I arrived in Beijing on the morning of the 27th of January, after catching an overnight train in Changsha which I made with a mere two minutes to spare. The main purpose of coming here was to get on a flight to Tel Aviv on the 29th, but it was a trip to the capital nonetheless.
After finding my way to my hostel and skyping for a couple of hours with my parents (happy birthday Mom!), I hopped on a subway to Tiananmen Square. It’s a pretty enormous space, kind of like everything in China. The Square had some cool monuments, and at one point I found myself trying to visualize what it might have been like during the infamous protests, which was a sobering thought. I kept walking north and passed under the big portrait of Mao Zedong into the Forbidden City, and if it hadn’t been so cold, I could have spent the whole day there. The Forbidden City is a huge palace complex that was constructed in the 1400's by the Ming Dynasty and has since been opened to the public and made into a museum. Down the center are a line of big old temples, and on the east and west there is a geometric maze of walled walkways, smaller temples, gardens, shops. Once you get into that network, you can really feel as though you’re in a completely different city, separated from Beijing.
I left the city out of the northern gate and wandered to a place called Beihai Park. The first thing you see when you go in is a big frozen pond where tons of people were skating on bikes and little carts that were modified to more around the ice. In an adjacent section there were bumper cars sliding around, which looked totally rad and made me wish I had someone else that I could drag into them. I walked around Beihai park and saw a lot of cool architecture and buildings and such until I was just too darn cold, and then I made my way to the nearest subway station to stop back at the hostel before dinner.
For dinner I went to a place called Taste of Dadong, which is one of the most well-known chain of restaurants in Beijing. Their specialty is Peking Duck, an iconic Beijing dish. A tad pricey, but definitely worth it. It was a little funny sitting in the restaurant by myself, but I stopped caring at all once the food arrived.
There is a saying in China that goes, "He who does not reach the Great Wall is no hero." Of course, I cannot be content with anything less than full heroism in my travels, so on the morning of the 28th I woke up early and hopped on a bus with a few other tourists bound for the Mutianyu section of the Wall. It is one of the more well-known sections, but it gets a lot less tourist traffic than some and has spectacular views. With me were a few people from Colombia, a dude from Sydney, and three other people whose home country I don't remember. After roughly 80 minutes of driving we stepped out into the cold but clear air of Huairou county. I ended up walking and talking with the guy from Sydney, whose name was Vaughn. As we trekked up the steep slope following the contours of the mountains we found it pretty easy to stay warm. Our guide had recommended that we go all the way to the top of the section that was open to visitors, and when we got there we would be able to hop over a fence and see some of the older sections of the wall. This seemed ideal to me- the Wall has a two thousand year history, but of course it has been rebuilt many times since the first. The Mutianyu section was all restored in the 1980's (I think), but the older sections are remnants of the 1300's, and that's what I really wanted to get too. Unfortunately when we got there we found that the "fence" was actually a short brick wall, which we still could have jumped but there were lots of security cameras and a guy selling things who said we shouldn't. A bit of a bummer, but honestly I didn't mind too much when I turned around and checked out the view. We stayed up there for at least half an hour before turning back to meet our group.
If there's one overarching impression I got from the visit, it's that I want to go back. It was pretty incredible but I feel like I just didn't have enough time. I'm looking into ways of visiting different sections, parts mostly unknown to tourists where I can experience the Great Wall in a more raw, heroic fashion.
We regrouped at a local restaurant for lunch. It was tasty, and different from the Hunan cuisine I’ve gotten so accustomed to. I chatted a bit with the folks from Colombia- only one of them spoke English, so I got to practice my Spanish for the first time in a while! After heading back to the city I was exhausted, so I found some coffee and took it easy for the rest of the day.
Next stop is Israel, where I'll be meeting up with the lovely Katie Laurence. It's gonna be a good vacation, folks. :)
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