Beijing, The Forbidden City and The Great Wall of China (Sam's visit to China - Part II)

Before my visit, everybody told me that while Shanghai is the bustling metropolitan and the face of modern China, whereas Beijing is the more historical, grand city, steeped in a long history being the seat of many of China’s dynasties in its cultured civilization. People spoke with such gravitas and reverence about Beijing that I assumed it must be a superior version of Shanghai, with its years of wisdom and antiquity behind it. Maybe I built it up too much in my head, as our first impressions were that it seemed definitely to have age behind it, which meant that everything was old, had time to become quite run down and dirty, so it was a bit of a shock compared to smooth and tidy Shanghai! I did hear warnings that the smog was also much worse there on account of it being more inland and not having the same ocean breeze as Shanghai, and when Lu told us that the metro was busier there, I kind of laughed it off, thinking “is it actually possible for the metro to be even more busy?”. Well yes, unfortunately, it totally was.

Having got lost meant that we had more than our fair exposure to the metro when we first arrived, and saw people ambitiously piling in until there was no room to move, and in some cases, people being left on the platform (this happened to us too, later). Sam became fiercely territorial, and wanted to queue early for the entrance points on the platform.

But when we finally got to our hotel, which was quite comfortable (you get so much more for your money here), we settled in quite well.

Highlights of our trip included going to the Hutong area at Nanluogu Xiang (南锣鼓巷).

Lanterns at Nanluogu Xiang

This area was packed full of cool shops selling kitsch gifts and little snacks and eateries selling the latest food fashions, including macarrons and churros!

Churros! In China! With ice cream!

I have to say, we didn't come to China to have churros, but when we did, they were actually some of the most delicious churros I've ever had! So soft and chewy on the inside, with a thin layer of crunch on the outside, it was cooked to perfection. And it came with this delicious tangy ice-cream, maybe made with some buttermilk or yoghurt. I couldn’t believe it was better than what I remembered having from Spain! This is a foodie travesty, I know, but maybe the month of only Eastern food meant that my tastebuds had faded and suddenly everything Western suddenly tasted ridiculously delicious.

I also tried a local pancake-come-waffle type thing with a custard filling, made with a pretty panda imprint on the sides:

Waffle/pancake combo – how do they get the custard inside?!

It even had its own Starbucks, which although I was reluctant to go into, gave me the opportunity to do what I normally like, which is to try out the items added to the menu tailored to the local tastes (though not that many Chinese actually go to Starbucks, since it is expensive, and they’re not even a nation of coffee drinkers!). This meant green-tea flavoured frappucino and a very delicious green-tea and black-sesame flavoured swiss roll type slice, which I’d love to recreate at home:

Green tea flavour all the things!

Frankly, this place was so trendy, it was verging into the territory of “Gap Yah” type of places, but nevertheless, we couldn't resist the vibe of this place and also picked up a couple of things, including one of the many paraphernalia bearing the Chairman Meow meme:

 

Of course one of the compulsory stops was Tian’an Men Square which has sadly now only one week later become the site of a tragic crash, most probably linked to tensions with a minority Muslim Uighur group, who feel repressed under the country’s rule. Much is being made of the censorship in this country, so we don’t know too many details. All I know is that the social networking site bothered to post a short news bulletin on the story, yet all but the most politically benign comments have been censored:

 

Censorship on user comments under Weibo’s news article

The reason why the text looks so repetitive becomes clear with Google translate:

Translation of censorship

It seems that instead of deleting posts, they just replace the text with this nonsense! I love how the last comment about it being a traffic accident has been left in, even though the person might well have been being sarcastic! If anything is clear from this event, it is that it was no accident, and obviously politically motivated, since the driver ploughed right into the direction of Mao’s portrait and the main entrance of the Forbidden City, both emblems of Beijing’s power. But who knows what the people hired to monitor Weibo think.

Moving away from the politics, and getting back to our trip, before this unfortunate event, we had a lovely (if crowded) stroll through Tian’an Men Square, complete with ridiculously garish and unnecessary giant floral centrepiece, complete with its own guard (as always in China).

Ridiculously large floral centrepiece at Tian’an Men square

        After a brief walk round the square, we made our way into the Forbidden City, which was the exclusive complex for the imperial court and where 24 of China’s emperors had ruled for nearly 500 years.

On our initial entry, it was clear that the city still had some kind of military importance, because there were cordoned off areas and even basketball courts up just through the front arch. We were also greeted by some kind of military choir, singing a very well practiced and orchestrated song, presumably to boost army morale:

Carefully prepared military song delivered during a peak visiting time

Music and singing is very important in China, and military singers can reach quite a high standing rank in society, as we recently heard in the unfortunate case of Li Tianyi.

Further in to the Outer Court, you started to see the true scale of the place:

Outer court of the Forbidden City

All the buildings were decorated in a very lavish fashion:

An intricately painted recurring motif throughout the roofs of the Forbidden City

Carefully constructed figurines at the end of roof ridges

One of the great Halls

Overall, the Forbidden City was quite breathtaking in its size and grandeur, but I have to say, after you’d seen one building, you’d pretty much seen them all, so I'm not quite sure if it’s entirely worth the 60 RMB entry fee! Nevertheless, they know tourists will pay this.

