My trip to China: kicked ass all the way from Beijing to Shanghai

(NB: A good deal of my trip was spent eating, in fact you could say my trip was a "culinary experience", so a lot of this blog will deal with the super dank, super delicious food I ate in China.)

After checking into our hostel in Beijing (Saga International Youth Hostel, which was super clean and cheap) we went out to grab some beers and stopped in at a restaurant that looked pretty hoppin. Thanks to Dave's kanji skills we had a bit of insight into the menu. However, in the end we ordered something that I'm almost positive was fried, gristly dog (although it was actually quite healthy, as it was most likely one of the organic, free ranging dogs of Beijing, you know, one of the numerous mutts we saw scrounging around eating crap and trash on the side of the road). Anyways, I ate a couple of bites and focused on the beer.



On our first morning in Beijing we discovered the Pancake Man, who quickly became our hero. We were strolling along, hoping we'd find some deliciousness to partake in on the way to Tiananmen Square. At first we passed lots of people eating fried bread, which looked pretty good, and soon enough we found a woman dropping strips of dough into a wok of bubbling oil on the side of the road. We each got a piece for 1-yuan (8yuan = 1US$, but we prefered calling yuan "Maos," because he's on every bill).




Apparently these fried bread sticks are incredibly popular, as we passed carts like this all the time. But they were pretty plain, and basically like a palpable stint in an artery, so we only got them this once.

But still feeling hungry we kept our eyes open and, sure enough, we stumbled across one of the yummiest things in the world: The Chinese Pancake. The Pancake Man (who surprised us daily by dropping a new English word) greased his circular grill and then poured some batter on to it, which he proceeded to smooth out using a small squeegee. Then he cracked an egg and spread the egg yolk over the batter. He added some green onion, then flipped the omlette-pancake-thing over. Next he spread two different sauces and some chili on. Last, he put some large sheet of fried stuff (possibly a big pork rind?) in the middle and then folded the pancake around it. And it was all ours for 2-Maos.




Not knowing what "odessey of taste sensation" awaited us, we only got one pancake, which we quickly regretted. Never fear, we thought, we'll be back tomorrow.
With full bellies we walked all the way to Tiananmen Square, which turned out to be about a 2 hour hike, but we were perfectly happy to check things out as we walked along.
Bikes are a main form of transportation, and it's definitely bike at your own risk. However, throughout most of the city there are large bike lanes, and even specific traffic lights for bicyclers.

With the weather being as nice as it was (a sunny, crisp 60 degrees most days) it's understandable that he'd want his haircut outside. As in other less developed Asian countries, many things in China take place outdoors: gossiping, playing checkers, cooking, shaving, doing laundry, etc.

Shortly after we got to the Tiananmen/Mao's Mausoleum/Forbidden City area we encountered our first Beijing Art Student. We would come across at least 10 more, the wily buggers were even in Shanghai. Although it's possible that Beijing Art Students make art, they are, first and foremost, panhandlers. These art students were so deceiving with their friendly, seemignly guileless approach, "Hello friend! Where are you from?"
With the first "student" we were initially surprised to be addressed by someone with such fine English. As we were in no hurry, we stopped to chat, and the lass seemed nice enough and was giving us good information. She warned us that yes, the line to see Mao's grey, bloated body was as long as it looked, and that we'd probably have to wait at least an hour in line. We feigned regret, as seeing a pickled dictator was not high on our list of things to do. She told us about her art program and English studies, and casually mentioned that her art school was having an exhibit at the National Museum and it was the last day of the exhibit. She continued by saying she could get us in for free, and it would only take a couple of minutes to look at the show. Unaware of the scam that awaited us, we agreed to have a look at her work and hear more about classical Chinese art and calligraphy. Well, instead of the National Museum she took us to a shop on the side of the museum. She showed us some okay stuff, mostly traditional depictions of the four seasons. However, as we were not the only foreigners being given this "tour" I began to think it was a little suspect. In the end she tried to get us to buy some things, but she didn't get upset when we didn't. She even let us keep the example calligraphy she made for us.



From then on out we learned to walk quickly in the other direction whenever we met someone that told us he was a Beijing art student with one day left of his show.

Walking around Tiananmen Square was really peaceful, which seemed so strange to me. Here in this place, on which so much innocent blood had been shed, tons of young children and their parents were laughing and flying kites. I came expected to be reminded of brutalities, but instead I was struck by how damn cute Asian kids are. It's disconcerting how easily history can be erased...(the Japanese just delete all the bad parts from their history textbooks)






Next we went to the Forbidden City, or Palace Museum, where the Emperor and his concubines (up to 27 at a time!) lived. (I gleaned this tidbit of info from the Roger Moore Audio Guide, about as sexy as an audio guide can get. Roger.)



