As told by me

Having delivered my overpriced wine and other gifts, I was now on my own time and so headed straight for the nearest subway station to escape the apparently endless and rather daunting concrete jungle that is the Beijing suburbs. Luckily, this was only a short walk away.

Beijing ‘burbs

The subway took me south, towards the Temple of Heaven, where I’d planned to spend a couple of hours before meeting up with my colleague at the Forbidden City, after lunch.

On a whim, I jumped off the train a couple of stops early at Jianguomen. I wanted to get up close to the CCTV building, an impressively controversial architectural statement that I’d been admiring from afar out of the window of the Sheraton. The guidebook also noted a couple of other attractions in this area that caught my interest.

This is the heart of the embassy area and therefore consists of compounds surrounded by double barbed-wire fences and patrolled by unsurprisingly photo-shy soldiers, such as these chaps.

Soldiers – Embassy area

In the centre of this area lies Ritan Park, a well-patronised and thoroughly pleasant middle-sized park, complete with lake. The highlight of the park is the the Temple of the Sun, used during the Ming Dynasty for ritual sacrifices by the Emperor. I caught a couple of glimpses of the CCTV building through the trees so set off to hunt down my prey.

Ritan Park

Back on the main road, the Beijing Silk Market stood between me and the CCTV building. This promised much more than just silk and it certainly delivered. It is a wonderful place, packed full of genuine replicas of all your favourite brand name clothes, at allegedly very special, just for you, you my friend prices. It is also a place that a solitary western man should never enter alone.

It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the half an hour it took three separate stall holders to relieve me of a total approaching $200. It’s just that I was enjoying it so much that I forgot to employ the one secret weapon that everyone has at their disposal – just walk away and listen to the price plummet behind you. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll wear the pants at least once and I can always sell the jacket on ebay…

I stumbled out of the market, light of wallet but laden with my purchases and continued down the road towards the CCTV Tower. After a solid ten minutes walking I concluded that, while I knew it was close, it definitely wasn’t where the map said it was (an inaccurate Lonely Planet map? Surely not!) and my level of interest was dropping as quickly as my blood sugar.

It was also now approaching the time for my rendesvous at the Forbidden City so I abandoned my quest and jumped in a taxi for the short trip west to Tiananmen Square. The square was now devoid of the scaffolding that blighted it on my last visit and was still sporting the huge video screens and an impressive set of red (of course) columns left over from the celebrations.

Big screen – Tiananmen Square

Anniversary columns – Tiananmen Square

The Gate of Heavenly Peace, the entrance to the Forbidden City which lies to the north of the square, was also back to its best. I was once again being spoiled by the glorious weather which facilitated some rather good photos, such as this one.

Gate of Heavenly Peace, Tiananmen Square

At the entrance there were plenty of uniformed soliders and police, but also a series of rather ominously un-uniformed young men sporting crew cuts and not terribly friendly expressions, interspersed between them. I decided not to try to photograph any of these guys and stuck to the set shots instead.

Soldier at Gate of Heavenly Peace, Tiananmen Square

The rendesvous with my colleague went all wrong (I choose to blame him) so I ended up ‘doing’ the Forbidden City on my own, which was fine, though I spent the whole time playing catch-up, which wasn’t so great.

Forbidden City

I therefore didn’t give this vast and enormously impressive complex anything like the attention it deserved. I didn’t even rent the almost compulsory audio guide. I did run into some old friends though (or their cousins, at least).

Hilltribe at Forbidden City

More Forbidden City

The one impression I did get from my all-too-brief encounter with the Forbidden City is that, impressive in scale it may be, it is, dare I say it, a little repetitive.

Forbidden City rooftops

Anyway, I’m sure that comment will ensure I’m never issued another Chinese visa. That will be a shame as I was just starting to make my first very tentative steps towards the beginnings of an understanding of some Mandarin.

More Beijing photos here

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Beijing - October 2009

My second trip to Beijing was originally planned for the end of September, but was pushed back two weeks, largely (I believe) because of activities associated with the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the founding of The People’s Republic, on 1st October. This was just as well as I’ve read reports that whole suburbs were closed down and residents were prevented from entering their houses to ensure the secrecy of the preparations.

Everything was back to normal by the time we arrived on Monday 19th, in time for two days of meetings, the details of which I won’t bore you with. I will say however that our hosts were very generous and gracious and made us feel genuinely welcome. As is the way in these parts, they gave us lovely gifts – framed shadow puppets – which they’d even gone to the trouble of engraving with their company name. The gifts we’d brought with us were rather pathetic by comparison, and I therefore found myself in what may be one of the most expensive supermarkets in the world, buying outrageously overpriced bottles of reasonably decent Australian wine, to make up the difference.

To give you an idea of just how expensive this place is, this can of basic Gillette shaving foam was priced at 184 Yuan. At about 6 Yuan to the Aussie, that’s a $30 can of shaving foam. Aye Carumba!

$30 shaving foam!!!

I suppose they have to charge those sorts of prices as they had about 40 staff on the floor of what is not a particularly large store. Many of these were tasked with standing at the end of a specified aisle, presumably to assist shoppers. They were however curiously inattentive when I actually wanted some help finding a particular bottle of wine, but were only too quick to react when I pulled my camera out to take a photo of them standing around doing nothing.

This was the ritzy, embassy-ridden part of Beijing though, just across from the Sheraton Hotel, where we were staying, and next door to the Hard Rock Cafe. Another clue about the nature of this part of town are the dozens of pimps that line the street of an evening, handing out pictures of their girls (I’m sure there were boys too but I wasn’t offered any). After four nights, I think I had the whole set.

Canal by the Beijing Sheraton at night

Mornings in this part of town are a much more civilised affair though. It hadn’t taken me long (about a quarter of a second in fact, once I’d seen the 227 Yuan price tag) to decide that I would not be eating at the hotel, so I spent my time sampling the breakfast delights on offer down by the canal. My favourite was an egg cooked in a pancake sort of thing, served with chilli sauce and lettuce. There were plenty of other options too, all of which were tasty and none of which cost more than 2 Yuan. Take that, Sheraton!

Canal by the Beijing Sheraton by day

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Beijing - October 2009