Perhaps my views were slightly coloured by the unfortunate spell of heavy smog Beijing was during the week when we were there. It was so thick, that it was drowning out the sun, even on an otherwise cloud-free day, at about 2 pm:

An eerie-looking sun, blocked by the thick smog

It gave the sun a very eerie, orange glow, which almost made you feel like you were on another planet. It also somewhat ruined our later shots of the city view from the top of Jing Shan Park just north of the Forbidden City.

From the top of Jing Shan Park

Here, there were some beautiful buildings are the top of a little hill which had a great view over the Forbidden City.

Building at Jing Shan Park

As well as a random fruit bowl made out of a hedge!

Random fruit bowl hedge sculpture at the entrance to Jing Shan Park

But, I have to say that without a doubt, the best part of our visit was the trip to the Great Wall. We went on an excursion organised by Beijing Downtown Backpackers, on the recommendation of a friend who had recently been to China. They run several trips to different parts of the Great Wall and even offer an overnight camping trip to see the Wall at its most beautiful at sunrise and sunset, where there would be no other tourists around. Overall, I have to say, they seem like a great hostel, and run some really good excursions at great value for money. Our trip to a relatively far region of the wall (3 hours drive away from Beijing, with an English speaking guide, “body guard” to check on us that we all make it back to the pick up point, where they drove us back and dropped off some people at useful metro stations before taking us back to the hostel, all for about £28 per person! We paid more for our trip to Samaria gorge, which was closer, but maybe it was because it was longer (17 km vs 6 km on the wall).

            But what an awesome, yet challenging 6 km it was! We started off with a fair amount of people with us, as there were several other groups arriving at that time, including what looked like some athletic groups on tour.

Statue at the start of our walk along the Great Wall at Jin Shan Ling

We went to the section of the wall starting at Jin Shan Ling and ending at Simatai, which is a section that is partially restored, but some sections are still left untouched and authentic.

Originally a collection of ramparts from separate states, the walls were created and joined under the Qin Shi Huangdi (221-210 BC), with the same intention as Hadrian’s Wall, or “The Wall” in “Game of Thrones” (we made many jokes about keeping out “wildlings” as we went along). Out trip was going to take us through 22 towers over the 6 km, which were supposed to always be placed two arrow shots apart, so that all parts of the wall could be protected, provided each tower was adequately manned. However, it was not infallible, and eventually, the Mongols broke through in the 13^th century, and then the Manchu did also in the 17^th century.

The wall hugs the ups and the downs of the hills keeping its path regardless of the twists and turns of the countryside

As we went along, the Wall became progressively steeper, and less restored, so that at some points, we were almost walking on all fours!

The good thing about this part of the wall is that once the groups spread out, it was fairly quiet, and not at all crowded. This is a contrast to some other parts of the Wall, such as what I’ve heard of the section at Badaling, where it can be very crowded because it’s so close to Beijing, and consequently full of touristy sellers. We were warned about some “souvenir sellers” who apparently come up to you at the beginning of the hike and befriend you, and that if you don’t say to them “bù yào, xièxiè” (“I don’t want anything, thank you”), then they will follow you all the way to the end of the walk! Certainly there were not too many people trying to sell things, and initially we didn’t even really notice these two ladies latching on to us, one of whom can be seen here on the left:

One of the friendly souvenir sellers on the extreme left

To be honest, they were not too pushy or in your face about selling anything. They just seemed to be friendly helpers at the beginning, and spoke reasonably good English, so we didn’t really mind. They also seemed happy to take some nice pictures of us together, which Sam was very pleased about, as so often couples holidays are full of individual photos or bad couple selfies. They also helped us with some of the more perilous bits of the wall, where the ramparts were not restored or the walk was too steep. However, it soon became obvious that they really were going to follow us all the way to the end, and I was beginning to feel like their never-ending presence was starting to ruin the romance a little bit. Luckily, Sam stepped in and politely explained to them that we were not interested in buying any souvenirs, but we were very grateful for their assistance to us and for taking photos, and he was happy to reward them financially for their efforts. They seemed pleased with the offer of 20 RMB each that Sam made them, and then promptly scuttled off, never to be seen again by us, presumably having found another group to latch on to, while we were able to go on to take in the serene scenery at our own peaceful pace.

The beautiful climb down from the wall at the end of our hike

And what a joy it was. Even on the steps down from the Wall leading back to our pick up point was so beautiful, with the rolling hills covered in the rust and green of autumns colours, which shone through so vividly now that we were clear of the enveloping cloud of the smog’s oppressive haze.

Overall, I would rate this as one of the best experiences I’ve had in China by far and would recommend it to everyone. Sam was very glad that I’d dragged him along.

Have you been to the Great Wall? Which part? What is your favourite part of Beijing?