Get that China feeling
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Vince
23 Augustus 2015 | China, Peking
Day 3 - Beijing
My first day in China, exciting stuff! Since we all pulled an all-nighter in the plane because it was just too much fun, we were all somewhat tired. But hey, you’re not in China every day, so no time to waste! We stayed in the Courtyard 7 hotel, an oasis of quietness in the busy neighborhood of Hutong. Small houses, busy and lively streets with traditional and Western-looking (but not so Western as they look, just the appearance) shops everywhere, that’s Hutong. The hotel was very great and its people friendly, so it was a nice place to acclimate to China and its people. Some first things about China were that we immediately found out that not only google, but also Youtube, Facebook and Instagram could not be used. We hadn’t given it much thought and it is whatever, but it means that I will post my blogs after our trip, aka now! For now it means that we can’t see our very important facebook messages or notifications, but yolo right. After we had settled in and rested a little, we walked around in the neighborhood. We started out on the main streets, but it is more interesting to walk around the small alleys and back streets where most tourists don’t go. There you can see how life really is and there we could see where the Chinese live and that was a good move. We saw children pooping on the streets and people going through the garbage, you can all find it in Hutong and there it seemed to be the norm. No one was looking strange at the baby pooping or at the old woman going through the garbage. At our first night we had our first Chinese restaurant experience (of course). A restaurant we found in the Lonely Planet it would be. It was a very local restaurant with no English menus, something that also seemed to be the norm and something we would see many more times. We got placed in a room with 7 Chinese loud-talking men, who had been drinking more than one beer. We didn’t know the menu, so we just pointed at their plates, and that what we got, at least that’s what we thought. After some time we got a big bowl of some sort of super spicy soup. We had to get sticks with vegetables and meat ourselves, dip it in the soup and make your mouth spit fire because it was so hot. Apparently this was the famous hotpot. And it was awesome! As I want to say, a great first day in China!
Day 4 - Beijing
Today was some sort of sleeping-in day. Well 9.30 breakfast closed, so 9.25 we had to wake up to be there on time. The plan for the day was to go to Tianman square and the forbidden city. Well, that was the plan. Unfortunately (or sometimes fortunately, plans do not always follow their course. Today we found out that Beijing taxi drivers are not so nice and that agreed prices are not always so fixed. We stopped one cab driver, who seemed like a nice guy, he got one of his taxi friends because we needed 2 caps. We discussed the price and our man seemed to agree. However, on the road, he less and less did so. He got really pissed off and started saying stuff in Chinese while it ended by him saying ‘fucky you’ to us. Believe me, it sounds more fun now than it was at that moment. He stopped the car and made us get off somewhere half way. So now it was up to us to find back the other 3 of the group. Luckily we had set some vague meeting point around Tianmen square, so about an hour later, we found the group and we were reunited! At that time we were at Tianmen square. This really is the most impressive square I have ever seen. Not comparable to Times Square or whatever other famous square. Maybe only already for the fact that it houses Mao’s Mausoleum. In addition to this, there are many other famous and enormous buildings at the square. Unfortunately the Maosoleum was closed. In the beginning we were thinking, yes, no line, let’s go. But of course, there would be a line for the Maosoleum, would it be open… Just on the other side of the Square was the entrance of the Forbidden City, one of China’s biggest (and for sure busiest) attractions. Above the entrance was an enormous picture of ‘our great friend’ Mao and I think it is super interesting how, even nowadays that man can be worshipped so much without any second thoughts. He is on every Yuan (China’s money) and there are posters of red books everywhere. As we entered the Forbidden City, we saw masses of people (mostly Chinese), it was just ridiculous. No possible movements without stepping on a Chinese. These mass movements were only on the main road that went all the way through the Forbidden City. Close to the entranc, on the east side just 5 minutes walking, there was this ceramics exhibition and there were literally 3 other people. It just shows how everyone just follows each other like sheep. How quiet it was, it didn’t look like the Forbidden City at all, and honestly, this was the best part of the Forbidden City. Ages old ceramic artifacts in great shape, some dating back about 2200 years ago (probably some even older, just forgot). It shows how developed the Chinese were in past times and that we Europeans were not always in the center, the most developed and the most civilized. After we had left the craziness of the Forbidden City, we went to a cute little ‘Western’ bakery where we had some nice ‘European’ pastries and donuts as a snack. It got already late and we had found a great restaurant in our lively neighborhood. So a great day that ended with an awesome dinner.
