So I'm in Beijing. The Mongolian tourism slogan is “Land Of The Blue Sky”. Beijing's is “Land Of I Guess There Must Be Sky Up There Somewhere”. No, it's not really that bad; I never really noticed any pollution issues this first day. First surprise on arrival: the airport is so big that you have to take a train from the international arrival terminal to the one where the baggage claim is! That was a little confusing. After some initial hassles at the airport with one not-very-informative Tourist Information Counter and one very helpful Some Other Tourist Information Counter, I took the express train into the city for 25 Yuan (and not the limousine car for 500 Yuan which the first Tourist Counter tried to get me to take with the claim that there were no trains or buses from the airport to the city, to which I pointed out the signs for trains and buses from the airport to the city!), then caught another couple of subway trains for just 2 Yuan to Nanluoguxiang (try saying that fast!) from where I somehow managed to find my way on foot to the Downtown Backpackers with only a vague idea of where it was in relation to the station. In case you're wondering there are roughly 5 Yuan to one New Zealand dollar, so for less than 50 cents you can subway your way across the city as far as you want.
The Nanluoguxiang street where the backpackers is was the next surprise. It was like a cleaned-up boutique version of Khao San Road in Bangkok, not at all what I expected, and packed with tourists (mostly Chinese tourists apparently) brandishing all manner of cameras, through which weaved bicycles, motorbikes, rickshaws and the occasional car or truck. After checking in to the backpackers and booking a couple of intercity trains for Xian and Shanghai for the next legs, I headed off to the supermarket to fetch some bottles of water and things. In the entrance to the supermarket was a little pet area, with tubs full of dozens of baby red-eared and Reeves' turtles (many already floating upside-down), goldfish, fiddler crabs, land crabs, jars of fighting fish, and tanks of gouramis and parrot cichlids. Inside the supermarket the tins of spam and mackerel were in locked glass cases, presumably to combat rampat spam thefts.
I had been going to head to the Summer Palace to try my hand at Chinese birding, but on the map I was given at reception I noticed two large lakes called Houhai Lake and Beihai Park which were within easy walking distance. They looked just right, and the girl at reception said that yes there was a park around them with trees. I think the Chinese and I might have different interpretations of what constitutes a park with trees however. Houhai Lake turned out to be a fully concrete-rimmed reservoir, for want of a better term, surrounded by cafes and restaurants. I took a better look at the map and realised that what I had thought were little symbols for trees were actually wine glasses! Having seen only tree sparrows, common magpies and lots and lots of old Chinese people and tourists, I headed to the south end of Houhai Lake to try Beihai Park. What I found was a big wall (not a great wall, just a big one). You needed to pay to get into Beihai Park. The sign said 10 Yuan. I handed over a 20 and waited for change. The woman just looked at me blankly. I made it clear that the sign said 10 and she very grumpily gave me change. First day, already trying to rip me off!! Beihai Park was also not what I was after. I think the reason you have to pay is because of the buildings and temples in there. I walked round the west side of the lake first. You know those square holes in the paving in which trees grow, and there is gravel around the tree trunk? Here the gravel is all cemented in place around the tree and looks like it has been lacquered! It's just that kind of place.
I was very pleased to see a group of azure-winged magpies. For some reason I had always thought of them as having short tails, like a jay, but they instead have long tails like the regular magpies. Nice birds they are, really common here as well; I reckon I'm going to see them at every free park I visit. When I reached the road at the far end I walked all the way back the way I'd come and went round the east side of the lake. This was a bit better, more trees and grass (not a lot, but more than the west side). I could hear a crow cawing and thought it sounded like a carrion (Oriental) crow so I popped off the path to see. Two big black birds were on the ground amongst the trees. “Ah, crows,” I thought, but once I got the binoculars on them it was obvious they weren't crows. In fact they looked more like some kind of thrush, but what the heck sort of thrush gets that big?! I suddenly realised they were blackbirds! I mean, holy smokes, what sort of steroids are they feeding blackbirds over here!! I had heard Chinese blackbirds were bigger than European blackbirds but I didn't think the difference would be that huge! Whoever thought they belonged to the same species as the European one needs their head read!
First day in China has been pretty trippy. People everywhere. Seriously: everywhere, people. Also I was not enjoying climbing so many stone steps around the temple on the island in the lake – too much walking on the flat open steppe, that's my problem! I saw six people today wearing kitty cat ears on their heads; five of them were girls. I found a restaurant where I got a big plate of “noodles with meat sauce” (basically spaghetti bolognese) for 18 Yuan – about NZ$3.50. It isn't easy eating spaghetti bolognese with chopsticks. If I can get used to the over-abundance of people I think I will like China. Just have to hope some sort of zombie virus doesn't get released here though – the way the people are packed in it would only take about three hours for the whole of the country to become zombies.
If you like historical fiction, Conn Iggulden has a series of novels about Genghis Khan.
Maybe next time.