Because the complex is called the "Forbidden City" I was sort of expecting everyone inside to be serious...afraid of letting out a "forbidden" fart or of talking in a "forbidden" voice. However, the atmosphere was light and touristy; there were even soldiers playing basketball.



But, as with the rest of China, there was still a very strong military presence.



Unfortunately, because of the upcoming Olympics (2008) a lot of the buildings were under construction. (This is the case all over Beijing. Tons of construction/renovation going on everywhere. It was interesting to see a city so intensely gearing up to host the Olympics, but is was also frustrating because some of the tourist attractions, like the Temple of Heaven, were closed for renovations, and even those that weren't often had a carapace of bamboo scaffolding.) However, there were still some nice views.





And while touring the massive complex I did the unthinkable; I got a Forbidden Vanilla Latte at the Forbidden Starbucks.

Nothing is sacred. But I have to admit, I did enjoy my drink more because it was Forbidden.

After the Forbidden City we got picked up by two Chinese "university students". They seemed super nice and their English was really good, and so when they asked if they could walk around with us we thought, Sure, why not? They suggested we go to the old section of Beijing so they could show us around. We did and they were full of questions and information; it was like having a free, private city tour. Then they suggested we go for tea and do the traditional tea ceremony. We were really hungry, and really wanted to eat, but they pushed and so we acquiesced. But as we were entering the tea house I remembered a friend of mine told me about a scam that had been pulled on her in Beijing, and what was happening to us was starting to seem really similar. I warned Dave that we needed to keep it short and check out all the prices, and it's a good thing we did. Basically what happened to my friend, and what would have happened to us was this: get picked up by really friendly Chinese people who show you around, and seem just genuinely nice, not looking to make money. They casually suggest showing you traditional Chinese tea ceremony, and you agree because you think, How cool! This is such a great opportunity! Experiencing tea ceremony with a Chinese person that actually knows what's up! Then you go and try all kinds of tea and an hour or so later they hit you up with a $150 tab: there's a room charge, service charge, host charge, and you are charged for each thimbleful of tea you drank. So in the end we said we were really hungry and didn't have any money, and we were able to walk out after having tasted only 2 teas for a reasonable price (and it was cool, our host was sweet and showed us how to drink tea properly, and taught how to rub our temples with the outside of an empty, heated tea glass, etc.).
One of the unfortunate things about China (and this happened in Vietnam too) is that you meet these people that seem really great, and you want to be nice to them, but usually they are just trying to get money from you in some way. And then you find yourself in a dilemma: you don't want to be mean to friendly locals, but at the same time you don't want to waste your time and get scammed. In the end I've learned to go along with these people for varying amounts of time--sometimes they really are more interested in talking than earning money off you, and in that case you can stop and have a nice chat; in other cases, people are just looking to scam you, and those you tell to bugger off. You learn how to tell the difference and deal with them accordingly.
After tea we meandered down some of the old hutong (old back alleyways of Beijing), which are all but destroyed. Less than a quarter of these vibrant, charming streets remain. They are being torn down to make room for malls and McDonalds.









Along all these old streets you could see boarded up shops marked with the kanji for "tear-down/condemned".




But if you can get to China before the hutong are gone, they are where you should spend your time. In both Beijing and Shanghai we had the most fun cruising the back alleys, stopping in for food and beers at whichever local dive was the most crowded, sampling the numerous fried things sold on the side of the road (pizza bread, vegetable pancakes, doughnuts, fried bread, fried rice, pineapple (ok, that wasn't fried, which is why we never got it)...

The next day we took a two hour bus to see the Great Wall. Again, only about a third of the original wall is still standing. From Beijing you can see 4 different sections, which range in how touristy they are and how easy they are to climb (apparently one of these sections is so dilapidated you have to crawl on all fours at various points). We went to see the Mutianyu section, and I don't know if it was just the time of year that we went, but there really weren't many tourists, which was nice. Once we were dropped off we had 4 hours to explore the wall. There is a cable car up to the top section, or you can do what we did, and hike up it for about 2 hours,








until it literally dissolves.



Once at the top we rested and took in the view. Some historical sites are more moving than others; for me, the Great Wall was really alive, and I could get a visceral sense of the history. This was truly one of the most remarkable things I've seen, and well worth a trip to Beijing to checkout.
We briefly considered walking back down, but why walk when you can toboggan down the Great Wall?! So yes, for 40-Maos you can jump in a toboggan and ride down a super windy metal slide. Awesome.



That night we prowled around for food at the night markets. These are pictures of things we did NOT eat, although very tempted.






