John’s Diary – Part 5 China
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26th March 
Gail received her visa issuance number from Korea and has been to the Korean Consulate to hand in her forms (and the “number”) and has paid ~Aus $70. All is not perfect with the process but she should be able to get back her passport, with the inserted E2 work visa, on Wednesday afternoon (27th).
Whilst in that area she took me for a walk down “Bar street” which is lined with, guess what, restaurants and bars. We looked but did not partake – difficult as we were both feeling rather stressed. Instead, Gail purchased 3 more items of clothing in a market area nearby.
It reached 20C with mostly clear skies, but with swirling dust kicked up into the eyes by the wind. (The springtime winds apparently bring big dust-storms down from as far away as Siberia.) The subway system is crowded each time we use it – I have no idea how it could ever cope with the additional numbers brought in by the Olympics. Buses (most look good) are crowded, too.
25th March
This is Sunday, but most things seem to operate as on other days. The air was clear for a change and the sky was blue with a max temp of 17C.
Almost next door is the gigantic Beijing Post office which takes almost an entire (large) city block and is open 24/7 (good service, huh?). Big centres and markets open 7 days from ~9am to ~9pm.
Today Gail organised us to do a walking tour. We took the subway to a designated spot at the far end of Tiananmen Square and walked, following the advice and descriptions in her Beijing Lonely Planet book, back home via lunch and a visit to a supermarket. The walk included the one part of T’ Square we had previously missed, the one-time legation (the name formerly used for what are now Embassies and Consulates) area and the much westernised section based around “Walking Street” which as the name suggests is closed to traffic (masses of people and lots of them Caucasian). In an enclosed ultra-modern shopping mall where we lunched we also saw 6 men and 6 women advertising New Zealand (they also have a Philippines section and coming soon is Vietnam) – one was white the others appeared to my inexperienced eye to be Maori – dancing singing and scaring the locals with their painted faces and grass skirts. They really attracted a crowd and were entertaining – I felt as near to home as I have for some time.
24th March
18 days will not be enough. We have had to extend our stay to 21 days as we now know that Gail’s visa cannot be completed before our original intended departure date. Changing flights has cost us another $100 as well as the extra accommodation costs, etc. Gail will not be able to look at curriculum etc for her job in advance of her first day at school.
So we went today to an ancient observatory with very large and very old (1420 AD, 1673 AD and 1715 AD) instruments for measuring movements of the stars, moon and sun. It is only 2 blocks away so we walked, of course. Much of it was closed for upgrading before the Olympics. In China you can get up close and touch many of these types of really old items and they remain undamaged – at home they would be behind barriers, or maybe they would be replicas only on display. Very few tourists were there – we saw only about 6 others in our 45 minute visit. It was worthwhile, however, for one with any interest in astronomy, and cost less than $1 each.
23rd March
Today marked the 3-month anniversary of our departure from Australia.
A visit to the Temple of Heaven Park was quite relaxing. It is not nearly as crowded as
Tiananmen Square, for example, and it is predominantly a park so has lots of trees and grass etc. The area covered is astonishing – by far the largest of the touristy sites here, perhaps 6×4 city blocks. Although mainly a park, the buildings take more than an hour to walk across from end to end. The buildings are just that – buildings and walls commenced in 1420AD – with no sound and light show or anything like that, but spectacular for their size and antiquity nevertheless. There is an entry charge to each section but in total it cost us just Aus$5 each for an all encompassing ticket. We consumed the whole afternoon on Thursday with this visit.
Of interest is that, apart from The Great Wall, the other (all very big) sites are in central
Beijing – easily reached by subway (50cents) or a $4 taxi ride.
We are now at the Harmony Hotel in central Beijing – very nice and spacious (and warm) with Internet access in our room at an additional cost of Aus$4 per day. Room cost is Aus$80 and is deluxe as they had no standard rooms. Besides we have to be here (or in Japan) for Gail’s visa.
Food is inexpensive – we ate in our hotel restaurant last night where costs are higher than elsewhere. We had 4 typically Chinese (what we in
Australia would call typical Chinese) dishes to share (all delicious and filling) and drinks (just beer and mineral water) – for Aus$7 each.
Our daily food – most days we arrange, in our room, our own breakfast of fruit (banana or apple or strawberries) with yoghurt and orange juice (with Berocca, just in case it might help with extra vitamins etc). One other meal is usually sandwiches (make them ourselves) with fresh bread, meat (plenty of variety available here in China), cheese (Australian Bega Tasty), tomato, capsicum and possibly lettuce. Our third meal (it might be lunch or dinner, it varies) will be eat-out (Chinese restaurant, Subway, Pizza, KFC etc). We make instant coffee (Nescafe) and buy lots of bottled water. We are not extravagant and do not eat in restaurants all the time (we met 2 American women in Korea who worked for a whole year there and never once ate anything in their room – they also gladly boasted that they had learned not one word of the local language) and this keeps costs down as well as providing variety and quality in our diet.
