Beijing and Around

Piazza Tiam Anmen

The first real day of exploration of the "continent" of China. In fact, we spent yesterday sleeping to recover from jet lag. This morning we got up very late, and we immediately headed toward Tiananmen Square. The impact was definitely strong: these friendly Chinese are truly like ants. From the start, we certainly didn't go unnoticed, thanks to our "sponsored uniform" and our physical features that aren't exactly Oriental. But it's thanks to this diversity of ours that we managed to attract the attention and friendliness of young people (the only ones who speak at least a little English), who on more than one occasion gave us valuable "tips."

We took a look at Tiananmen Square, which, by the way, is truly immense. Curious students then stopped us, inviting us to visit their university. These students were artists who had a sort of exhibition gallery of their works. Really nice, and above all they were very kind; they offered us a small gift, which we reciprocated by giving them one of our t-shirts. We then headed toward the Forbidden City, but today it was closed for the last day of the national holiday. So we went to visit the Emperor's Temple, which is right next to it. As soon as we came out, we were stopped again by three Chinese girls, who suggested we go to dinner with them. Of course we accepted, because they had promised to let us eat the famous Peking duck.

Everything was very good, from the duck to the various little sauces that accompanied it: perhaps the final broth they offered us at the end left something to be desired, made with the bones of the duck we had just eaten. The painful note was the price, a total of 48.00 euros (though we also paid for dinner for the 3 Chinese girls), a real "rip-off" if you consider that the day before we had dinner for three people for only 6.00 euros. As soon as we left the restaurant, we went into a very particular tea house. Suggestive without a doubt, especially the tea ceremony, made up of rhythmic gestures that varied depending on the type of tea ordered. We tried three. The tea was good, a bit different from ours, served in small cups, which were continually refilled by the young lady performing the tea ceremony.

And when I say continually, I really mean continually! You barely had time to finish before the cup was full again...

Once again, the painful note was the price: it's true that we drank a "row" of tea, but in the end we spent a good 18.00 euros for 6 people.

A bit worried about everything we had spent in only three hours, and considering the time, we thought it best to take a taxi to our hotel.

I'd like to open a parenthesis about the hotel: as soon as we arrived, in desperation, we ended up in a 4-star hotel that asked us for a good 136.00 euros per night. Thank goodness we managed to contact an Italian contact of ours, Luca Gagno, who "saved our lives." He told us that was an absurd price and gave us the address of our current hotel, also a 4-star, where we only pay 35.00 euros per night, breakfast included.

Anyway, a first day that lived up to every expectation, and apart from one or two "rip-offs," this China introduced itself with an exceptional calling card!

Super!

Fourth day in China

Fourth day in China; we're starting to get an idea of the city and how everything revolving around it works. Yesterday morning we were able to visit the famous Forbidden City (entry cost 6 euros per person), since the day before it was closed for the national holiday. The first thing that is evident is its majesty; a city within another. This ancient imperial residence extends over a full 720,000 sq m made up of temples and surrounding gardens. It took us a good five hours to visit it. In the end, not satisfied, we also went to the park in front of it, characterized by a temple located at the top of a hill. This was truly the final blow, an incredible series of steps that took us to the super temple. Inside it was a splendid Buddha that we accidentally photographed, even though it wasn't allowed.

Today we had the luck to spend the day with our super great friend Luca (the one who saved our lives as soon as we arrived). First of all we went to change money, since we had exhausted our resources. Then we took the metro and Luca took us to visit the old part of Beijing: we visited the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower. In this last one we even climbed all the way to the top, thinking we could enjoy an excellent view of the city... and instead! As usual, the physiological light mist (very likely smog). We then entered the characteristic hu-ton (I don't know if that's how it's spelled, and I don't even know if that's exactly how it's pronounced), low little houses, quadrangular in shape with an inner courtyard and of reduced size.

