Beijing-ing

The little dot on the AirBnB map said we were going in the right direction, so that was good…

After a flight delay leaving Seoul in September, we got through customs in Beijing at 1am, waited in line for a taxi, and showed the address to the driver, who began navigating the late-night traffic of Beijing on his way to our destination. Around 2am he dropped us off at a Marriott hotel, which was a few blocks away from the pin on the map. We figured it would be more difficult to communicate our actual destination than to just walk the next few blocks, so we grabbed our bags and hopped out of the taxi, dragging our bags behind us as they clattered down the sidewalks that ran alongside the dark, empty streets that led to the pin on the map.

After a fair bit of meandering, we finally arrived at our destination: the glorious, super-fenced-in corner of an apartment complex which appeared to coincide with the pin on the map but did not appear to have an entrance anywhere nearby. A bit confused about how to get in, we proceeded to spend the next 45 minutes walking around, looking for entrances (all of them locked), cursing our lack of WiFi, and showing the address to a couple of security guards the address with no success. As you might imagine, the general mood was…tense, especially after we started to digest that there was a legitimate chance that we might not get into our AirBnB that night. Grumbling about the situation (well, I was grumbling at least…), we made our way back toward the Marriott, figuring we could at least get WiFi there or, if we had to, stay there for the night, which, while costly, would be better than the alternative of, you know, staying outside in a foreign country on our first night of a weeklong trip.

As we rounded the final corner on our return to where we had started over an hour ago, we passed a small police station with an officer sitting on a plastic chair outside. Mandi, being the more friendly of the two of us (especially at our current levels of frustration), decided to give it a go and showed the address to the police officer, who, rather than pointing us in the right direction, took Mandi’s bag for her and began walking us to our AirBnB. We walked straight over to the Marriott, crossed the street, walked another 50 feet, and dove down a moderately sketchy back alley before arriving at the dimly-lit lobby of an apartment building. The police officer gave us a look as if to say, “are you sure this is where you’re staying?,” but, seeing the front entry, we were pretty confident this was the right place finally. We thanked this saint of a police officer extensively, walked to the elevator and made our way to our room before collapsing onto the bed at 3:30am. As it turns out, the little pin on the AirBnB map was completely wrong.

That was how our trip to China in mid-September began: with a delayed flight and a late-night wild goose chase for a pin on a map that was not at all in the place that it should have been. And while I wouldn’t ascribe too much meaning to this single event on our trip, our early-morning escapade was somewhat representative of our time in China because, in a variety of ways, it was more challenging than most of our other travels (Hanoi had its moments…) while it still delivered some fantastic experiences and interactions, like running into a police officer at 3:30am that is willing to literally walk you to your door to make sure you get home safely.

Inside the Forbidden City approaching the Gate of Supreme Harmony.

After sleeping in a considerable amount given the previous night’s adventures, we readied ourselves for the day and decided that we would head to the Forbidden City, which is located in the absolute center of Beijing, a fact that is made all the more clear by the road system that radiates out from the City, like waves driving outward from a pebble tossed in a pond. And if the placement of the roads wasn’t sufficient to demonstrate the importance of the Forbidden City (and the adjacent landmarks of Tiananmen Square, Mao Zedong’s Mausoleum, and the National Museum of China), the security to get in certainly drove that point home.

Our handy Lonely Planet app (Lonely Planet Guides, it’s great, and I’m very clearly not paid to say this) told us which subway exit to use to get to the Forbidden City, but for some reason that was closed, so we went out a different one, which, unfortunately, put us on the wrong side of a gigantic street (like, 8-lanes-and-not-even-Frogger-would-attempt-this-crossing gigantic) with no crosswalk and permanent barricades along the sidewalks. There was a huge line for security, but we honestly didn’t know if we could get to the Forbidden City on the other side after you got through security because there didn’t seem to be a way to cross the aforementioned Frogger-killing street (later we would discover that it was a line to get into Tiananmen Square). A bit frustrated by our ability to see the giant landmark we wanted to visit but striking out on how to get there (sounds like an old AirBnB pin I know…), we went down to the subway again and eventually found an exit that led us to the other side of the street. Success! If Frogger had only known about tunnels… anyway, finally on the correct side of the street, we were able to quickly find the giant mob of people waiting to go through security and placed ourselves in their midst.

We waited in this large group of people for at least 40 minutes, inching our way ever forward on a particularly hot September day, eventually getting close enough that the group began to separate into lines to go through security. As we got closer and closer, we started to notice something important: in addition to the metal detectors and baggage check, which we expected at security, there were scanners at the front of the line scanning everyone’s Chinese IDs and passports before they could enter. This was fine, except, you know, we left our passports at the AirBnB because we had no idea that we would need a passport to get into various tourist sites in the city (as it turns out, passports were needed for the Forbidden City -twice!-, Tiananmen, and even for accessing WiFi at the Shanghai airport!). Security was certainly higher than we had anticipated.

As someone who Mandi occasionally refers to as a pessimist (I prefer the term “pragmatist” thank you very much), I was ready at that point to turn around, retrieve our passports, and come back later rather than wait another 20 minutes in the hot sun only to be rejected, but Mandi wasn’t ready to give up just yet. Nearing the scanner, she expertly pulled out a picture of her passport on her phone along with our Korean residency card and played the I’m-a-confused-tourist card, a savvy move by a travel veteran. The security guard seemed a bit thrown off by this tactic and had a quick, confused conversation with someone at the metal detector before ultimately looking at the giant line behind us,shrugging, and allowing us to pass through to the plaza, backed by giant red walls carrying an enormous image of Chairman Mao.

