Come to the Supermarket in old Peking....

It was recently the Autumn Festival (Moon Festival) here in China, so the entire country was on holiday for 7 whole days! Liesl and I took this opportunity to go to Beijing for a little vacation.

This idea proved VERY difficult to make happen. For a few reasons / difficulties which (in my opinion) are unique to China.

1) Train tickets are only available for purchase 10 days before travel. In a country of 1.3 billion people, this policy seems absurd and inane - especially over a major holiday period. We had planned on leaving for Beijing on the 29th of Sep - on the overnight train. So we went to the train station on the 19th of Sep. The ticket officers kindly informed us that 10 days prior to departure was in fact the 20th... so we had to go back the next day. Which we did. Early. The queue was almost around the block. At least a 3 hour wait. Luckily, we had our trusty Chinese friend, Peter, with us. He managed to push in close to the front (a typical Chinese trait which we were grateful of on this particular day). As predicted, lo and behold, the train tickets were sold out. So we had to come up with a Plan B.

2) Plan B: Fly. My first two attempts at booking flights were thwarted by the Chinese credit card system. None of the vendors would accept my South African credit card, and no-one could help as they were all Chinese-speaking. I finally found an international company which had the facilities to process international credit cards. Hurray!! I purchased two tickets for the 30th of Sep. But wait, it can't ever be that easy... the lovely people at FNB flagged my purchase as fraudulent and froze my card!! So after a very minor coronary, I managed to call the FNB call centre - I had to call 4 times before I got through as the connection between China and the outside world is TERRIBLE! Finally, success.

3) Booking the tour package. They only accept payment via a Paypal account. Great, I have a SA Paypal account... but wait... China Paypal doesn't accept payments from Paypal accounts registered outside of China. Of course! So now I have to go to the bank (with the trusty Peter) and do a direct transfer. After about an hour of filling in forms and waiting for the teller to process the request, she informs us that their system only allows transfers from Chinese account holders - i.e you must have a Chinese name (characters), and not an English name.... Because THAT makes complete sense! SO, Peter has to deposit cash into his account, and then transfer the money from his account to the tour operator. Yay! Finally done. Except for one small error - Peter put the incorrect account name on the transfer so the money didn't go through... Of course, we are not informed of this at the bank. Because, it takes two hours for money transfers to go through. So the bank can only confirm the success of a transfer after two hours. Yes. That makes COMPLETE banking sense!! WTF is wrong with this country?!? Back to the bank we go. Correct the error. Finally! All is done.

4) We are leaving for the airport on a major public holiday. The airport is two hours away and our flight is early in the morning. We decided to book a room at the Airport Hotel, and stay overnight so that we can wake up and go straight to check-in and avoid all the traffic and queues.  Now, due to the public holiday, everyone is on leave. Including the taxi drivers!! As usual, Chinese mentality. Don't capitalise on the fact that EVERYONE is travelling and in desperate need of public transport. No, instead take a holiday as well. Because, you don't need the money... and you've clearly never heard of capitalism... Anyway, we went to the busiest spot in town - right outside the mall - in the hopes of catching a taxi willing to take us to the airport hotel. We were in luck, and after a few minutes, we finally found one. Yay. We were on our way!

The warning on the door of our hotel room

The lounge in our hotel room. I believe it was last decorated in 1972... and probably never cleaned since either!

Us on our China Southern flight to Beijing

We finally arrived in Beijing and were met by our tour guide, Susanna. The tour we booked proved to be one of the best experiences. It was a private tour. Just us, Susanna, our driver and our own private car. They made all the arrangements - booked the hotel, our meals, entrance into all the major attractions, transfers to and from the airports. It was amazing and completely hassle-free -  a concept we are definitely not used to, living in Wuhan!

Susanna

Our tour itinerary included: Tiananmen Square, The Temple of Heaven, The Forbidden City, The Ming Tombs, The Great Wall of China, The Summer Palace and The Drum Tower. We took a lot of photos, so I'll have to divide the post up into separate entries.

When we arrived from the airport, we were taken to our hotel, The Sunworld Hotel. Which was very near to Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City and Wangfujing shopping area.

Our room at the Sunworld Hotel

We had some free time, so we decided to wander through the Wangfujing Shopping area.

Check out all those people!!

Relaxing and having a drink at one of the little cafes

CHEERS!

Wangfujing street at night

The little restaurant next to our hotel. So pretty

Gangnam Style! People dancing in front of a Christian Church

One of the many shopping malls in Beijing

Wangfujing also has a local food market. So we decided to take a wander down these alleys to see what delicacies were on offer...

Entrance to the food market

Inside the food market - look at all those peeps!

Some kind of squid dish... I think

Yummy scorpions and larvae-like-bug-things - WTF!?!?

Some squid and centipede for dessert?

Seahorse and scorpions on a stick

Starfish and some larvae-like-bug-things

ANYTHING on a stick... the dude at the counter offered me a DOG skewer.... um, no thanks

I assume this is the dessert table...?

Glazed fruit on a stick

The only thing I tried... candied mini apples on a stick

Pretty lanterns at the entrance to the market,

Then it was on to Hou Hai lake area - apparently this was an international tourist attraction with streets lined with local and international bars. We decided to take the subway.

Me exiting the subway

We reached the destination subway station (as per the instructions on the website) and started our brief walk to the Hou Hai lake area.... about an hour later we were still no nearer to the lake. The information on the website was obviously posted by someone with limited intelligence... I intend to write them a very strongly worded letter!

Here's some pics of the little streets we had to wind our way through in order to find the "phantom" lake..

Anyway, we did EVENTUALLY make it to the lake. It was very beautiful, and bustling with locals and tourists alike.

View of the lake 

Pretty boats on the lake, and the restaurants and bars along the front

Pretty pagoda

Me at the lake - I was really starving at this point

Traffic jam!

Liesl and her newly acquired bunny ears!

Where we had lunch

Local shops at the Hutong

View from the other side of the lake

More shops - Pipe street. It sells curios, silk and of course pipes...

Proper dessert!

After our fist day out in Beijing, we went for dinner at the Angus Grillhouse - we were looking forward to an evening of steak, wine, and real vegetables. We were not disappointed.

Yay for wine!

Liesl getting ready to order some delicious food!

Included in our tour - besides the major tourist attractions - were also stops at speciality stores / factories. We visited a Pearl Market, Silk Factory and Jade Market.

How silk is made from those little cocoons 

Us stretching a piece of threaded raw silk to make a duvet

Fresh water oysters and pearls

Liesl trying on some pearls.

We also visited a traditional Beijing house and courtyard:

The Courtyard 

The matrimonial bed

Liesl and Susanna in the courtyard

The four beams above the entrance represent the fact that a high ranking official lived here (two beams mean a lesser ranking official... and no beams, we basically you were a peasant)

And took a Pedicab ride through one of the Hutongs.

And lunch at a traditional Chinese restaurant in town.

Look at that food!!!

Beijing truly is an international city with amazing energy and a plethora of things to see and do. From the minute we arrived, we knew that this would be a holiday to remember. We were not disappointed.

More to come in the next post!

xxx

PS Like any international city around the world, there is also a Chinatown in Beijing.... I wonder if the locals just call it "Town"....