Beijing

Beijing is insane. Like nothing I could have imagined. Compared to New Zealand, this truly feels like I am on a different planet. After a fourteen hour plane ride that was delayed four hours I finally arrived here Thursday the 24th. From the moment I stepped off the plane the gawking and staring began. People really get a kick out of me walking down the street which is very funny to me being as I am a good foot taller than every Chinese person around. After navigating the subway I was able to find my hostel, which is more like a hotel, that I booked online for about 5 USD, or around 35 Yuan. Everything is very cheap here, but they try to take advantage of English speakers. For example, as soon as I arrived I went next door to my hostel and got lunch, just riced, chicken, and a beer (beer is very popular because the water is not drinkable). Once the waitress saw me she immediately switched the menu to the English version. I ended up paying around 7 USD for lunch, which is almost four times what any Chinese person would pay. Average meals run from 2 to 4 USD. You live and learn I guess. Luckily, when I returned from lunch I met some of the travelers who shared my room who all turned out to be Canadian. After talking for a while about things to do and see, they invited me to go to one of the large markets and then dinner. The markets in Beijing are essentially six story warehouses where every seller has a small stall where they hock fake designer goods for ridiculously cheap prices. Gucci wallets, nike shoes, north face jackets, soccer jerseys, ipads, laptops, jewelry, anything you could ever want. One of the guys who I was with showed me the ropes on how to haggle with the Chinese sellers who are very aggressive. They know small amounts of English and will yell at you and grab your arm as you walk by. "I like you, good price for you" and "You handsome, I give good price just for you" are stape lines used. Usually, I found out from my friends, they quote a price which is actually 6 times what their actual bottom line is. For example if they say 60 Yuan (a little less than 10 USD) that means they will sell at the bare minimum for 10 Yuan (a little over 1 USD. It is actually somewhat of a game to haggle with them. Quite fun. I decided that I needed a day pack so I went to the luggage section and found a north face backpack to my liking. The woman quoted a price close to 80 USD and after some cunning back and forth banter I got it for 140 Yuan, or just about 20 USD. I felt good about my purchase and first attempt at bartering. After a great dinner at an authentic Chinese restaraunt with dishes such as cashew chicken and some sort of fungus cucumber dish I went to sleep to catch up on my sleep. The next day myself and the Canadians went to the Temple of Heaven, which is a temple where the royalty of China would go to pray up until recently. The funniest thing about the temple was that at one part we decided to take a group photo and asked a Chinese person to take it. As soon as he went to take the picture, literally six people got behind him and took a picture of the white people in China. I laughed pretty hard about that. Quick interjection about Canadians. Almost all Canadian travelers sew the Canadian flag onto their backpacks to show they are not American because Americans get treated much differently abroad. Kind of annoying. Anyways after sightseeing we went and had lunch at a restaraunt that serves hot pots, the most popular food in China from what I can tell so far. Hot pots are essentially pots of boiling hot flavored water placed in front of you in which you put various meats, vegetables, and other fungus and potatoes. Every person got their own pot and plate of ingredients. I literally sat there eating for almost two hours. Their was so much food to put in the pots. So delicious. After being exhausted from eating for so long and not even full, we went shopping again. This time I had my eye on a Chelsea jersey. One of the Canucks and I got a package deal and paid around 7 USD each for two jerseys with matching shorts. Sometimes we would haggle with sellers even if we did not want to purchase anything just to see how low we could go. That night we traveled a long distance to go to the Olympic park which is very beautiful at night. We hoped to go to the Olympic swimming park, which is a giant blue cube, that got transformed into an indoor water park. Sadly, it was closed. Even so, just seeing how much the Chinese built for the Olympics was amazing, and at night it was truly a spectacle. Everything has been great so far, except for this morning I woke up with snow on the ground which is dissapointing. In the next few days I will be going to see some of the major sights, as well as the Great Wall, so expect a new post in the next coming days. And one last final note about Beijing: everyone hocks loogies everywhere. It is disgusting. You cannot walk down the street for two minutes without hearing someone hocking up a lung, both men and women. Disgusting. Anyways I am off to brave the cold and eat some crazy things like scorpions and cobra blood. Until next time...