Stories from my Sabbatical

Train to Beijing

The train from Ulaanbaatar to Beijing was the same train as the one from Ulan-Ude. The only difference was this time I shared my cabin with three other travellers, a german couple and a Singaporean girl, all around my age. It was nice to be able to share thr journey with them and exchange travel stories, especially during the five hour stop at the border (yes i said five hours!). The border crossing takes this long as the train guages in Russia and Mongolia are actually smaller than normal so thsi means that in order for the train to continue the route to china each individual carriage has to be taken into a warehouse, lifted up and had its wheels changed, and with a 16 carriage train this process takes a long time! All passangers have to exit the train and go through customs (which was very straightforward) and then wait in an airport-style lounge for he remaining four hours. This wait was especially annoying as it was between 9pm and 2am. When we finally got back on thr train we all went straight to sleep, waking up just before we reached Beijing. We then parted ways to find our individual hostels. I arrived at my hostel around 5pm so just had a shower and found somewhere to have dinner and called it a night.

Day 1

My first stop in Beijing was the Summer Palace Gardens in the outskirts of the city. This is where the Chinese royal family would spend their summers during the Qing Dynasty. As it was quite far away from the city centre I decided to take the metro. This is by far the best way to travel around Beijing, and thanks to the 2008 Olympics it is probably one of the easiest Metro systems i have ever used. I arrived at the Summer Palace at around 10am and spent the next three hours walking around the giant man made lake in the centre of the park. The side nearest the main entrance was packed with tourists (mostly Chinese), all taking pictures near the lake. As you walk further away from the entrance the crowds thin and the rest of the area is really peaceful. The walk on the far side of the lake was especially nice as it involved crossing seven bridges, some stone and some with small pavillion-type buildings on them. After crossing the bridges I walked through the "long corridor" which is a 728m long covered walkway. This was probably my favourite part of the park as each beam in the roof was painted with scenes depicting local legends, landscapes, buildings and animals. After the Summer Palace I headed to the south of the city to the Temple of Heaven, an imperial complex of Taoist religious buildings surrounded by a large park. The temple buildings were very impressive as the two main ones were circular, a contrast to the temples I have seen up to now. As with the Summer palace the main areas of interest were crowded with people, so I didn't spend too long around the temples themselves. Walking in the surrounding park was actually a much more memorable and peaceful experience as there were very few people around, and the ones I did see where doing tai chi or meditation. After the walking around the park for a few hours I headed back to the hostel for a much needed rest (30,000 steps people!).

Day 2

Last night I got into contact with a girl I had met on the train to Ulaanbaatar (Kate from Greece) who I knew was in Beijing at the same time. We decided to meet at the metro station in Tainanmen square and spend the day together. Due to there being four exits at the metro station we almost didn't find each other, but luckily I have eagle eyes and spotted her from a distance and flagged her down. Safely together we braved the crowds of the square. The square is the main tourist hub of the city as it includes the Mao Mausoleum and The Forbidden City, and so you have to go through passport checks before you can even entre the square. We decided to join the giant queue for the Mao mausoleum to see China's counterpart to Russia's Lenin (yes another embalmbed world leader). This was a very different experience to seeing Lenin as the queue was enormous! It went very quickly though as your are herded like sheep and only have a few minutes inside. An interesting experience to say the least. After the mausoleum we both decided we'd had enough of the crowds in the square and decided to escape to the north of the city to visit the 798 Art District (or what I call Beijing Hipster District). This area is full of art galleries, murals, sculptures, artisan gift shops, and numerous coffee shops (naturally). This area quickly became my favourite (probably of the trip so far) as it had a really cool atmosphere and just getting lost down all the side streets was great. We even found a vegan restaurant (if not in hipster central then where??) and i introduced my non vegan companion to mock meats (they taste the same guys!). After we ate we decided to call it a day as Kate had to work (online english tutor) and we were both pretty tired. We decided to meet again tomorrow night to explore some more.

