Holiday In Beijing

Did you know that each year on National Day, when the entire population of China gets one week off for vacation, it’s the biggest migration of people in the world? Well, as you can imagine, that happens to make traveling pretty difficult. And it makes planning your vacation nearly impossible if you can only communicate with one person at the whole train station. I should probably buy the English-speaking teller at window no. 2 of the South Shanghai Railway Station a drink.

In fact, if the travel gods had gotten their way, Buffin and I wouldn’t have made it to Beijing at all. In a series of mishaps involving miscommunication, a lack of funds and the fact that a centralized computer system for the Chinese railway doesn’t exist, the train tickets we wanted to buy were sold out by the time we had everything figured out. The day that our travel snafus came to a head was my first bona fide ABCD (“A Bad China Day” – a term that Thomas introduced to us). Luckily, the stars aligned, and we were able to book a cheap one-way flight to Beijing and get an overnight train back to Shanghai. It would’ve been a damn shame, too, because our holiday in Beijing (with Helen and Elliot, travel companions extraordinaire) was exactly what the doctor ordered. This is a long one folks, so settle in. Here are the highlights:

• The Chinese Box: Our precious hostel was tucked away from the hustle and bustle of the capital city, down one of Beijing’s famous hutongs (alleys). I had never stayed in a hostel before, but Buffin (who traveled through Europe last summer and stayed at plenty) tells me that we got lucky. It was clean and quaint with a super friendly staff. Every morning, Joe (the hostel manager) would bring me my coffee with a design drawn into the froth. The Chinese Box also hosted a variety of free weekly activities, from a BBQ dinner to a walking tour of the area. We got the chance to participate in Friday’s dumpling party, and even made it back home from the day’s activities in time to help make them. I found out that I’m not so good at folding dumplings, but I am very helpful when it comes to consuming them. The hostel guests were all young and friendly, but we didn’t exactly pal around with any of them. With Helen, Elliot and Buffin around, making new buddies seems unnecessary and, quite frankly, unappealing. Countries of origin included America, Australia, England, Ireland and France. There was also a supremely creepy 60-something-year-old man who was Canadian by way of Finland. Naturally, he was in our room the first night. We had a “small world” moment when we realized that one of the guys staying at the hostel was not only from “Houston” (I have my suspicions he was really from one of the Cy or Spring what-have-you’s), but also a fellow Longhorn. Too bad he blew really hard. We also happened to share the hostel with a family of cats, who were something like local celebrities.

• Silk Street Market: When we first met up with Helen and Elliot we attempted to go to The Underground City, a series of tunnels that were built during the nuclear war panic of the 1970s. Even with Helen’s Mandarin skills we couldn’t find the place, so we went shopping instead. I don’t know what Elliot was thinking when he agreed to travel with three women. The Silk Street Market is bargain shopping at its finest. Helen bought some faux pearl earrings and candy red Ray-Ban Wayfarers. Elliot bought a belt because “he can’t stop losing weight over here” (I’m crying for you, really I am) and some brown checkered Ray-Ban Wayfarers. And thus The Ray-Ban Brigade was born (Buffin and I already had pairs with us). As for Buff, she made a big purchase of “Bulgari” eyeglasses. The prescription turned out to be too strong (girlfriend was a wee bit cross-eyed), so we “just had to go back” on our last day to get them fixed. On our second go round, I finally bought something (I get shopper’s panic in overwhelming situations) – postcards and red, flower-shaped, faux-coral studs. Baby steps, people. Baby steps.

• Tiananmen Square: The weather for our entire trip was gorgeous, and the day we went to Tiananmen was no exception. Elliot got to Beijing before us and sent me a text message that read: “They made the weather here beautiful.” No really. They made it. Turns out the Chinese government set off these rocket-type deals that cleared the air of all the suffocating pollution for National Day (they did the same thing before the 2008 Summer Olympics). They can’t possibly be good for the environment, so thanks for taking one for the team, Mother Nature. Tiananmen (the largest public square in the world) was filled with floats from the previous day’s parade. This year’s National Day marked the 60th Anniversary of the People’s Republic of China and they were freaking their freak over it. Apparently, the number 60 holds special significance in Eastern culture. Each province had a float, and we had fun trying to guess which was which. It was curious that there was one for the “province” of Taiwan. Don’t want to get into too much detail about that since I’d like to return to America at some point, but Google it.

• The Forbidden City: After we’d had our fill of floats in Tiananmen, we crossed the street (which took about 30 minutes, because apparently all of China had the same brilliant idea to vacation in Beijing) to go see The Forbidden City. The entrance gate, which you have undoubtedly seen before on a China postcard, has a giant portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong (the founder of the PRC) hanging on it. Helen was feeling a little cheeky and got a picture diggin’ for gold in his nose. After walking through a series of identical, ornate entrances we were finally inside. I’m not going to mince my words here - it was kind of boring. So sue me. It was pretty, I’ll give you that, but it was just a lot of the same-looking buildings over and over. Elliot was determined to see this special clock exhibit, so we paid the extra 10 kuai to go in and it was a bust across the board. A room full of clocks. Thrilling. The Imperial Garden, which we walked through before the exit, was my favorite part. It was really beautiful – full of pagodas, massive rocks and ancient trees.

