Beijing: The Great Wall

November 30, 2014

So the plan for the next day was waking up super early (4:30AM?) to go see the Great Wall and have time to go to Tiananmen and possibly the Summer Palace. But knowing us, we overslept and didn't actually get out the door until like 8:30AM or something.

So we went to Dashengmen again and the guy in the metro uniform told us to line up, but we were the first ones there, so it was just us. And he told us that it's 70块 for the bus, even though I read online that it was only 12 (even cheaper with the Metro card) so it was really weird. The bus also took a while to even come and so we kept waiting. Then that same worker told us that we can always just carpool with others for, I think 100? Or something like that. That was getting super suspicious because why would a Metro worker suggest private carpools? Wtf. 

So I walked over across the street to where the police officer was sitting outside the parking lot and asked him so where exactly is the bus to the Great Wall (八达岭) and he pointed over into the parking lot. So turns out that where we were standing was a fake T_T;;;; So fucken sketchy how that even happens, that scammers openly have fake signs and bus right at the station and it's not regulated. Probably bribed off or something. I thought it was legit because the bus stop was there, but the thing with the bus number was STUCK onto the sign, so it wasn't a legit sign. The real bus stop actually had a lot of people waiting there and the bus was full and everything. Don't be almost fooled like us and make sure you get on the bus with the real sign and there will be a lot of people lining up. We got lucky because it was just the two of us, so we were able to catch the bus because other people had larger groups. Tbh, I actually suspected the police officer to be a fake too WTF. Oh yeah the Metro guy had a legit looking uniform too, so that's why it's hard to tell with people posing and all. 

It was really cold and windy that day. We bought out tickets, 17.50块 for admissions (I think there was a student discount on this one) and 100块 for sliding cars. I read that they were only supposed to be 60块 or something though, so I was a bit surprised they were 100块, because I think that's how much they charge cable cars, but it was too windy for those. 

It was a good, 10-15 minute walk from the bus stop to the sliding cars because you go through all these food/souvenir vendors.


The ride was like 5 minutes, and it's like sitting on a roller coaster, the part where it slowly goes up in preparation for a big drop except there's no big drop. I'd recommend it if you didn't want to hike like 2? hours to the main part of it. But it was also really cold, so I wouldn't have done it. Or if you're hardcore and want a better "feel" of the Great Wall then I'd hike it.

The Great Wall...was unimpressive. I think I was expecting like something amazing and wonderful, but then it's probably too overhyped for me. It was just kind of meh and honestly I didn't expect the whole thing to basically be steps so it was like hiking because every few minutes I was getting tired :(( It was also hard to get a decent photo because it's actually quite...spread out o_o That or I'm just a bad photographer. Wish I had nicer photos here though >< Feel like a normal person would...

We didn't stay for too long. Just enough to hike around for a bit, be super cold, and get tired. When we came, there wasn't that many people either. We didn't have an issue with taking the bus back. We then went to pick up our luggage and made our way to the train. We were kind of rushing there but we made it in the end :) Took the high speed train back to Shanghai (¥553).

Done with Beijing posts! So until next time :)

Beijing: Stumbling Upon the Forbidden City

November 29, 2014
Okay so after surviving that train ride, we took the train and bus to where we were staying. We booked a place on airbnb for $16/night + service charges. Quite cheap! It's just a private room and there was another guest staying next door but that's ok.

Breakfast. We go to Beijing to eat McDonald's and Wedone (pastries). We always end up traveling and eating KFC or McDonald's lolol.

So we were researching last minute things and then headed for The Great Wall. We took a cab to Deshengmen for the bus that takes us there. But when we got there it seemed like we missed the last bus even though this travel site I found said there were still supposed to be buses running..

So we decided to switch around our plans and tour around the city instead. The pollution was bad anyways (it looked foggy even at ground level) so hopefully the next day would clear up for the Great Wall. 

We took the train to Tiananmen to look around that, since that to me was the place you think of when you think of Beijing (the Mao portrait and all). 