Day 3

Today was the day I had been waiting for - visiting the Great Wall! I decided to avoid the tour offered by the hostel and make the journey myself so I could enjoy the wall at my own pace. The journey was very straightforward, a short metro journey to the bust station and then a local bus (where i was definitely the only foreigner) directly to the Badaling section of the wall. I left the hostel pretty early, around 6am an got to the wall at 8. The bus drops you near the ticket office and then its a case of following the signs for "Climbing the Wall". There is a cable car which can take you to Tower 8, the highest point on this section of the wall. Most people either get the cable car up or down, but I decided to walk the whole way. When you get on the wall you can either walk north or south. North is the most touristy and is where the cable cars go, and south is slightly quieter but you have to walk back along the wall to get down. I decided to go with the masses and head north. And boy were there masses. As the Badaling section is the most easily acessible from Beijing it is also the most popular to visit. I had read though that once you pass the eighth tower the crowds thin substantially. It took me about 40 minutes to hike to Tower 8, and during that hike (which is pretty damn hard, lots of stairs, and blazing sun) I was the only foreigner among a see of Chinese tourists. There must have been over a thousand people there (at least) and i was definitley a bit of a tourist attraction for them as well as the wall, with a few locals asking for a picture (it got annoying very quickly as i was pretty much drenched in sweat). I just kept thinking to myself "get to the eighth tower!". And as I had read the crowds all but dissapeared after tower 8, as the vast majority decide to take the cable car back down. I spent the next two hours hiking to tower 12. This section was so much more enjoyable as there were only a handful of people, and I was even able to get a picture with just myslef on the wall! I have to say though that it was much easier hiking up the wall than coming down as its pretty steep and the stones have been walked on so much they are pretty slipepry (thankfully this section had handrails - historic of course). Tower 12 was almost next to the car park, so after taking a last few pictures of the nearly empty wall, I headed down to catch the bus back to the city. Although I picked the busiest section of the wall I am actually glad that I got to experience both sides, the mass crowds, and the peacufulness. Not many westerners opt for this (i saw five other non-chinese tourists in the whole three hours).
After the wall i headed back to the city and got back around 1pm. As it was still pretty early i decided to visit the Forbidden City. This is the former imperial palace for the Ming and Qing dynasty (from 1420 to 1912) and is now home to the Palace Museum. Maybe it was because I had spent the morning on the Great Wall, but i found the museum to be slightly underwhelming. It is a huge complex of over 900 buildings, but after you have seen the first few they all start to merge into one as they are all built in the same style. It is definitely the most visited tourist site in Beijing itself, but I felt like its one of those places that you have to see because its the main tourust attraction, but wouldn't necessarily rush back to. Also it is absolutely packed with tourists! (definitely a recurring theme in China). After walking round the complex for a couple of hours i headed back to my hostel for a quick power nap before heading out again to meet Kate. We decided to visit the Olympic village that night as all the buildings are lit up and it is supposed to be a nice area to walk around. We met at the metro station (making sure to state which exit this time) and spent the hour or so walking up and down the promenade between the "Birds Nest Stadium" and the Olympic tower. The buildings themsellves were definitely impressive, illuminated in different colours, but the best sight was seeing all the different impromtu dance classes lining the promenade. It seems to be that if you can find an empty space in China you can organise your own dance class. This is mainly older ladies doing what I imagine to be a Chinese version of Zumba. However we did pass one very small group dancing to Blue's "One Love", talk about a blast from the past! After taking in all that the promenade had to offer we headed back to the metro and said our goodbyes as we had seperate plans for our last day in the city, though im sure we woudl run into each other again.

Day 4

I began my last day in the city by heading to the Yonghe Temple, also known as the Lama Temple. Each visitor is given a bunch of incense sticks and are encouraged to light them in the designated pits as an offering. I walked around the temple for about an hour, burning my incense and taking in the surroundings. The temple itself was very pretty, but possibly because of the crowds and the fact that i have now seen numerous Bhuddist temples i am afraid to say they are starting to lose their initial appeal. After the temple I walked around the neighbouring Hutongs (narrow streets), stopping at a canal to have lunch and watch a local woman practice balroom dancing (i think the Strictly professionals jobs are safe). I then headed to Behai park, another imperial park in the centre of the city. This one was much smaller than the Summer Palace so i only spent an hour walking around the lake. By this point I was pretty tired so headed back to the hostel for a shower and rest. I saw that they were having a dumplin making class that evening, so after i showered i headed down and got involved. Only a handful of guests turned up so we ended up making more dumplings than we could eat, but had fun doing it (i was definitely the best :P). After we had the dumplings (not bad if i do say so myself) the bar staff put on the karaoke machine and more guests turned up. Cue some very drunk American guys butchering The Beatles and Oasis to name a few. I did a rendition of Taylor Swift's "Shake it Off" with the help of one drunk American as my backing singer. It was definitely a fun way to end my stay in Beijing.

So there you have my first stop in China. Next stop Qufu for the oldest Confucius Temple in the world.

Zài jiàn!Read more