• The Lama Temple: Next up was the Lama Temple. It felt a little intrusive to be visiting as a tourist when so many other people were there to actually worship, but I managed to get a few choice pictures. There were some amazing statues of Buddha – one of which is in The Guinness Book of World Records for being carved from the trunk of a single sandalwood tree. It’s 26 meters high, and if you’re like me and your brain just doesn’t think in metric mode, let me assure you that it’s staggeringly tall. We didn’t stay there very long because we were pretty exhausted. I was game to leave since the fog of incense made me want to hurl. Looks like I can narrow down my man search to ones that aren’t Buddhist, Catholic or Episcopalian, because there’s no way I’m converting to a pro-incense religion.

• Peking Duck at Da Dong: I’m not exactly the most adventuresome eater when it comes to meat – especially when it’s on the bone. One of my dad’s favorite “Hallie Stories” to tell involves dinner at Smith & Wollensky, half a roasted chicken on the bone and lots of tears. Not my finest moment. But I’ve come leaps and bounds since then, because I can now say that Peking Duck is one of the most delicious things I’ve ever tasted. It’s right up there with Camp Mystic coffee cake and my mom’s chicken pot pie. There are a few different ways to eat the duck: plain, dipped in sugar (which makes it practically melt in your mouth), in a bun, or wrapped up in a crepe. The last option was my favorite, kind of a duck fajita. The plum sauce (or guacamole, if we’re sticking with this fajita metaphor here) was crucial. Oh, my mouth is watering just thinking about it. You have never seen happier campers than the four of us after that meal.

• The Site of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics: Rounding out what had to be one of the most jam-packed days of my life, we navigated the Beijing metro system to the north of town where the Olympic stadiums are located. We were told to go at night because you can see them lit up in all their glory, and I’m so glad we listened. I have an only-slightly-inappropriate obsession with the Olympics (the NBC theme song gives me goosebumps), so I was really excited to see these things. Also, my cousin Michael made a special request that I take his Flat Stanley to the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube, and you can’t say no to a kid as cute as “Rico.” [Side Note: Flat Stanley is a wee paper man that came to visit me in China as part of Michael’s third grade class project. We had quite a few adventures together, all of which were documented on camera for his class to see. If the Chinese weren’t already staring at me before, they sure were when I whipped out Stan for an impromptu photo shoot]. At this point in the day, we were all a little delirious – and we have the photographic evidence to prove it, too. There is quite the montage of us acting out Olympic sports in front of the stadiums. But the most hilarious part of the night was when Chinese people started asking us to take pictures with them. Once we had agreed to the first, it was like we had opened Pandora’s box. We should’ve started charging for those puppies. Buffin and I would be rollin’ in the RMBs, baby.

• The Great Wall: Far and away my favorite part of the trip, despite the fact that it whipped my butt better than even Jillian or Bob could (if you’re not watching The Biggest Loser, then you should be – that is quality television programming right there). The views were breathtaking, thanks to those weather rockets, and it was amazing to experience something I have always dreamed of doing. We woke up around 5 a.m. to take a two-hour bus ride out to the Jinshanling portion of the wall. From there, we hiked six miles to the Simatai section. I know that doesn’t sound bad, but trust me, it was painful. “Hiked” is probably not a strong enough word since half of the time we were using our hands, climbing like animals. For the most part, the stairs were practically at a 90-degree angle. Once at the top, you had to very carefully maneuver your way down the other side, which was just as steep. Sometimes you could tell that what you were walking on used to be stairs, but had pretty much disintegrated at some point over the wall’s 2,000-year life span. One set was particularly challenging; it was 103 steps in total and I counted every last one of them. Given both of our proclivities to eat shit, I am pretty shocked that neither Buffin nor I had a terrible accident. By the time we spotted the bridge (our final marker) in the distance, my legs had turned into Jell-o, my breathing was irregular and my mental state was shaky at best. We were very excited to partake in the “boofay” (buffet) lunch that our guide kept talking about. Sweet relief. After four hours together on The Great Wall, Helen, Buffin and I will always have a special friendship. I’m talking the kind of bond that soldiers forge during a war.

• The Overnight Train Back to Shanghai: This was a surprisingly pleasant experience. After a full day in Beijing, we boarded the train at 9:20 p.m. – but not before Buffin engaged in an epic battle with a middle-aged Chinese lady over a chair in the designated waiting area. The chair, as it so happened, was for me. Buffin, my knight in shining armor! It was, essentially, a tug-of-war and the valiant Buffin prevailed. She was gripping that sucker like it was one of Willy Wonka’s golden tickets. I will forever cherish that visual image. We booked seats in a soft-sleeper compartment (at 730 kuai a pop) and, lo and behold, discovered that we had the whole thing to ourselves. That is beyond rare. So we tucked ourselves into our little bunk beds (which had pretty decent white linens) and watched – just watched – Mr. and Mrs. Smith (it was dubbed in Chinese), wrote some postcards and indulged in a few of the gossip magazines that Jenny had sent me. We arrived back in Shanghai at 7:30 a.m. the following morning. Easy breezy. It would be my no-brainer, first-choice way to travel if I wasn’t such an insomniac. I got no more than five hours of sleep on that clickety-clackety train.

Is it possible to get nostalgic over something that happened only a few days ago? Because I think writing this just made that happen. So, Helen, Elliot and Buffin – who’s going to start making plans for our trip to Suzhou?