There are massive amounts of construction works in Beijing. As with other cities that host the Olympics it is an opportunity for a country to focus improvement and expansion all in that one city. We have seen new streets which (we would better call boulevards, really) and brand new high rise buildings, presumably for accommodation, most as yet not lived in – and we have seen hundreds of these. These streets and buildings are on sites formed by tearing down the old houses etc and are not green field sites.
In central Beijing the old style buildings constructed in the 20th century are extremely impressive. They have the look of having been built to last. In a continuous stream, they line street after street of magnificent and varied architecture. Many of the streets themselves are exceptionally wide and, although car ownership would appear to be relatively low compared to Australian standards, they still manage to have many peak hour style traffic jams during the day. As in Korea and Thailand drivers use their horns incessantly. Petrol costs only 85 cents per litre – we should be envious.
The air seems thick with fog or smog every day. Yesterday we saw the sun for the first time in about 4 days. It was about 4:00pm and this dull yellow/orange ball was trying to peek through the dense atmosphere. At first we thought it might have been an almost-full moon but the time of day and its location in the western sky were the only reasons to know it was the sun.
We have sampled some Chinese wines, a respectable cab sav and a chardonnay for $3.50 to $4 each and a Chinese whisky, 750ml, for $7:50. The whisky is 43% and tastes somewhere between a scotch and a bourbon. Although Chinese baijiu (perhaps comparable to Gin) is cheap, it is indeed horrible. Most alcohol is imported and that is very expensive indeed.
We have been in China for more than a week and although enjoying the experience I believe I will be happy to return to Korea where personal attitudes are closer to my comfort zone. We are also still waiting for Gail’s work visa information; we should have had that by now. Its 2 weeks since Gail signed the contract and we were told it would be 7 to 10 days to complete the visa process – just as well we allowed 18 days; I hope it proves to be sufficient.
20th March
We’ve been to the Great Wall of China (Badaling section) on Friday and it was quite amazing. The tourist parts have been heavily restored, of course, but it’s a gigantic structure that roams over mountain tops in a seemingly aimless wander. I’m glad I have seen it. The area there was very mountainous in stark contrast with Beijing which is completely flat.
We arranged to tour in a small party of 5 in a modern big station wagon for a whole day (~Aus$50 each including entry charges and gondola rides which accounted for half of that cost) and also saw 2 Ming dynasty tombs (very large); there are 13 of these (only 3 open to the public) and all seem to be Ling people – one we noticed was Ding Ling which has a certain familiarity to it.
There were many apple trees (somewhat of an interest to me) all bare as it’s only just the start of Spring.
China produces 40% of all the apples in the world. Each apple is wrapped in paper whilst still on the tree to protect it from frost, sprays, etc. That wrapping is removed after a couple of months and a then second wrapping is placed around each apple. This too is discarded (left on the ground) when the apples are picked. It’s so very labour intensive, but the results are beautiful.
We were tired after almost 8 hours of being tourists and had an early evening meal (again delicious and cheap) and tried some of the Chinese baijiu (or mao-tai) – a clear, strong (56%) spirit made from sorghum (a type of millet) – which tastes like I imagine might be the taste of turpentine, a flavour that even coke or orange juice (or both together) cannot disguise.
After dinner we were walking past a petrol station and I was about to take a photo since it was a “normal”, bright, new servo. Approached by 2 uniformed attendants who were waving no! no! no! I decided that being allowed to leave China was as important as being allowed to visit and I put the camera away. I guess the worldwide concern about photos being linked to terrorism affects here too, particularly with the Olympics here next year.
Saturday was spent shopping and Gail had success as a hard bargainer. Prices always came down to, at most, a third of that initially offered as their best and most special price just for you. If you try to leave they physically restrain you (gently) to continue the bargaining. It was a constant barrage and very tiring. But Gail came away with clothes and DVDs.
In addition we were almost scammed by a young woman (said she was 20) who wanted to follow us to improve her English skills. After an hour or so she took us upstairs into a small (unlabelled) tea room where she wanted to talk quietly and at length with us. Gail remembered reading about this exact scam. (The girl then has to leave and you are stuck with an totally unrealistic and astronomical bill. In a foreign country with no local knowledge or language skills the “mark” pays up hundreds of dollars just to escape without incident.) We said that we would not stay, thank you, and left without ordering anything. (Thanks Gail!!!) The girl lost all interest in us immediately after this. A little later another 2 young girls/women approached us to walk with us and improve their English language skills – our conversation with them was understandably brief.
In the evening, we were having dinner as the guests of our hostess (Carol) and she related to us the same “tea room” story even before we could mention it. Another scam apparently relates to art sales (“our English student” did say that her second major subject was painting.) The dinner was excellent, by the way, and the company very friendly – but after the day’s incidents my mind was wondering what was their “angle”. This was almost certainly being unnecessarily suspicious.
