Return to China - Blogabond

We flew from Japan early in the morning, still very fuzzy from all the alcohol we had been forced to finish the previous night, before leaving the country. On the plane Joanne couldn't resist asking for red wine, since wine is so expensive and so hard to come by in Asia. This was only about 10am, but I couldn't resist a gin and tonic to smooth the edges off my hangover.

From the moment we arrived in Beijing things looked much better than they had been in Japan. There was far more Romanisation of the Chinese script than anything we had seen in Japan, everybody seemed to speak English, and the instructions for getting to the hostel were very clear and extremely detailed. Unlike the Japanese, it seems, Chinese people can give directions. On the shuttle bus from the airport to the Metro I was amazed how modern Bejiing looks; finally here was the super-modern city I had expect to find in Tokyo. Beijing looked much more modern than Tokyo, and it was only then that I realised that Japan probably doesn't look so modern now because its big boom was in the 70s and 80s, leaving it in a time-warp from then, whereas China's boom is much more recent, so most of the big buildings were probably built in the last ten years. Once on the metro, the ultra-modern dream continued: simple to use ticket machines with an English option, very modern trains, and everything clearly sign-posted with maps everywhere. What a difference from Japan!

Cool sculpture in the park

Nice park near the hostel

Tian'anmen Sunrise, our hostel, was in an excellent location, right next to the Forbidden City, and not far from Tian'anmen Square. Leaving the metro we were surrounded by modernity and next to a very impressive major boulevard.

Tai chi in the park

Yet, on the walk to our hostel we passed several examples of the kind of beauty that I had expected but was completely absent from Japanese cities: the ornately decorated entrance the the Grand Hotel Beijing, a pretty little park where a woman was doing Tai Chi next to an ornamental carp pond. This was exactly the kind of stuff I had expected from Japan, but just wasn't there. Everywhere were electric bicycles, electric mopeds, and all sort of other electric vehicles: Beijing is incredibly modern. I think I remember the authorities banning petrol-powered mopeds in the run-up to the Olympics since their two-stroke engines were a major contributor to the pollution, although I've never got around to checking up on the reliability of that memory.

Lots of carp

Carp

Grand Hotel Beijing

It was very hot and humid. Japan had been more humid than I could handle but this was much worse! I think too much aircon in Japan had made us soft. Nearly at the hostel two people stopped us in the street and told us that they were art students and invited us to the college's art exhibition. We just wanted to get to our hostel and to shower and sleep so we told them that we would maybe go the following day. They insisted that we should come now because it was the very last day of the exhibition, but we were in no mood for touts so we just walked off. The hostel was excellent and our room was lovely and big, for less than half the price of a cheap dorm in Japan. Anyway, enough slagging Japan! Suffice to say that I think we should have given Japan a miss altogether and spent more time in China. The staff at the hostel were incredibly friendly and helpful; after checking us in they drew our attention to the warning posters on the wall about not accepting any invitations to art exhibitions or tea ceremonies from con-artists posing as students. For our whole stay in Beijing, we were invited to at least one every single day.

Xichangan Street, between Forbiddern City and Tian'anmen Square

After a wash and a rest we ventured out into the lobby to take advantage of the free wifi and became involved in conversation and drinks with two young Americans. They were planning to travel some more once they were finished in China, so we regaled them of our travelling tales. They seemed particularly interested in India and when we were telling them about Varanasi they could not believe that people would drink such contaminated water. But it's a religious belief, I explained to them, but they insisted that no matter what you believed religiously it made no sense at all. I responded some people believe that Jesus came back from the dead, and that certainly doesn't make any more sense than believing drinking from a river will bless and protect you. They both looked a little bit shocked and one said “Well I suppose if you put it that way. I take it you're not religious then?”. It's easy to forget how religious America is; these had just seemed like two normal young lads, getting drunk, but they apparently followed Christian dogma. That makes them a very unusual pair of lads by European standards!

written by

The Happy Couple on July 18, 2009 from Beijing, China

from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon

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