As the capital of China, Beijing may be the exemplar of how a Chinese city is like, one can establish what the idiosyncrasies of the Chinese are, and get a taste of how much variety the Chinese cuisine consists of.

The almost-12 hours train ride from Shanghai to Beijing resulted in a sleep-deprived and thus groggy me. It could have been my hazy state, or it’s true that Beijing is a city filled with better-mannered Chinese.

Subway trains are old and unkempt in Beijing, but the people in it are civilized and don’t talk as loudly as Shanghainese. Commuters give way to those alighting first before boarding the trains, and they obediently keep to the right of the escalator while getting out of the stations. One ticket inspector tears your paper ticket while she listens to commuters with transportation cards beep their way through. There are no barricades to stop you from entering if you decide to play the save-on-ticket-fare-game, nor are there any barricades when you exit at your destination station. It’s the first such trusting system I’ve seen.

The air in Beijing is really dry, though. For the entire first day I felt like I was in the cabin of an aeroplane, and there were traces of blood in my mucus.

We met up with CG’s Singaporean friends at Peking University, who were very hospitable. I found them to be a very nice bunch of people, modest and unassuming, and let’s just say that I found that very refreshing. A walk around the school explains why this top university in China is a place of interest on its own. Apart from the buildings that were rich with Chinese flavour, the campus had a pagoda(!), a lake(!), and gardens(!) all in the vicinity of classrooms. The foreign students dormitories are, well, not a spoilt child’s dream, but perhaps very conducive for studying. Just 5 minutes drive away is the other renowned university in China, Tsinghua University. We wanted to rent a bicycle to tour the campus (it is available for rent for tourists!), but took the shuttle bus for 2RMB instead. The buildings had a European feel to it, but I know I was in China when the lake and willow trees painted the typical Chinese canvas. The visit to Peking and Tsinghua Universities made me realize how beautiful a campus can be. 原来校园可以那么美的！

European architecture in Tsinghua University

The 2000-year-old Great Wall of China is also known as the world’s largest cemetery (1 million people died when the population was 5 million), as well as the world’s 1st email system (columns of smoke was used for communication purposes, with 1 column of smoke meaning there were 1000 enemy soldiers approaching). Bricks were cemented in the past by using glutinous rice and egg whites, but what we see today when we pay a visit has all been refurbished to ensure stability. In fact, what was once a majestic wonder of the world has been somewhat reduced to a tourist playground, where you can take the cable car up and down, or choose to take a toboggan ride down. We went to the MuTianYu Great Wall section, spent 1.5hours climbing up and taking pictures, and then I took only 10 minutes to slide down the chute on a toboggan.

Ski-cable style cable car

东华门美食坊夜市 gives you an idea of what people mean when they say the Chinese eat almost anything — from scorpions, to bugs, to centipedes, to intestines, to testicles — test your limits!

The street with over 20 stalls

Testicles

Centipede

Assorted hair-standing bugs and scorpions

Seahorse, liver and starfish

Crab and intestines (belonging to sheep, I think)

Hong Kong’s Urine Beef Balls (?) and Fried Milk

王府井街 (Wangfujing street) is the equivalent of Shanghai’s Nanjing Pedestrian Street, but with every few steps you take, there’s construction going on, so there was nothing to really take in except dust and sand.

Having been to the 2 best duck restaurants in Beijing (or so I was told) to savour Peking Roast Duck, whatever frustrations encountered on this trip was compensated. We tried the roast duck at 大董’s on the first night, then 全聚德’s on the second, and I have to say I think it’s a good fight between the two. 全聚德’s reputation as the best is more established though, and the price of a whole duck is 198RMB, as compared with 158RMB at 大董’s.

Da Dong’s Roast Duck
Quan Ju De’s Duck

Hutong (胡同) bars at houhai (后海) is a really suitable place to just chill out. Not only are there pubs, but also many cafes and restaurants to just hang out with close friends or new acquaintances. These little cosy newly-refurbished hutong-style concessions line the lake on both sides, offering you a view of small boats gliding along. One of us said it’s reminiscent of Singapore’s Clarke Quay, but I think it’s more genuine and has it’s own flavour, with live singers in many cafes.

Yoghurt in a porcelain container

Tiananmen Square (天安门). I think I read somewhere that it’s the largest square in the world. So many things have happened here. Just as how the Oriental Pearl Tower is the hallmark of Shanghai, Beijing’s Tiananmen Square represents Beijing in its entirety, and maybe even more so because it stirs up raw emotions.

Through some miscalculation by the ticketing booth, we entered the Forbidden City (故宫) free of charge. As I stepped in expecting to be wowed by the imperial palace, I was smacked with the green nettings of (re)construction.

The “automatic guide” that explains to you where you are at every designated station. I rented the Chinese one, because it’s one quarter the price of the English one.

Temple of Heaven (天坛) was rather stunning too, but we didn’t linger long… because we wanted to go to ShiJingShan Amusement Park, which caused a big hoo ha last week over the Disneyland impersonation.

ShiJingShan Amusement Park (石景山游乐园) was a gigantic disappointment, because it was stripped of anything that implied its open imitation of Disneyland. Banners that say “Disneyland is too far, please come to ShiJingShan” were no longer there, nor were the animated impersonators of Mickey Mouse and Hello Kitty. The only evidence left of their attempt is on the ticket, where they tried to black out the “去迪斯尼太远” in “去迪斯尼太远，来石景山游乐园!!!”, and in the castles and colours. The place was really deserted. With no more than 20 visitors while we were there, and judging from the stale sausages and fishballs, I think this place has been hit by a cold draught.

Left: ShiJingShan Amusement Park. Right: Hong Kong Disneyland.

Actually some of the rides looked pretty good, but the thrilling ones cost 50RMB per ride

Check out what is blackened out

Beijing has many hutong-style hostel accommodation, which I strongly recommend. It’s relatively cheap, and offers you plenty of what a hotel cannot. You can be greeted by neighbours who actually live in the remaining hutongs, wake up early for taichi class, and just chill out in the quadrangle courtyard (四合院). We stayed in a 4-bed mixed dorm at Beijing Lotus Hostel (北京莲舍), which cost us 60RMB per bed. Very clean and comfortable.

More pictures at Squareface’s Shots.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 at 4:54 pm and is filed under Taking in; on; and to Shanghai (or China in general), Travelogue. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.