From Seoul I took a flight to Beijing, China. I plan on spending about a month in China, so I post will be more city-based than country-based. (Though the Chinese government blocks Facebook and my blog among other sites so I do not know when this will actually get posted. I am writing this on 2 Nov.)
Upon arrival I took a bus and then the subway to my hostel. I had a less than ideal feeling about the hostel as soon as I arrived for no particular reason, but soon found it was at least partially justified. I had reserved a four bedroom dorm to find five beds. The hostel advertizes wifi in the rooms, but in fact there is none. After being there for a couple hours I informed the hostel that I would not be staying for the three days that I had reserved. They put up a bit of a fuss, but in the end it was not too much trouble.
That night I went out with a couple of people from the hostel. Both said that the hostel was either the best or one of the best hostels they have ever stayed at so I questioned my decision to leave but I had already made a reseveration at a new hostel. The evening was uneventful but enjoyable.
The following day I checked out and walked to my new hostel. I made the right decision. The new hostel was much better, cleaner, nicer, and with an enormous, comfortable bed. I did not do much this day, just a bit of walking around and getting situated.
The following day I went to Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City (Palace Museum), and some park just north of the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square was intersting but did not take nearly as long to see as I expected; just about an hour. I walked through it and reached the end (where the Forbidden City starts) without even realizing I was done. In contrast, I think I liked Forbidden City more than most. It was really cool and interesting and completely enthralling. I really enjoyed it. I had been walking all day in sandals but decided it was still too early to call it a day and go back to the hostel so I paid 2RMB (about $0.30) to enter a park nearby. The park was beautiful and full of great pictures. I was very pleased I decided to go in and had an ice cream (another $0.30) for breakfast/lunch.
The next day I went to the Great Wall. There are several portions of the wall the remain to day. Each has kind of developed a different reputation. One is where you go if you basically just want to say you walked the Great Wall (trips to this one always include shopping). Another is less touristy, but not at all challenging. The one I did is not overhelmingly touristy, though there were a couple of other groups of tourists. It is also regarded as one of the more challenging and is 10km in length, but it truth was not difficult at all and we completed it in about three hours instead of the "typical" four.
I liked my trip to the Great Wall more than I expected to, and I had high expectations. What really added to it for me was the weather: it was awful. It hailed. It rained. And it was great. Call me crazy, but I think I would not have liked it nearly as much (but still a great deal) if it had been all warm and sunny. It was a great time.
What also added to my Great Wall experience was that I did not do an oranized tour. I had signed up for one with my hostel even though the cost seemed a bit high 355RMB ($55) but I did not want to do it alone in case the worst happened. As luck would have it, I met a couple of French guys who invited me with them. I promptly canceled my organized tour (and got a full refund) and told them I was in. Not going on an organized tour makes every detail more complicated but also more true, real, and fun. We took the subway to the long-distance bus station, a bus to a stopping point where we were supposed to transfer to a mini-bus. With no mini-buses to be found we hired a driver to drive us there and back to the same stoppig point.
The Wall itself is something unique. The experience is difficult to explain because all it is is walking on the top of a wall. But the scenary is beautiful and the meaning of the wall adds to the experience. It it truly outstanding, but needs to be experienced first hand. It is like the Giza pyramids outside Cairo: you can look at all the pictures you want but they are nothing like seeing them with your own eyes. So, in short, go to the Great Wall (and the pyramids).
After my trip to the Great Wall, I am comfortabke admitting, my shoes smelled a bit. I decided to wash them. I left them on top of the garbage in my room so that the water drained into the garbage instead of on to the floor. The hostel staff took their position to mean that they are garbage (I admit, partially, if not mostly, my fault) and threw them away with the rest of the trash. I returned to my room, noticed they were not where I placed them and figured out what had happened. Luckily for me (sarcasm) that night I was attending a Halloween Party, customs and all, and it snowed. I still had a good time, but my feet were ice when I returned. Because of the weather, it took me and a friend more than 30 minutes to get a taxi to get back to the hostel and that time walking in the snow/slush was less than ideal.
In the end, though, no long term damage. The following day I went to the Pearl Market and bought myself a pair of fake Timberlands. It was still snowing, but my and the friend I was with decided the Temple of Heaven would be a unique experience given that it was still snowing. The Temple of Heaven is, according to traveling books and other tourists, among the top attractions in Beijing, and it was cool. The weather, again, added to it for me. We made a snowman in the Temple of Heaven! Come on, that is cool. Aside from smowmen, the Temple itself is pretty and a wonderful place to wonder around.
After the Temple of Heaven we returned to the hostel, new shoes and all. And, guess what, the hostel had found my shoes. OK, now, on the surface this is a absolutely positive thing, right? Wrong. My world is different than your's. It sounds kind of obvious, I suppose, but you really do not understand it until you live it. Yes, the finding of my shoes is a good thing, kind of. Except that I just spent $25 (a lot of money here - about 5 nights' accomodation) on a new pair of shoes. And, now I have the decision of, a) keep both pairs of shoes and carry both of them around until it no longer makes sense to do so, or b) dump either the old, once lost shoes or the new pair of face Timberlands that I just bought. I could not bring myself to dump one of the pairs, of course, so now I am carrying both pairs, which really sucks and is more inconvienent than you can imagine.
Also, the recently found shoes are soaking wet because they had been sitting outside in the snow since they were mistaken for garbage. In a stroke of genius I decide to dry them with a hair dryier. Of course I do not pay close enough attention and set the left shoe on fire. After I resole that situation, the sole of the left shoe is all, let's say "misshapen," though that is really generous, and I have to cut off the back 2/3 to make it wearable. And, I do not notice until several days and wounds later that the heel as well took some damage and is quite sharp in several areas. And, yes, I am still carrying this pair in hopes of salvaging them.
That evening I boarded my first overnight train in China. I have never been on an overnight train before and I had heard that long-distance train travel in China is an experience. Well, it is. I decided to pay a small amount extra for a bottom bunk. (There are three levels. The bottom bunk has enough height to sit up straight on, the top bunk you can can barely lean up from laying down.) As it turns out, the bottom bunk is kind of social area in which everybody, culturally, is welcome to sit, eat, and relax on. This, of course, was news to me, and, though I do not think I am normally a particularly territorial person, I felt very upset that MY space was being invaded. Sadly, there was nothing I could do so I sucked it up and delt with countless Chinese men eating KFC and farting (openly and obviously) on my bed.
I slept well.
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