Beijing: The Big City

A mad rush to the airport and I was on my way to Beijing, the capital of China.

Thanks to scheduling issues at school that had me finishing class at 5 pm, I had to catch a taxi to the airport to catch my plane that left at 7 pm. TDM conveniently rostered me to teach Jen’s class, who I was meeting in Beijing. I had specifically asked if Jen had classes on Sunday afternoon and, of course, she had been given a new class last week and I was the only other teacher who was “free” at that time. I must thank the wonderful taxi driver who, as we were approaching the freeway, told me to buckle up. He crossed his chest and flew off, horn blazing and lights flashing. I ended up being there 30 minutes early, which was just enough time to grab a cup of coffee.

I got into Beijing around 9 pm and, after knocking back the kind offer of a 400 yuan bus ride to the hotel, jumped into a 16 yuan airport bus and headed to our hotel. Everyone keeps on telling me that there are more people in Beijing than in Wuhan who speak English, and maybe there are. However, whether I was at the airport, at the hotel, in a taxi, at a restaurant or wandering around the streets, no one could speak English. Managed to meet Jen at the hotel and we settled in for some snacks and a couple of drinks. But it was early to bed as we were off the next day at 7:30 am to visit the Great Wall.

After a two-hour bus ride, we arrived at the Simatai section of the Great Wall, northeast of Beijing and almost on the border with Hubei province. The Simatai section is one of the more original sections of the Great Wall, with a lot of the wall still intact in its original form with some of the section dating back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Unfortunately, the cable car (not built in the Ming Dynasty thank goodness) wasn’t working so I can vouch for the Lonely Planet guide that suggests that the Simatai section is one of the steepest and most difficult sections of the Great Wall. Seems that good views come at a price. But, good views they were, as the following photos can vouch. I managed to get to the 7th tower of 11 before having to turn back for the sake of both time and my legs.

After climbing for so long, we took the easy way down (flying fox) and had lunch in the restaurant before jumping back into the bus and heading back to Beijing City. On the way back, we visited a silk factory to learn how silk is made, something I never thought I’d have to see. But, it was actually pretty amazing, although the silk there was very expensive as the tour’s purpose was to get tourists to purchase it.

The next day, I started a tour of the city at 7:10 am, which in my mind was way too early! Now I know, I know, I’m not a tour person, but I did only have 2 days in Beijing and I wanted to get as much in as possible. The city tour took in three of Beijing’s most famous sites: the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace. My favourite was definitely the Summer Palace, but I’ll explain a little about all three (to go with the photos).

First up was the Forbidden City, home of 14 Emperors from the Ming and Qing dynasties. It was built around 1406 and apparently is the “largest and best-preserved cluster of ancient buildings in China”. Large was correct but I’d like to add “the most stifling cluster of ancient buildings I have seen in China”. I actually felt uncomfortable there. While the buildings were well preserved, the imposing architecture of the day and the stark surroundings didn’t make me want to move in at all.

Then it was onto the Temple of Heaven. The dominant temple (see below) is the “Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest”. In previous years, the Chinese prayed to the God of Heaven who was seen as the only thing higher than the Emperor. The Temple of Heaven is where the Emperor went to pray for “Good Harvest” from the God of Heaven. The temple was absolutely beautiful, especially the decoration on the inside. In fact, the whole complex was beautiful and so peaceful compared to the rest of Beijing.

A couple of smaller things of interest can be found in the temple. The first is three squares in the middle of a walled temple where the first square gives one echo, the second two echoes and the third three echoes. It was pretty amazing as we all thought that it was just another one of China’s great stories. This one was true. The second was the centre of the Round Altar, where your voice was amplified if you stood on one particular stone. In fact, the Round Altar was pretty cool in itself. The ancient Chinese believed that odd numbers were heavenly and that the number 9, being the largest natural odd number was the luckiest. Therefore the Round Altar was built so that the top tier has nine rings of stones, each composed of a multiple of nine stones so that the first ring has nine and the ninth has 81. There are three sets of tiers and the stairs to each tier are all multiples of nine. You’d think it was difficult enough to build the Altar…

After the Temple of Heaven, we went for lunch at a restaurant run by one of the minority groups in China. It was a fairly typical tourist-style lunch, but the dancing and singing that accompanied the lunch were really pretty. I even got a chance to get up and do a bamboo dance with them. It’s hard to describe, but it’s kind of like elastics except that the elastic is bamboo and they move in and out, so the aim is to move across them without getting your legs caught.

After lunch, we headed to the Summer Palace, which was an amazing complex. The origins of the Palace stem from the 1100s when the fourth king of the Jin dynasty moved the capital from the Huining Prefecture to Yanjing (now Beijing). Around 1749, the Qianlong Emperor decided to build a palace to celebrate the 60th birthday of his mother, Empress Dowager Chongqing. He also ordered the Western Lake to be expanded further west to create two more lakes. The palace, completed in 1764 cost over 4.8 million silver taels and was first named “Qinqyiyuan” or the Gardens of Clear Ripples. The design was based on a legend in Chinese mythology about three divine mountains in the East Sea, with the three lakes representing the three mountains. Among other things, the Wangchan Pavilion was built to resemble the Yellow Crane Tower in Wuhan. The palace was never designed or equipped for long-term residence, and the Emperor only remained there for a day when he visited.

The main building in the centre of the complex is the Hall of Benevolence and Longevity, the hall where court sessions were held.

As the Qing Empire started to decline, the Summer Palace became neglected, and the architectural features on the three islands were dismantled due to the maintenance costs. In 1860, the Eight-Nation Alliance looted the Summer Palace at the end of the Second Opium War. During the reign of the Guangxu Emperor (1875-1908), Empress Dowager Cixi ordered the reconstruction of the palace for her 60th birthday but, due to limited funds, only the buildings in front of Longevity Hill and around Kunming Lake were reconstructed. These buildings include the Hall of Dispelling Clouds (previously called the Great Temple of Gratitude and Longevity), where the Empress received guests, hosted ceremonies and celebrated her birthday, the Tower of Buddhist Incense (originally built to model the Yellow Crane Tower but stopped after the eighth storey was built), where the Empress visited the tower to offer incense and pray and the Sea of Wisdom, a coloured glass building housing over 1000 statues of Buddhist figures.

Given that most of the complex consists of a man-made lake, and the lake itself was frozen, it was one of the most beautiful sites I have seen to date in China. I’ve attached photos of the lake but I’m not sure they do it justice. While the buildings here were less grand than the Forbidden Palace, the beautiful gardens and the atmosphere of the Palace made it feel extremely peaceful (even with the crowds) and somewhere where you could spend quite a lot of time.

After the Summer Palace we went to “Dr Tea”, one of the largest tea houses in Beijing. We tried some different styles of tea, which definitely had some strange tastes. My favourite was “pure tea”, not for its taste, but because it actually looked like a cow pattie (see below). My favourite tasting tea was the Oolong Tea, which had an extremely bitter taste until you swallowed it. As soon as you swallowed, the tea tasted sweet, almost like candy. It was strange. I bought some, partly because I liked it, and partly because when you bought tea you got a “Pee pee man” with it. And yes, a “pee pee man” is fairly much like what it sounds. Basically, you pour water on him and he will tell you if the water is hot enough by peeing into the air. We all thought it was hysterical, and one of my favourite souvenirs so far.

My third day in Beijing involved getting up, booking an airline ticket and rushing to the airport. All that rush, only to find out that all flights to Wuhan were delayed and wouldn’t leave until at least 2 pm. So, I sat around another airport…I think that I could nearly write a book about Chinese airports now.