Beggars (there are some) are reputedly organised by criminal gangs and, of course, almost all of their takings go to the organisers. Vanloads of such beggars are, apparently, deposited individually at designated spots at the start of each day. Another thing we have (fortunately) not experienced is the smoke trick (inhale once and you lose all control – empty out your bank account, etc) which is apparently used in southern China. Scary eh?
We used the subway system with success. It’s small compared with Seoul (about 60 stations compared with about 400) but generally quite clean and efficient – and choked full with commuters. Most signage has an English duplicate. Big city, small subway system – most people use buses which are plentiful, mostly modern and efficient. Taxis are cheap. Pedal vans and small motorised vans also are cheap but one didn’t take us to the Subway but to a market, obviously thinking that we didn’t know where the Subway was – we did, and after insisting no! Subway no! Subway no! Subway – we went directly to the subway and did not pass “go” again. It was no accident, of course as we had given him written directions in Chinese.
We visited Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was extraordinarily cold, the air was damp, there was a slight breeze and the temp hovered around 2 degrees and we had left our heavy winter coats in Seoul thinking that it was spring time and forecast weather was to be warmish. In these tourist areas there are many security guards and police – it is just as well as there are many people trying to take advantage of foreigners (we came across the full gamut of Art students, potential guides, people wishing to practice English – perhaps 10 in about 1 hour). We learnt how to brush them off quickly.
Central Beijing has many large modern architect designed buildings. We also noticed touch screen public telephones.
15th March
We are here in Beijing. It looks different to Korea, still very tall buildings but more mathematically organised. We are in a 2 room apartment (we could have an extra 3 people with us) on the 23rd floor but not in a hotel. This is a Chinese apartment building and one person (Carol, who speaks good English, which is apparently very rare here, and lived in Sydney for a while) owns numerous apartments and rents them out via “Wotif”, which is where Gail found it and booked it. It’s not in the mainstream tourist or hotel area and this pleases Gail as she’s often talking about living like the locals do.
The apartment is quite ok – about 30 years old but lacking only a kitchen sink and heating in terms of basic facilities. We have a microwave, bath & shower, western style toilet, big fridge, living room with lots of furniture, 2 bedrooms with 3 beds total, 68cm Sony TV, internet access, aircon(cooling)x2, fresh water dispenser with a hot option for coffee and a basic breakfast will be provided each morning (I hope) all for ~Aus$50 per night.
We have wireless internet access via Gail’s laptop, but it’s slow (probably dial up) and it will not support Skype for that (or whatever) reason.
Our first meal was a success. We wandered for 2 long blocks and found a typical at-home-style supermarket, modern-looking shops and a food court – and it was in the last of these that we chose a meal to share. We weren’t sure of what it was from the pictures and the people there had absolutely no English, but at least there were pictures of food to select from – we just pointed and paid our 10 Yuan (about Aus$1.70) and received a huge sizzle plate of potato (chips in gravy), meat (lamb!!!!), onion, a mountain of steamed rice, a fried egg, a vegetable side dish and a bowl of soup. It filled both of us (we thought we were sharing a first trial course just in case it was crap and we may need to buy something different rather than risk two meals right now) and it was delicious.
Drivers here still drive on the wrong side of the road, as in Korea. Nearby streets are very wide and are difficult to cross for pedestrians, as the obvious red light and green light rules seem not to apply.
I have tried a small can of each of 2 versions of the local beer and enjoyed them both (not expensive either) but spirits seem to be non-existent. Wines are available but are not cheap.
Gail is looking into a private tour run by our apartment owner (Carol lives next door).
Also, Gail fell over a concrete obstacle in the street (similar to Korea, there is no thought about health and safety issues) and damaged her only pair of trousers (we were travelling light) so we will urgently need to buy her some more clothes (she was planning this anyway). Gail is not really hurt, by the way. The footpath had a big section of raised concrete across it – and it was dark with poor street lighting.
We are an extra hour more behind eastern Australia – 3 hours difference now. Like Korea, I am surprised at how civilised things seem here – yes, the negatives include OH&S and street lighting, remember to never drink the water and buildings that are looking a bit tired; but streets and shops seem familiar, it is probably easy to live comfortably here and food is cheap and, at this stage, delicious too.
The really big news was that Korean Immigration didn’t fine us (just a warning for this first time) for accidentally overstaying our visa. We have been worried about this for more than two weeks and the possibility that it may affect Gail’s employment as well. In the end they were quite gracious about it.
China TV has ~60 channels but only one is in English (CCTV9) and it is a rather boring Chinese-English language version of CNN (which I find boring in itself).
When we were out we saw a security van taking money to (or from) the post office. Apart from those doing the loading of moneybags etc there were 2 guards pointing vicious looking guns – long barrelled, too fat to be rifles, not quite (but almost) rocket launchers, so maybe gas canister guns – at anyone who was around the general area (we were); quite scary really (it was intended to be scary, I guess). Gail moved away very quickly and lost all interest in her usual addiction (taking photos).