To be honest, I don’t think I’m particularly strong at describing the sights we’ve seen during our travels (I’m much more in my element when describing the various shenanigans we find ourselves in during our adventures), but the Forbidden City was truly impressive. A massive complex surrounded by towering red walls with seemingly endless new buildings, courtyards, and rooms to discover inside its well-designed interior, we spent the majority of our day wandering around with an electronic guide in our ear and honestly could have spent several more hours there had the heat and our hunger levels not gotten the best of us. Trust me when I say that the photos we took (which you can check out below) will do a much better job than I at capturing the Forbidden City or any of the other sights we saw in Beijing.

Speaking of sights, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it or not, but there’s this relatively large stone wall a couple of hours outside of Beijing, and it’s become somewhat of a hot tourist spot, so on one of our evenings in Beijing, we decided to search around TripAdvisor for tours of this wall until we eventually found one that seemed up our alley. Great news! So easy! Except that my TripAdvisor account is linked to my Gmail, and we needed to respond via email to coordinate our tour pick up. As you may be aware, China restricts the internet pages that are available for viewing, and Google is apparently not on their list of homies (Bing is though? BING?), so Gmail isn’t accessible either. Oops. After finally realizing that it was the restriction on Google and not a finicky internet connection that wasn’t allowing our email to update, we quickly canceled the tour, created a new TripAdvisor account, and re-booked with a different email account for a tour the next day.

The next morning, we met our driver bright and early outside of the Marriott where we had first been dropped off and began the drive to the Mutianyu section of the wall. Upon arrival, our driver handed us a couple of bottles of water and graciously walked us up the hill from the parking lot up to the start of the hike up to the wall, even offering to let us borrow one of his cell phones so that if we somehow got lost or needed to contact him, we could text him from the wall (as you might have guessed from the AirBnB shenanigans, we didn’t have access to data on our phones). We thanked our driver for being so nice and made a plan for where to meet later before we began trudging up the many stone steps on a quiet, forested path that wound its way up to the wall.

After hiking for 30 minutes or so, we reached the top, gaining fantastic views of the yellow-tinged wall as it snaked its way up and down green ridge lines, with adjacent sections of the wall visible on distant hills, like veins spreading throughout the many surrounding hills. We spent the morning walking along the undulating stone path, passing through watchtowers and scrambling up steep, uneven steps as we made our way to the highest point on the section that was accessible to us to take in the surrounding scenery, made even more enjoyable by the relative lack of tourists around at that hour. Eventually we had traversed most of the section that was accessible to us and we made our way back down the path rather than taking the alpine slide down. You might be asking yourself, “wait, there was an ALPINE SLIDE?!” Yes, there was an alpine slide, and no, we did not take it down…the reasons remain unclear. (If I’m being honest, it’s probably because we’re a little snooty with things like the outdoors and historical sites and we tend to think that things should be preserved more naturally rather than being turned into money-making attractions, but also I recognize that this makes us sound snobby, which is not the way we want to come off, because also, also, I get it, slides are fun.)

At the bottom, we snagged some delicious food before heading back toward the bustling souvenir stall we had agreed to meet our driver at. Before we get to that though, quick aside: back in college, Mandi left her friends in the cold Spokane winters of Gonzaga University and spent an entire semester floating on a ship that was circumnavigating the world, ostensibly “studying” while the ship was between the various ports they stopped at along their journey (she did actually study and take classes, but holy moly, what a cool experience). One of her stops took her to China, and she had actually been to the Great Wall before where she bought a t-shirt, which boldly proclaimed “I CLIMBED THE GREAT WALL.” Unfortunately, the t-shirt she bought was a XXL, but it was all they had left. Ok, now fast-forward about 12 years to the souvenir stall: BOOM! They were selling the exact same shirt! This time they even had a small! Obviously, Mandi snagged one, and once she finished her purchase, we walked over to our driver, who was joking and playing cards with a bunch of his buddies at a wooden table in the shade. He quickly collected his winnings for the day, clearly enjoying the excuse to leave the game while he was still on top, and walked us back down to the car, where he drove us back to Beijing, occasionally telling us stories about Beijing or stubborn tourists he had dealt with in the past before he generously gifted us some chopsticks and said goodbye before wandering off to see other parts of the city that evening.

Colorful cars and walls in the 798 District

Writing about our time in Beijing was challenging because a LOT happened in four short days. We started out lost, showed up to the Forbidden City without passports (who knew?!), got blocked out of an entire section of the city because they were practicing for the 70th PRC anniversary parade, had trouble with Gmail, struggled occasionally with our lack of language skills, and were surprised that even the subways had metal detectors. But we also toured the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace (my personal favorite!), Tiananmen Square, the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven, and numerous other historical sites that would rival those of any city in the world. As is our style, we ate a ton of delicious food: fried dumplings, steamed buns, Yunnan-style food, Mongolian hot pot, KFC with durian bites (not a fan of durian…), and of course, Peking Duck (droooool). We meandered through maze-like alleys of Hutongs (traditional courtyard houses) repurposed into trendy restaurants and bars, shopped in the colorful, art-filled 798 district, and Mandi found many puppies and kittens to cuddle. By the time we left Beijing, we were tired, but it was the kind of tired that comes from a trip that pushes you a bit (maybe more than a bit) out of your comfort zone while creating memorable experiences; in the end, that’s a good kind of tired, and the rest of our time in China, in Huangshan and Shanghai, picked up exactly where Beijing left off.

Check out the rest of our pics below for some more stories from our trip!