Beijing McDonalds was a welcome sight. A few years ago some bonehead decided to remove the dining cars of all overnight trains in China and replace it with someone wheeling a cart up and down the carriages, charging unreasonably high prices for instant noodles. No thankyou. I'm going for a Sausage & Egg McMuffin TM first thing tomorrow. Mmm-hmm.
The Chinese Box Courtyard Hostel run by Joe Leoson near Xisi subway station was one of the best finds of the whole trip. Calm, peaceful, relaxing, warm, soothing, and did I mention peaceful? I had originally planned on spending 6 nights in the capital before heading north again, this time to Harbin, but upon hearing from some travellers in Xian who had just been there, I decided I could see it another time. The temperature was frequently as low as minus 25 and the services were far less reliable than Xian or certainly Beijing.
Added to that, I was exhausted. Much of the purpose of the trip was to have that backpacking adventure that I never had when I was younger. It turns out, I'm not much into it. I'd like to go back to China one day, but I'll be much more careful about my schedule next time around. China is draining and it takes a lot of energy to tackle it successfully. So I enquired as to whether or not I could stay in Beijing for 10 nights instead of the original 6 I'd planned. They were already booked around the new year, but Joe invited me to his new hostel - the "Chinese Box Great Wall Hostel" - situated in the village of Gubeikou right underneath, you guessed it, the Great Wall of China. Sounded like a good compromise to me.
I did a lot of photowhoring the day I went with a tour group to the Jinshanling section of the Great Wall, but nothing beats getting a Mongolian t-shirt vendor to click the shutter for you. It was 5 kms up and 5 kms back at Jinshanling, and I knew that I didn't want anything from her, but she followed me the whole way, and in the end I broke into a trot to get rid of her. The Great Wall was once built to keep Mongolians out, now it's their workplace!
The following day I went into Tiananmen Square at about midday, which is also when Mao's mausoleum closes. I'll have to go back for the Chairman's formaldehyde-ridden corpse another time. Or not. I've had it with these North Asian dictators in fact. Once a good opportunity for ironic laughs on animated TV programs, they can now all go and get fucked. All the lies, the hypocrisy, the bullshit: they are worse than our leaders in the West. At least we tolerate opposition. At least the vast majority of us don't live in fear or poverty or in a preventable famine. Yes, Jong-Il, I'm pointing at you, you fat piece of shit.
The author fulfills his lifelong dream of visiting one of the focal points of our glorious Chinese Communism, where 21 years ago the brave soldiers of the People's Army repelled scores of vicious pen-wielding student protesters who were calling for such bourgeois and counter revolutionary things as democratic elections and a free press.
From Jingshan Park (which was made from the soil that workers dug the moat of the Forbidden City from) I looked over the Forbidden City. The flat landscape of Beijing means you can see a lot from here (and also makes cycling relatively easy).
I went on another tour, this time to the Peking Opera. I loved it. Subtitles helped a largely foreign audience. Stagehands to our right having an unbelievably loud conversation hindered them. Nevermind. No one else really liked it, but I did. It touched me. I went for dinner after with the Germans I met on the tour. China attracts a true cross-section of the world's travellers, and not just 25 year olds screaming "that's what she said" at you and high-fiving each other while they drink so much that they puke in your mama's mouth. Ah-sum.
Not bad eh? This is the vista we enjoyed after climbing for about 2 hours at Gubeikou. The wall here was 500 years old in parts and 1500 in others!
So there it is. The overnight train to Dalian from Beijing was a bad idea. The man opposite me kept me and his family up all night with his non-stop snoring, farting, and sleep-talking, interspersed with these weird sigh-like exhalations. That night I turned Kate Bush up so loud that if there had been a garage door on the train it would have opened and closed all night. Hounds of Love is one of the finest records I've heard. You should get your hands on it and feel something new today. God knows, that's exactly what I need.
