The grandeur of Beijing (Tuesday, 1.9)

After arriving to Beijing main railway station (31.8) we got a taste of the incredible amount of Beijingers going on about their business around the city. The first task was to find someone, who could sell us train tickets on an ultra-comfortable sleeper train to Shanghai on 3.9. In front of the station there were these window openings saying "domestic" so this had to be it. The guy behind the glass did not speak English, but understood our well-crafted paper, which stated the day, the train, the time and the price. Unfortunately, the last one did not match to our favor: the price was about 20 euros more expensive per person than expected. I do not know if there was some westerner-extra or if the guy just took it to his own pockets. The guy just kept on insisting more 100 yuan bills, until he got what he wanted. The tickets seem to be to the correct train on a correct date, so it ended well, although we could have chosen a bit less expensive alternative. But it's nice for once sleep in something that is luxurious.

Owning a few maps and a textual description on how to get to our hostel (Leo hostel, near Tiananmen square) we decided to take the metro, just to be adventurous and cheapskates. Soon it became clear that there was no adventure for us. Moscow at least had cyrillic letters. Here everything was ultramodern, and everything was in English including all the Engrish warning signs and announcements of the metro stations. So it was quite easy to find the correct destination. This I would use frequently, definitely. Finally we found our hostel from this Hutong-street (kind of street with lots of little boutiques and grills, wires hanging everywhere and construction sites, rubble, dirt and dust everywhere with all kinds of vehicles trying to drive over you :). But actually the neighbourhood was quite friendly and apart from everybody watching this tall westerner, everything went fine. Eventually we found our hostel. It is a blast: bathroom, water, showers, WLAN, free computer for Internet (with bypass to access Facebook, which otherwise will not work in China [nor does e.g. Youtube]), souvenirs, maps, laundry service (10 yuan/kg), telephone service (with which Silja found out from our student dormitories in Tsinghua that we could stay in Shanghai/Hangzhou until 15. September) and a bar, which I haven't still visited, but a lot of bass and laughter seems to be coming from that direction every night until about 2 A.M. There's even a snooker table here, christ almighty! We live in this 12 bed dorm, in which we have our own lockers, in which still there is an electrical plug, where 220 V can be pumped to various devices during the nights. Air-conditioning also seems to work perfectly. I had one problem when we first arrived, because my camera's lense was stuck in wrong position and would not shut completely for a reboot-style of action. I then yanked the lense around for it to go to the correct position while at the same time turning the camera on and off for it to "realize" that now it is in the correct position. Fortunately, after an hour of trying, I got it working somehow, don't know how.

When we were still in the Transmongolian express, we exchanged phone numbers with Heike to reach each other in Beijing. Using this and after a few text messages and a very loooooong shower, me, Silja, Doro and Heike decided to go marvel the Donghuamen Lu night food market street. What a street it was! Full of people, hypnotic lights and a row of salesperson behind a grill trying to sell all you could imagine. Few examples would have to include roast starfish, centipedes or a goat's penis. Those we skipped as it was only our first night. Some mercy for us shalt be given, eh? Anyways, we went to a restaurant that we thought had pretty nice prices but the place was incredibly fancy nevertheless. The waitress had a hands-free in his ear and could this way order our meals immediately after we had decided our course. We thought the prices to be so low and the portion-size to be something to leave hoping for, so we ordered two portions for each eater. And how sadly we were mistaken: the portions were massive, and the waitresses just kept on bringing the food more and more. They probably thought having heard our order that we must be either crazy, starved to death or just plain stupid westerners. Well, that we were. At least 30 % of our otherwise so delightful buffet was left "for the dogs". Well, at least now we know.. It was so nice to notice that the soybean- and tofu-based food were totally eatable and tasty, and actually Heike's mushroom-plate was super, because of its sweet combination of seasoning. Doro's I-don't-know-what-maybe-soybean had a similar crunch to them as the Chinese blackfungus, which you can also find from the Chinese restaurants in Finland. My chicken had lots of bones, so I was a bit disappointed in that. The spices were still used were well and my tofu was tasteful. Silja's tofu hunks were also good, although I craved for more taste to them. Silja also ordered a pumpkin filled with spicy beef. It was well spiced-up and the meat was apart from few leathery parts very good also.

Áfter the splurging in this fine restaurant we went on about to Wangfujing street, which one of the famous shopping streets in Beijing. Lots and lots of everything one could desire (for shopping needs). We took a side-alley with lots of stores selling all kinds of eatables and souvenirs, and finally ended up to our hostels.

Today, we woke up at around 11 A.M. We decided to grab something to eat before heading off to the Temple of Heaven (park). We ended up to a local restaurant with very reasonable prices (about the same as a student in Finland would pay for his meal, 2.6 euros). I took a combination of tofu and some weird tree-mushroom while Silja tried pork with onions. Both were so tasty that I hardly could believe it. For that prize something as good! Okay, the waiter-guy did little overdo the bill (probably the price for these kinds of faces) but I managed to correct some part of it by saying Tai gui le (too expensive).

The Temple of Heaven park was quite big, and somehow feet started getting heavy from the very beginning. We walked the whole way there (and actually back) although there were lots of offers to hop on board a riksha or one of those motorized 1 sqm. motorized cabin mopeds. Lots of traffic and taxis on the main roads, and one would have to keep eyes open to know when to cross over the roads or when to watch out for scooters and whatnots on the biking lane (yes, they have those pathways also, it's something we miss in Finland). One thing that is immediately noticeable is the cleanliness of the streets in Beijing. There must be an awful lot of cleaners or then the Chinese know better not to litter. I guess the first option. There are trash cans here and there for non-recyclable and recyclable garbage. OK, so I guess I'll put everything else than plastic to the recyclables? Okay, the Temple of Heaven park. To visit all the places it was alltogether five euros each. Not much for all that is to be seen there. Lots of trees of varying kind and well-taken-care-of grass to start with. The whole area had the theme of the emperor coming from the Forbidden City to these temples and performing this rite, which involved all kinds of clothes, music, prayers and sacrificing for the gods of heaven (tian) for better crops. Beautiful Chinese architect was present everywhere, particularly in these circularly-shaped temples, which had just been renovated. Another interesting place in the park was this exhibition, in which all kinds of Chinese instruments and theory about the music and tones were introduced. There was this funny old man playing some Chinese instrument, and when he saw us he started playing (for us probably) all kinds of western-recognizable songs. Another noticeable thing was that all the old people were playing cards in the park and all non-immobilized persons (under 70?) were playing this footbag with a badmintonish shuttlecock. All in all, we spent in the park maybe four hours total.

Having rested a while and leaving the place amongst the last, we decided to get back to the hostel, for the first time on this trip very early. Just to write blogs and surf the Internet. Internet I use by tunneling to a Helsinki University of Technology proxy server thus guaranteeing my access to the forbidden sites of the Chinese "great firewall". Walking back to our hostel we missed the road I guess, so we went off to the Hutong's, and it was beginning to be quite dark. It was actually quite fun and the people were very friendly. We bought some fruits and drinks, and from an Islam (Urumq) grill a grilled meat stick. Meanwhile, we bumped to Heike and Doro, exchanged our hellos and hows and farewelled them maybe for the last time in Beijing.