors sure know how to live well, the Ming Tomb is proof they sure know how to die well. The Ming Tomb is marked by this huge 12-story archway/gate, and then we take stairs 9 stories down to the hidden tomb, which was just discovered a few decades ago (that's a few seconds in Chinese time line terms). Turns out that these Chinese Tomb Raiders found a bunch of treasure buried with the ol' emperor, which belong in a museum, so that's where they put them. It's still cool and kinda creepy to wonder around the old tomb. SILK MARKET. Think Hong Kong's Temple Night Market only it's open during the day: tons of crammed little street shops selling designer label shirts, bags, shoes and trinkets for cheap. Like the other crazy frenzied tourists, I get caught up arguing for 5 minutes over whether to pay $5 or $6 for a Nike watch which at least looks real (I win at $5!). Time for dinner next at.. SANLITUN. Located near the foreign embassies, this street is jam-packed with bars -- the place to be on the weekend. I grab some chicken skewers w peanut sauce -- and a Sprite, cuz I'm still paranoid at drinking anything with unboiled water! BEIJING UNIVERSITY. I'm in the neighborhood, so I check out Beijing University, known as the Harvard of the Far East. I quickly walk by a Sunday night chemistry class (yuk!) to grab dinner at the student cafeteria for $1. I eat next to a Beijing U. law student who asks me a ton of questions about our jury system, wondering how OJ's case. I admit our jury system doesn't necessarily work all the time... Culture Getting Around. Just walking around is an adventure. All these bikes, taxis, cars, buses and people jam every intersection, coming within feet of hitting each other, but miraculously, no one gets hit, like some choreographed Broadway musical crowd scene. The subway is efficient and costs only a quarter. The buses and taxis are incredibly cheap too. I do a lot of walking to see things, but since the city's so big, that results in sore feet, so I check out the local... Foot Massage. Chinese believe the foot is the "second heart" and different parts of the foot indicate the health of different parts of your body. For example, massaging a sore left toe can cure stomach problems. And after walking around the city, I see why healthy feet are so important - and the ancient Chinese didn't even have the benefit of Nike's! So I check out a new foot massage salon out for a 45-minute foot massage. First, you soak your feet in this hot water with black healing medicines. Then, the masseuse comes in and massages your feet. I try to resist bursting out in laughter from her tickling/massaging. Then, she starts playing the bongos on my calves to quite a snappy beat. The massage concludes with a 20-minute back rub. Highly recommended, and my feet feel good as new. Spitting. When I first get here, I notice guys and girls spit everywhere. OK, spitting's polite - they're launching throat-loogies. But after a few days, I figure out why: the street pollution starts to get to your throat so you have to spit it out. I find myself joining the spitting club. "News." I check out the English version of the China Daily newspaper, which reports on several great things the government is doing to help improve the economy, increase literacy, sponsor festivals. It's quite uplifting and a nice change for the news to be so upbeat. Tho' when the pollution graph shows Beijing's population almost twice that of China's other cities, and the caption is just "Beijing's pollution is slightly above average," well, it's a thing that makes you go hmmm... Overall, despite the un-smiling people walking around like they're Borg zombies, Beijing's a vibrant city with cool history. By the time it cleans up its pollution and traffic problems, it'll be great to return for the 2008 Olympics. |
 Seven bridges in the courtyard of the Forbidden City. Only the emperor could use the middle bridge, but now all sorts of tourists crawl all over it.
|
||||
