See What Tim Is Doing: A whole new world…Beijing (July 18-22)

From the beautiful streets and clean air of Russia, to the humid heat and smoggy skies of China, it was like entering a whole new world. I arrived late at night and as soon as I stepped foot outside I was hit with a whole new level of humidity. 1130pm and temperature would still have been in the high 20’s, although if I didn’t have a watch, I could’ve easily thought it was a lot earlier then that, as the city lights reflecting off the hazy smog of Beijing illuminated the sky like it was early afternoon.

Easily enough I located a cab, gave him the address and we were on the way. Hitting speeds in excess of 120km/h and swerving in and out of traffic like Colin Mackray, I wasn’t actually sure if I was going to make it there in one piece, but the taxi ride was the least of my worries.

We arrived at my street and it was dark, unlit and looked like a Chinese ghetto, so of course I got out of the cab and wandering in hoping eventually I would be greeted with my hostel, but no. I walked through the street and made it through safe, although one chicken was stalking me, and I came to a fork in the road, hooked a right and hoped for the best. Walked down and saw the HI Hostel light and relief flooded my body. Happy and relieved I go in and check in, except I wasn’t actually booked at this hostel. I rummaged through my paperwork and found my reservation, and of course they were right, I didn’t have a reservation there and in fact my hostel was just up the road another 100m. So up I go to my hostel, am greeted by super friendly staff (even though its about 1am now) taken to my room and shown my bed. So I dumped my bag and went and had a beer in the bar, felt like I deserved it.

Day two and ready to explore Beijing. My first idea was head to the camera market and check out some new camera lenses. I did my research, jotted it on a map and got on the subway. Getting to the station proved no problem, but finding the camera market was not so easy, I walk in one direction for about 25 minutes which I was sure was the right way, but couldn’t find the market. So backtracked and tried the other way, not there either, so hour or so wasted and I was back to where I started. So went back to hostel, checked again and was actually about 200m from where I walked the first time. So I repeated the process and walked another 200m and found the market. Hundreds of camera shops, hundreds of lenses, camera, tripods, bags and everything camera related, I was overwhelmed. Had a look around, jotted some models down to do some background research on them (as no one spoke a word of English so asking about the lens was out of the question) and decided to leave before I bought something that I probably didn’t need.

It was only about 3pm by the time I was finished and I knew Beijing had a lot to do so I decided to leave the research till later tonight and I stayed out and explored and went to the Silk Markets which was insane. Busy, colourful and just epic! Everything form rip off clothing and sunglasses, bags and wallets, pearls, souvenirs, junk and food. It was fun just wandering around looking at how amazingly close the knock offs are to the real thing. I only brought some sungless, a near perfect pair of rip off Ray Bans for about £3, which I have already lost. The night I just chilled in the bar, learnt how to make dumplings and met a cool American guy, Christian, I had a few beers with.

The next day was tourist day and Christian joined me. We headed off first to Summer Palace, which was just insane. It was like a paradise escape in the heart of a bustling city. The area itself if huge with a giant lake in the middle, loads of amazing buildings and just a beautiful place. Probably the highlight of Beijing.

Next on the list was The Forbidden City, for almost five hundred years, it served as the home of emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government. The city was huge (720,000 m²) and just seemed to keep going. It was only opened to the public in 1925 and the thousands of years before that, if a 'commoner' tried to walk the grounds of the city without the Emperor's permission, they were killed, a slow and painful death. Bit over the top I thought. Not as nice as Summer Palace but it was still amazing and to think how many years ago it was built, it truly was mind-boggling! Something else that was mind-boggling about The Forbidden City was the amount of tourists, and 95% were Chinese. I have never seen so many people in one area. It was bedlam! And I got my first taste of Chinese paparazzi, with several people taking photos of me. Two school girls came up to me and asked if they could have their photos with me, which was weird but I got in there and threw the peace sign up with them and it seemed to make their day. She also asked if she could touch my hair which was odd, but then again a lot of things in China are odd.

Directly across the road was Tiananmen Square which was cool but to me it was just a big square with some cool little gardens in there and loads of tourists. When they do the marches and celebrations there I think it would be amazing though.

That night was mellow, had a few beers and went and ate some amazing duck, then retired to bed, ready for a big day at the Great Wall of China the next day.

730am start was not good. I hadn’t slept in till after 8 for a long time, so each day was getting harder and harder. The bus to the wall was about an hour and a half, and was not the most comfortable of buses, but we made it there. Except there was one scare along the way when the bus just stopped and wouldn’t start again for five minutes, and everyone was thinking the same thing…shit. But it started again and eventually we were there.

A chairlift took us up to the top and placed us right onto the wall, and it was unreal. I have seen it in pictures and on tv, but seeing it in real life was just next level. It was like a snake that just winded through the mountains as far as the eye could see. I don’t know how to explain it in words, but it was just mind blowing and to think how many years ago this was made, and how long it took to make, and that it was made in the days before cranes, machines and trucks. The section we went to had 23 watch towers, some which you could climb for even higher views of the walls, and 3kms one way and 1km the other way off accessible wall to explore. The 1km section was like climbing a mountain, it was so steep and some of the steps were about 2ft high, but once at the top of that it was pretty cool (although by the time I got to the top I was drenched in sweat) The other 3km had loads more watch towers and at the end towers, provided a pretty amazing view of the wall. Only downside of the day was it was really hazy and the photos didn’t turn out too good. Oh and also the way down wasn’t the chairlift, but a bobsled track which was amazing, except the Chinese are as bad on a bobsled as they are on the road. (Sorry to any of my Asian friends)

I met a group of Irish travellers on the wall trip and that night we decided to check out the Dong Hua Men Night markets which are known for selling all kinds of weird food, especially insects. Scorpions, spiders, roaches, grasshoppers’ just to name a few, and other odd meats such as snake, shark and some sort of very small dinosaur looking bird. We strolled through the markets seeing what we could possible stomach, so we went for some shark and some snake. Both were really easy to keep down, one tasted like fish fingers and the other just like a tough piece of meat. So we stepped it up a bit and got some seahorse, which we felt bad for doing as sea horse are so cute, but we ate them anyways. Then next one the menu we thought need to get something a bit more extreme, so we picked a skewer of scorpions and thought ok we’ll get these and that’ll be it. We picked our skewer (one that we made sure they were dead as half of them were still moving on the skewers) and the guy fried it up and we munched in, and it was actually ok, just tasted like a piece of little pork crackle. So we ticked a few of the weird foods of the to do list.

Next destination, Xi’an for a couple of days, a 15 hour bus ride away…lets see how that goes!

Things learnt in Beijing

• They eat weird foods

• Chinese people believe that if they want to cool down, they don’t need to take their shirts off, they

just expose their stomach and as long as their stomach and their head are exposed then they will

cool down.

• They spit everywhere and its accepted and normal

• They love getting photos with people with blonde hair, really white skin or attractive olive

skinned girls.

• The Great Wall is truly amazing

• Street meat is a tasty treat