Definitely destined for a population with limited economic resources, although to tell the truth, good old Luca explained to us that restoring this type of housing is now in fashion, reaching exorbitant prices, prohibitive even for most of us Westerners. The last destination of the daytime outing was a typical Beijing market: incredible! First of all, we were the only foreigners inside the market; but the things being sold were even stranger: it looked like one of those typical Treviso events, known to most as the "fiera dei osei" (bird fair), except that they were selling crickets of all types and sizes, birds on leashes, dried snakes, turtles sold by the sack like mussels (no, girls!), obviously for culinary use. There were lots of fish, really strange ones, among which we were also able to admire the very rare gold bream carp, long pursued in vain by Sampei Nihira.

The evening confirmed our positive impressions of Chinese cuisine. We'd like to be able to say what we ate, but of course we don't know the names of the dishes. There were very thin French fries, obviously spiced just right, veal with pepper and onion, pork with chives and a strange little sauce, cabbage with tofu, and the inevitable rice. Thanks again to our friend Luca, who suggested the dishes to order!

Total price of dinner for four people (and not only did we eat well, we also ate a lot!) less than 10 euros.

We then went to see the center on a shopping street near Tiananmen, completely pedestrian and brightly lit for the holiday! We went into a shopping mall and had a very juicy ice cream (not exactly like ours but certainly very good).

Super!

The Great Wall of China

Today was the day of the Great Wall of China. Already yesterday, thanks to the usual and irreplaceable Luca, we managed to secure a taxi driver with whom we agreed on the price (40 euros) to take us to SimaTai, one of the best spots around Beijing to admire the Wall. The day began with a wake-up call that was nothing short of prohibitive (considering that Sunday is always Sunday). 7:30 everyone on their feet except one: THE USUAL BIG MAN, the one who in the evening has the nerve to lecture us about punctuality when he's the first to disregard it. We left the hotel at 8:50 and arrived at our destination at 11:16, a travel time much shorter than normal thanks to the crazy taxi driver who on more than one occasion risked a spectacular crash. On the plus side, we slept for almost the entire journey, unaware of the danger we were heading into.

Once we arrived at Simatai, the entrance fee per person was 3 euros, but that's not all—to make our not-so-easy ascent easier we opted for a chairlift (3 euros per person), all in all acceptable and made more pleasant by local music. After getting off the chairlift, a fairly demanding climb lay before us; in 20 minutes the first goal was reached: one of the twelve visitable towers rose above us. The inevitable local vendors were there offering us all sorts of souvenirs. To be honest, the condition of the wall is not exactly great, but the effort of the climb was rewarded; we opted to visit the towers from number 7 to number 12 and then descended from number 12, retracing the route back to number 1.

What appears most evident and what left us stunned is the immensity of the work (like pretty much all the monuments we've admired so far) but above all the place where it is built, along the entire crest of the mountain. The landscape would be truly very evocative in itself, a shame about the persistent and inevitable (even in the mountains) haze. The decision, which in the end proved not too painful, was to walk back instead of taking the crazy taxi driver, saving the precious yuan of the chairlift. The return ride was a copy-paste of the outbound one, if possible even more picturesque: a head-on collision with a truck magically avoided, a swashbuckling head-to-head with a bus and finally a narrowly avoided rear-end collision 30 meters from our hotel. Just enough time to wash up and sort out a couple of things and we went to dinner...

as recommended by Luca we tried the restaurant in our hotel. Almost no one spoke English and so we relied solely on the pictures in the menu to choose our dishes.... One thing is certain, the taste did not match the idea we had formed looking at the pictures. It's hard to say exactly what they served us, at least for 3 out of 5 dishes. Result: a real disappointment, given how hungry we were and the excellent dinners that had preceded it, we were expecting another dinner with all the trimmings... and instead! Oh well, it happens, the drawbacks of not knowing the language! To console ourselves we went back to our room and opened an incredible grapefruit of exaggerated size (a bowling ball) that saved our evening. In the end all's well, we're still alive!!!