Beijing a!

The final stop before returning back to Shanghai was China's capital - Beijing. We spent there almost four days exploring temples, parks, perks and surrounding sights. Although originally we planed to stay only for three days (including visit to Great Wall) we spent additional day due to Labor day (May 1st) holiday. This bank holiday is widely celebrated by what we in Europe used to called 'migration period' or better 'migration of nations'. In China it merely means that families go for a prolonged weekend out of town to some nearby destination (National Day and Chinese New Year week long vacations have no oral equivalent). Below you can find what else did we experienced in Beijing.

I have to admit I was positively surprised by current state of affairs in Beijing. I went in expecting nothing more than grey sky, dirty streets and huge amount of cars and people. For the whole length of our stay we enjoyed exquisite weather (overlooking occasional rain-showers on one of the afternoons) which in combination with repaired and well maintained historical sights totally changed my perception. Of course, locals and those who visited Beijing prior to 2008, vehemently attribute everything positive to changes brought by Olympics. From pothole-free highways, green parks and blue sky (admittedly due to trees planted inside and outside of the city as protection from dust-storms incoming from Inner Mongolia and Russia) to non-spitting and in-line-waiting citizens, everything is due to Olympics. If that is true and Olympic games were really the main driver of improved livability of Beijing, I suggest to held Olympics every two years just to to improve cities around the world (with Chinese city hosting every third Games).

Of course, first morning after our arrival we dedicated to the visit of Mao's Mausoleum (what else?) were we joined groups of Chinese pilgrims paying tribute to something / somebody (you never known whether it is really the great helmsman or his wax figurine). Impressed and with our belly full of traditional Chinese breakfast we continued to explore beauties of Tian'an men and Forbidden city. Both sights impressive in their size are equivalent of European Louvre - jewel of the capital, huge but full of people anyway, worth every penny you pay for your ticket, and displaying the most famous and visited thing (I think I just compared Mona Lisa to Mao) :D

Next day we spent visited Badaling section of Great Wall. It is not only the most visited one (visited by the heads of states as well as peasants from rural China), but also the most preserved one. Still one hour / 70km drive by public bus (number 919 from Jishuitan metro station bus depot) it offers wonderful scenery of wall sneaking along the ridges and across valleys. Altogether you can spend up to four hours walking on the top of the repaired wall (including traffic jams of picture crazy tourists) with sharp ascends and descends. Repaired wall, being substantially wider than crumbling sections just beyond accessible area, is running near its capacity (especially on sunny days). The difference between visitors' section and the one where you are not supposed to go is so striking (twice as wide and high) that you start thinking whether in order to accommodate tourists inflow a face lift was not in fact upgrade. Although we did not enjoy coveted 1on1 moments with Great Wall, it belongs to the highlights of our journey.

After return to the city center (technically we never left city premises) we wandered between temples and snack street of Beijing. Main Confucian temple held waste collection of historical stelas which were mostly erected in commemoration of some bloody emperor's victory over domestic uprising or foreign intrusion. Remaining stelas were in fact government examination results (imagine people after thousand years reading about employment interview of some of our government officials - bleh). Tibetan temple offered us glimpse of Tibetan style Buddhism and customs. After deliciously fat certificated Beijing duck with pancakes and soy sauce (although rather expensive) we enjoyed scorpions, beetles, squids and some kind of little bird as a desert. During my stay in China I tried to explore local cuisine to the utmost corners in order to find my taste buds limit. I can happily report that I have found one. Although I can eat scorpions, squids or anything else what swims or lives in the sea, I could not force my self to swallow huge maggots of some bug or head of some bird. Luckily my brother is of harder material and he finished everything.

Last day we dedicated to visits of old and new summer palaces. To the old one we got unknowingly searching for the new one. Distance of 4km is symbolic as both palaces and gardens cannot be more different. New summer palace is magnificient with preserved buildings from 19th century (heavily repaired / rebuilt Chinese way) and at least million of tourists. Walking around city and Ming dynasty wall (what is left of it) I was happy to board the train to Shanghai as amount of people and sheer fact that 500 hundred years walls were totally demolished in 1950's in order to make room for highway, started to cloud my judgement. All in all I have to admit that Beijing is today wonderfully liveable city and I only hope that Shanghai will be changed so much by the upcoming Expo.