The next day we nixed our plans to see the Temple of Heaven, as it was closed for renovations. Instead we thought we'd try to get to the Summer Palace, but as it was way too far of a hike by foot, we wound up at the zoo instead. This was fine by me as I couldn't allow myself to leave China without seeing some pandas in their natural habitat.
Unfortunately, the Beijing zoo was a depressing, unkempt holding pen for animals. The pandas, while cute perforce, were rather dingy. Several were trapped inside, and one was desperately trying to get out. However, we were mesmerized by the one panda who wasn't sleeping, but was rather busy stuffing his face with bamboo. As one would imagine, the panda was quite adept at eating bamboo, but he had a rather curious way of doing it. He would strip the leaves off the stalk with his mouth, but he wouldn't eat them until he had gathered enough leaves in the corner of his mouth to make a large bamboo bunch. Later, he moved from eating the leaves to eating the outside of the stalk, which he stripped from the rest of the stalk with his mouth most expertly. Fascinating.




Our last day in Beijing we rented bikes, which in retrospect, was something we wished we had done everyday. One of the great things about traveling with Dave is that he has built in GPS, so I was able to tool around the city with him all day never fearing of getting lost. Had I been on my own, I would have had a map glued to my hand and never strayed from the main streets, and still I would have inevitably gotten hopelessly lost anyways. But throughout the whole trip I could count on Dave to get us where we were going, and we were free to take as many back alleys and deviations from the main roads as we wanted.
We rode for over 2 hours to the Summer Palace, but the riding was super easy because Beijing is totally flat.
But this too was under construction, so the views weren't spectacular.










That night we took an overnight train to Shanghai, which was cheap and really convenient. We boarded at 7pm, had some dinner and beers, went to bed at 10 and were in Shanghai by 7am.
After checking into the Wu Gong Hotel, we took our first day in Shanghai easy, as we had been going non-stop in Beijing. Mostly we just ate, drank and strolled around the Bund, which is probably the most famous tourist spot in Shanghai, and understandably so, as the views along the strip were unbeatable.







Shanghai at night is something that has to be seen to be believed. It truly is a City of the Future, rivaling Odaiba, Shibuya and Shijuku in Tokyo.









The next 2 days we mostly just wandered around and took in the sights.


Man laquering a table


White cat and toilet paper


Laundry drying on billboards and light posts


Gentleman's break


Peeking duck...I see you!


Goldfish kites


Sidewalk seafood


Octopus


Back alley, Old Town


Power Cords


Street Majong


One night we crossed the river to have drinks on the top floor (88th) of Shanghai's tallest building, Jin Mao. And on our last day we paid about $4 apiece to have our hair washed, which was over an hour long ordeal including a head, shoulder and arm massage and a thorough blow dry and style. If only we had gotten one everyday.

If I had to pick which city I liked better, I guess I would say Beijing, but that's probably because Shanghai was not so different from Tokyo. Since I've spent a lot of time in Tokyo, I think Beijing was more appealing to me because it was an immense city, yet so differnt from any other big city I have been to. I felt that there were more "attractions" in Beijing, so each day we had something to do and see. However, I can easily see how someone might prefer Shanghai; I guess it just depends what you want to see and do. If you want more of a cultural/historical perspecitive go to Beijing, but if you want to see the China of The Future, go to Shanghai.

Notes: The pollution is intense to say the least. A friend told me that China in the summer is horrendous because of the heat and grime, and I can understand that. So if you go, I think fall or spring is probably the best, because by no means rarefied, at least the air is breatheable...though our second night I did have a fume induced nightmare that our hostel was full of gas and about to explode, and then I awoke and could not get the smell of gas fumes out of my nose for the rest of the night. Anyways, avoid the hot season.
Spitting is a national pasttime/sport. Actually, it's not just spitting, but hawking. I'm talking major hawking. Forget the Luge, in the Olympics the Chinese would kick everyone's ass at the Looge Hawk. You literally can't walk 20 feet without someone hawking a loogie. And they really get into it; it's a very gutteral, concentrated hawk, that truly sounds like they are going to produce a live farm animal from their throat.
Take a taxi! Taxis are super cheap and Dave and I wasted a lot of time trying to find places on foot or taking the subway. Usually we didn't mind this, and actually preferred it, but the couple of times we were trying to get to a particular place by a particular time we would have been much better off taking a cab. But have the number of the place you want to go to so that the cabbie can call and ask for directions.
My trip to China was awesome. As China is soon to rule the world, I highly recommend a trip there. It's an extremely interesting place, the food was awesome (though awesomely unhealty) and cheap! When you think about it, when you travel to places like China, Thailand and Vietnam, the high plane fare is more than off-set by the cheap accomodation and food.