My first day in China, exciting stuff! Since we all pulled an all-nighter in the plane because it was just too much fun, we were all somewhat tired. But hey, you’re not in China every day, so no time to waste! We stayed in the Courtyard 7 hotel, an oasis of quietness in the busy neighborhood of Hutong. Small houses, busy and lively streets with traditional and Western-looking (but not so Western as they look, just the appearance) shops everywhere, that’s Hutong. The hotel was very great and its people friendly, so it was a nice place to acclimate to China and its people. Some first things about China were that we immediately found out that not only google, but also Youtube, Facebook and Instagram could not be used. We hadn’t given it much thought and it is whatever, but it means that I will post my blogs after our trip, aka now! For now it means that we can’t see our very important facebook messages or notifications, but yolo right. After we had settled in and rested a little, we walked around in the neighborhood. We started out on the main streets, but it is more interesting to walk around the small alleys and back streets where most tourists don’t go. There you can see how life really is and there we could see where the Chinese live and that was a good move. We saw children pooping on the streets and people going through the garbage, you can all find it in Hutong and there it seemed to be the norm. No one was looking strange at the baby pooping or at the old woman going through the garbage. At our first night we had our first Chinese restaurant experience (of course). A restaurant we found in the Lonely Planet it would be. It was a very local restaurant with no English menus, something that also seemed to be the norm and something we would see many more times. We got placed in a room with 7 Chinese loud-talking men, who had been drinking more than one beer. We didn’t know the menu, so we just pointed at their plates, and that what we got, at least that’s what we thought. After some time we got a big bowl of some sort of super spicy soup. We had to get sticks with vegetables and meat ourselves, dip it in the soup and make your mouth spit fire because it was so hot. Apparently this was the famous hotpot. And it was awesome! As I want to say, a great first day in China!
Day 4 - Beijing
Today was some sort of sleeping-in day. Well 9.30 breakfast closed, so 9.25 we had to wake up to be there on time. The plan for the day was to go to Tianman square and the forbidden city. Well, that was the plan. Unfortunately (or sometimes fortunately, plans do not always follow their course. Today we found out that Beijing taxi drivers are not so nice and that agreed prices are not always so fixed. We stopped one cab driver, who seemed like a nice guy, he got one of his taxi friends because we needed 2 caps. We discussed the price and our man seemed to agree. However, on the road, he less and less did so. He got really pissed off and started saying stuff in Chinese while it ended by him saying ‘fucky you’ to us. Believe me, it sounds more fun now than it was at that moment. He stopped the car and made us get off somewhere half way. So now it was up to us to find back the other 3 of the group. Luckily we had set some vague meeting point around Tianmen square, so about an hour later, we found the group and we were reunited! At that time we were at Tianmen square. This really is the most impressive square I have ever seen. Not comparable to Times Square or whatever other famous square. Maybe only already for the fact that it houses Mao’s Mausoleum. In addition to this, there are many other famous and enormous buildings at the square. Unfortunately the Maosoleum was closed. In the beginning we were thinking, yes, no line, let’s go. But of course, there would be a line for the Maosoleum, would it be open… Just on the other side of the Square was the entrance of the Forbidden City, one of China’s biggest (and for sure busiest) attractions. Above the entrance was an enormous picture of ‘our great friend’ Mao and I think it is super interesting how, even nowadays that man can be worshipped so much without any second thoughts. He is on every Yuan (China’s money) and there are posters of red books everywhere. As we entered the Forbidden City, we saw masses of people (mostly Chinese), it was just ridiculous. No possible movements without stepping on a Chinese. These mass movements were only on the main road that went all the way through the Forbidden City. Close to the entranc, on the east side just 5 minutes walking, there was this ceramics exhibition and there were literally 3 other people. It just shows how everyone just follows each other like sheep. How quiet it was, it didn’t look like the Forbidden City at all, and honestly, this was the best part of the Forbidden City. Ages old ceramic artifacts in great shape, some dating back about 2200 years ago (probably some even older, just forgot). It shows how developed the Chinese were in past times and that we Europeans were not always in the center, the most developed and the most civilized. After we had left the craziness of the Forbidden City, we went to a cute little ‘Western’ bakery where we had some nice ‘European’ pastries and donuts as a snack. It got already late and we had found a great restaurant in our lively neighborhood. So a great day that ended with an awesome dinner.
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Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