At the midpoint, we saw this building that looked important because there were soldiers in front of it.
Me: Can we go inside? 
Him: No
Me: Uhh...so what is this place?
Him: -Chinese gibberish that I didn't understand-

Eh, I guess it doesn't sound as funny when I type it out >< Maybe I'm just not funny D: But Cory laughed at me for asking about it as if I knew what the place was, but really had no idea. Oh yeah, it's actually the 中南海 (Zhongnanhai) where the government officials are, apparently.

But there's an East and West to it so we ended up going West and planned to go down that way and make our way back East. Halfway through we got distracted and ended up at the Forbidden Palace at one of the odd entrances (usually an exit). 

I felt like.. "Oh, this is it...?" So we spent a good 10 minutes walking to the main entrance and still didn't see anything good about it! And the whole time I was wondering why it's such a big deal when it's just a giant square gated with palace-like doors. Not impressed at all. 

So we walked BACK to the middle of the square wondering what to do next. We saw that they were selling admission tickets for the Palace Museum. 

Me: Eh.. Well they have the Palace Museum, do you want to go to that?

Cory: I don't really care 

Me: Eh I'm not really into museums though

Cory: Me neither

Me: And its 40 kuai... ($6.50)

Cory: I don't really care what we do

Me: Ok, let's just go since we're already here

Bought the tickets and it was only 20 kuai because of the student discount (make sure to bring your student ID!)

When we walked into the Museum, we realized that this was the Forbidden City. There you have it, two idiots who couldn't find the Forbidden City and found it only because we felt obligated to go to a museum because we were already here. -applause- 

Photo courtesy of Cory

Garden place at the end of the Museum. The rocks remind me of 豫园 if you remember from [here]. 

Erm the palace itself was very pretty. I want to live in a palace that big :( but a house would probs be like one room of that place because it was huge. There was so many sections to this place! Like you go in and see the palace and surrounding rooms and then there's a back which turns out to be like the same thing, and there's more and more behind each section. It was really cold that day so we tried not to stay too long. I'm not sure how long we spent here but it felt like it was enough. 

We wanted food...so we tried to figure out a way to go back to the train station but the thing was far and I forgot how much the bus costs, I think maybe 10 RMB per person? Wait was it really 10? If yes we're such cheapos LOL. I swear it seemed higher though, but normal bus rides are only 1 kuai. And it wasn't that far away either (3km) so we decided to walk... Heh..

We ended up catching a different bus to the station. We wanted to hail a cab because it was starting to rain a lot (my poor Uggs...) but we weren't able to in the end because they were either all full or just not that many around grr.

So we navigated our way to Jing Yaa Tang (京雅堂) after trying so hard to find it. Damn you misleading maps!!! We ended up walking around many consulates looking for it, even having to ask these military guys for direction. When we got to the building, we were confused as to where it was and it turned out to be in the basement. 

It was still quite early so it was empty and we got away without a reservation. We ordered  烤鸭 because eating that is a must in Beijing imo, even though we just had it two days ago for the Thanksgiving dinner. 

A guy brings out the entire duck and cuts it in front of us. Cool, yeah? Except after the initial minute of excitement, we stopped paying attention. And we ended up with a small plate of 烤鸭 and wondered what happened to the rest of it while we weren't looking. 

You can see through the window thing that that's where they roast the ducks :0

烤鸭

Sticky rice stuffed chicken wings

Bullfrog

When we paid the bill, it turns out that the girl only put in an order for half a duck >:( while that saved us a bit, considering how expensive the duck ($30 for that dish, I think) was, I wanted my duck D: tbh it does taste pretty similar to the boxes that my mom buys except it's more expensive here and seems to be smaller portions it seems ^^;;;; I'm not sure if I preferred this one or Lao Beijing from the Thanksgiving dinner.

