We had some sleep, so were reasonably alert when we landed in glorious sunshine at 5:25am. It’s a huge airport – we taxied for what seemed like 15 minutes and arrived into a superbly designed terminal building – truly the most beautiful such structure I have seen. I was deserted. At immigration we were annoyed to discover that cabin crew had not distributed immigration cards, so we had to queue twice. Lesson learned – we took spares to use on our return journey. After a shuttle ride to another terminal we collected our baggage within minutes and walked out to be greeted almost immediately by our tour guide Jeff. We were away within minutes and arrived at our hotel two hours after landing. On the way to the hotel he had given us an impromptu Chinese lesson – hello, thank you, toilet, beer, all accompanied by a lot of laughter and touching. He knew all about us by the time we got there.
Beijing traffic is bad, explained Jeff, but seeing as it was Sunday, it was actually good. Weekdays the city is gridlocked. Due to our early arrival we had to wait one and a quarter hours for a room to be vacated and cleaned, In the interim Jeff engaged us in a steady stream of conversation. His English was very good. 29 years old and about to be married in two weeks time, to a woman he has known for 12 years.
The hotel turned out slightly better than our expectations, but with the usual annoyances – e.g. no towel hooks, not enough hanger, dim globes. This was a free day and we had gotten Jeff’s recommendations for a few tour-complementing things we could do – Tiananmen Square, the Lama temple, Bei Hai park. He also pointed out on the map where could eat.
After a shower and brief rest we headed off toward Tiananmen but immediately got lost Some other tourists pointed us in the right direction. Maybe the coriolis effect was affecting my sense of direction or map-reading skills, because we would up in the forbidden city, not Tiananmen.
We encountered zillions of people trying to get in there. Once I discovered this error, our challenge was to cross the huge thoroughfare separating Tiananmen and the Forbidden City. It took some time to discover that this only possible by using underpasses situated at each intersection.
Once on the right side of the road we saw an open area, but I am not convinced it was what we were looking for, so we headed for the Orient Mall that Jeff had recommended to have lunch and a coffee. After a quick freshen-up at the hotel we hit the public transit system by going to the station near Tiananmen. Those with backpacks (me) have to put them through an Xray machine. We were determined to master the ticket machines and that was pretty easy with a good touch-screen UI in English. It asked us to choose our destination but this is redundant because the price is the same wherever you go. People pressure forced this apparently. Each journey costs 2 yuan, so 8 yuan for the round trip = $1.16 – dirt cheap. The hardest part was determining which direction to go, but this was eventually discovered from very clear signs on support pillars. Both routes were loops, so it didn’t really matter except for time. On one route the cars were packed, and I mean packed. Sitting down? In your dreams.
Our journey took us to the Lama Temple – a shrine with many prayer halls, each with a Buddha inside, One was enormous - ~25 m tall, apparently carved from a single sandalwood tree. A Guiness Book of Records plaque outside says so. The halls were had beautifully painted and sculpted ceilings, all with devotees kneeling to pray. On most buildings there was a sign indicating how many incense sticks were required to be offered. These could only be lit and burned in cauldrons outside in the plaza. I dislike the smell. Many roof gables featured a recurring set of animal figures which we found amusing.
After returning to the hotel to get some relief for our weary bones we had dinner at the Orient Mall. One of our dishes was Spicy Crispy Chicken and it was lathered with chilli – Bob C would have loved it.
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