Beijing Visit.. Part-1

So.. finally from the busy and monotonous worklife in Shanghai.. thanks to the "May Holidays".. 4 of us packed our bags and headed towards the capital city--Beijing... The host to "One World.. One Dream- Olympics 2008"...anticipating a trip full of adventure in a place where the few words of communication we know are "Ni Hao, Xie Xie and Mei yo rou"...and... the only guide we had with us was the Frommer's guide on China :)... well so it was... a fun-filled adventure...read on guys....

The fun and frolic started the moment we landed in Beijing and showed the cabbie the name of our hotel and address (of course written in Mandarin).. and this guy jus stopped and opened a huge map of Beijing to actually figure out whr the hell this hotel was.... and.. all of us look at each other baffled coz v had actually taken a hotel which ws like a kilometer away frm the forbidden city... so well.. finally he did manage to locate the place and v reached thr safely without further hassles...

Beijing as a city is quite an amazing concoction of colours... the ancient chinese architecture as we have seen and known from the books and pictures since childhood exists in sync with the lavish and state of the art new infrastructure and architecture... unlike shanghai which is pretty much western, Beijing appears much more chinese and colorful... neways... so tht ws the first impression of the capital city of the fastest growing economy of the world...
Before moving on... a brief introduction to the rest of the 3 wid me on this adventure... i ws accompanied by ravi and sneha (both strictly vegetarian people who dont even eat eggs) and Anna (a Polish female who eats all kinds of meat except for snakes, worms, sea horses, and the other chinese 'delicacies')

Coming back to the adventure... well.. v chked in and after quickly freshening up, ventured out around the hotel to find some lunch... lookin fr something quick to grab so v cn go to Tiananmen square and the Forbidden City...

So v entered a decent looking restaurant down the road hoping to find some vegetarian food for our veggies (btw... i eat jus chicken and eggs as non-veg)....anna and me treated ourselves to some chicken and rice as we waited fr the vegetarian dish to come to the table... well.. it thr it ws.. some delicious vegetarian fried rice... albeit with eggs... and all our further efforts to explain to the restaurant staff to make rice with only vegetables and without eggs (mei yo dan) went in vain since they dint hv nething without eggs apparently... and so... our dear Sneha and Ravi were all set to fast tht day... later v did pick up some pastries and bread fr thm which they reluctantly ate coz the pastries had eggs neway....

Well after a tough time at lunch...wid the lovely Frommer's guide in hand we moved on to the nearest Metro station to go to Tianenmen Square... and... guess what... fr all this while tht v thought tht despite the population in China... v dint c the density as at Churchgate station at 630 pm, we were in fr a big surprise.... v stuffed ourselves into the Metro packed like a can of sardines.. jus like a Churchgate-Virar fast train .. yes!!!... v were experiencing the mumbai-like crowd after long :) ... only this felt a li'l worse... the stench here ws not as bearable as a local train in mumbai....

After quite an effort, we reached the Tiananmen Square where another sea of people was ready to welcome us... Quite an interesting huge piece of land this place.. the centre of power for China housing the offices of the central government and law firms... So after spending some time with the huge crowd, we tried to take the under pass to the forbidden city where another huge crowd was building up...





Well... Forbidden City as we were about to witness is where the rich and famous chinese heritage of yore is very neatly preserved to showcase the lifestyle of the Chinese Emperors from the various dynasties...

An interesting blend of colors... and ofcourse the mythological figures of the dragon and phoenix beautifully carved on these hut-shaped palaces.....


well.. after an hour of roaming around, it did get a little monotonous... the similar lookin structures did stop fascinating me and the wonderful law of diminishing marginal utility began to float in....

But it seems Beijing does have something interesting just whn u start feeling tht things are getting monotonous... in the far horizon.. i.e. at the far end of the forbidden city... v could c a beautiful hill wid a palace at the top... apparently seemed to us like the palace of the Emperor (haha .... still dnt exactly knw wat this place was.).. after reaching the top... it presented a calm and serene atmosphere.... wid a beautiful view of the forbidden city and the surrounding area... and a beautiful statue of the Buddha....

On the whole... the three places visited were full of confusions and surprises coz... the language was a big challenge... v were actually trying to figure out where and how to go just frm the guide book v were carrying... so ... the day so far turned out to be quite interesting....



We walked our way back to Tianenmen square thereafter to witness the flag lowering ceremony in the evening... quite a farce it turned out to be though considering the publicity that was created by the locals v met on the way back... neways... it ws jus a simple ceremony where a group of soldiers marched quietly towards the centre of the Square and lowered the Chinese National Flag... v did stay on for a bit thereafter to avoid the crowd whilst going back and also to witness the spectacle of the Square under lights....






The imagery of the area under lights was like a motivational factor for our tired souls as such :)... n well ... it did turn out to be quite beautiful...

A further adventure awaited us at the end of the day... As per our guide book, there was a bustling shopping and entertainment street about a kilometer away from where v were standing... so v hopped into a cab and proceeded to find some interesting dinner in this place... well... v did find something delicious at a japanese restaurant in a mall on the street and also looked forward to the delicious looking desserts on the menu.... ordered one mountain of ice.... bt turned out to be quite not wat v expected.... it ws a dessert made up of black beans and dal fr all we knew... chk out the image alongside.. and u'll knw... wat a disappointment this thing on our table turned out to be :).. not our general stereotype idea of a dessert... this dish turned out to be nt too bad at the end f it... bt yes... a great example of "appearances are deceptive"

nw ws one more tough task... to get bk to our place of rest..locating our nest for the night... The Times Holiday Hotel...930 in the night (most of Beijing sleeps thn)...well after an arduous, tiring walk wid the map as the only aid... v did reach back to our hotel.. only after more than an hr of loitering in the streets of Beijing to find directions.... considering tht our hotel ws supposedly in a half kilometer radius this was quite a lot!!!....

after a last chat wid our families and loved ones, we crashed into bed in anticipation of the exciting climb up one of the seven wonders of the world.... the great wall.... more on that bit... in the next post..... Adios till thn guys.....!!!