Address of Jing Yaa Tang if you're interested:

The Opposite House, 11 Sanlitun Lu Fl. B1, Chaoyang district, Beijing 100027

三里屯路11号朝阳区

We walked about the plaza next door but not like we can afford anything there cuz it's like high end stuff :( we walked toward the station after that and found a more...affordable shopping plaza, so we spent some time looking around there as well before finally going home for real. 

Beijing: Weird/Frustrating Train Ride

November 28-29, 2014

I went straight from work to the railway station to take an overnight (11 hrs 45 mins) train to Beijing. On the train, I encountered these Vietnamese students and their Chinese was so good :0 I thought they were locals x.x;;; And what sucks is that they've only been studying it for one year and it's way better than mine.

It was 553 yuan for a second class seat, which ended up just being a soft sleeper for three people to sit on. It was just my friend and I on it so we were able to sleep on it fortunately. 

Weird story to tell.... when we got into our compartment (compartments have two bunks, 4 beds in total) with the sleepers, there was a girl laying down on the top bunk. My friend and I each sat on the bottom bunks opposite of each other. Five minutes later, that girl comes down and decides to sit on the one corner of the bottom bunk I was sitting on (I was at the other corner). Which is so weird cuz she had the entire bed to herself up there, so why is she sitting on mine?!? Then a minute or two later, she decides to lay down while I was still sitting down WTF. With her feet/legs behind me cuz I was sitting near the edge. I don't understand why anyone would do such an awful thing. Being the baddie that I am, as soon as she sat up during the ticket check, I sat in so she wouldn't be able to lay back down. Hah, take that. But then a minute after, she went back up to her top bunk. Wtf woman.

Okay, so we switched compartments with those Vietnamese students because their friends were placed in ours. In the middle of the night at 5:30AM, the rando guys in the other seats started talking at normal volume and woke me up T__T They knew we were waking up too, but they kept talking anyways. I was debating hard whether to call them out for it or not cuz on one hand...if they're bored, then I can't do anything about it and it's technically still public space....they're just rude and inconsiderate. 

I eventually fell asleep, until they started talking loudly at 7:30AM. So I sat up for a bit and one of them was like, "Oh, we woke her up. -proceeds to talk loudly to his friends" wtf no shit you did. And he made another comment, but I wasn't really paying attention to it but then I heard his friend say, "She understands Chinese, you know." whaat. >:(

We finally got off around 8:40AM and it was so chilly in Beijing :(

Okay, I'll cut this post short because I feel like if I kept going, then the post will be too long. 

Pervert or Thief? Both? Neither?

Uh, so I was on the train today in Beijing and from what it seems, they're a lot more strict with their security check (scanning your bags), so they even made me take off my (small) cross body and drop it through the scanner. It's closes with a flap and a twisty lock, so obviously I made sure to close it tight before dropping it through to make sure that things don't fall out or something while scanning.

So once on the train... I had it just slung on my shoulder, but then I had this gut feeling to sling it across my body properly so that it would be in front of me rather than on the side where people can easily steal from me, even though I should do this all the times anyways though. AND THEN I FIND THAT SOMEONE UNLOCKED IT WTF. And there's only this relatively old man to my rightwho happens to have his hand down there. It's possible that I forgot to close it properly, but I find that unlikely when I have to go through security check and I didn't take anything in or out since it was only like two minutes ago! Luckily everything was still there.

Then came the feeling that someone was rubbing their knuckles on my ass or something, IN THE DIRECTION OF THAT MAN AGAIN >:( But idk maybe it's just my pants or something. At some point after I kept suspiciously looking down there, he put his hand up pole. Then I felt it again and it was just this girl's jacket that she was holding that kept hitting against me. Okay old man, I'll let you off. Then his hand went down again and I felt it again and I quickly looked down and he instantly shot his hand back onto the pole. WTF?! I didn't feel like I was being groped or anything, so I was never certain if I was even being touched or not, so I couldn't make a scene and ask what the fuck he was doing when I wasn't even sure or not.

T_T