Beijing, China: Big Buildings, Great Sights, Pushy People, & Crowdsby Randi / August 4, 2017
We’ve been together on this journey for a while, right? So it’s okay to get a little personal. Today we’re going to talk about what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real. The Real World: China. No we are going to talk about health issues we faced in Beijing, and then be rewarded with a look at our hilarious attempt to fix the little baby laptop in a huuuge Chinese computer parts superstore center where no one spoke English. It’s like an interlude. La la la la…
Just to clear up any potential confusion, no, that lead picture has nothing to do with anything. We just saw it on the street.
So, first of all, you think Beijing, you probably think air pollution. Luckily, the air pollution levels when we were there never reached high enough levels for an Unhealthy warning alert – according to @BeijingAir on twitter, the best provider for hourly updates and pollution levels. It’s incredibly useful and apparently trustworthy (run by the embassy, not by Chinese government, which has doctored the reports before, apparently). But even in the just ‘Moderate’ and ‘Unsafe for Sensitive Groups’ ranges, we were still uneasy about breathing in so much dangerous particulate matter. I mean, we were outside the whole time, walking around the super busy streets. So we did some research and found a shop in one of the business districts that sells masks. Not surgical masks, which do absolutely nothing, but legitimate face masks that actually filter out many of the dangerous particles. Doctor’s masks and scarves do zilch, p.s. Doctor’s masks, the ones they wear in surgery or at the dentist, and the most prevalent type you will see on people in China and other polluted countries, are only for protecting others (i.e. a patient) from any germs in the doctor’s mucus. They don’t do anything in the other direction, when the wearer is inhaling. It’s just a waste. Scarves, I imagine, are just as useless if not more so.
So, first of all, you think Beijing, you probably think air pollution. Luckily, the air pollution levels when we were there never reached high enough levels for an Unhealthy warning alert – according to @BeijingAir on twitter, the best provider for hourly updates and pollution levels. It’s incredibly useful and apparently trustworthy (run by the embassy, not by Chinese government, which has doctored the reports before, apparently). But even in the just ‘Moderate’ and ‘Unsafe for Sensitive Groups’ ranges, we were still uneasy about breathing in so much dangerous particulate matter. I mean, we were outside the whole time, walking around the super busy streets. So we did some research and found a shop in one of the business districts that sells masks. Not surgical masks, which do absolutely nothing, but legitimate face masks that actually filter out many of the dangerous particles. Doctor’s masks and scarves do zilch, p.s. Doctor’s masks, the ones they wear in surgery or at the dentist, and the most prevalent type you will see on people in China and other polluted countries, are only for protecting others (i.e. a patient) from any germs in the doctor’s mucus. They don’t do anything in the other direction, when the wearer is inhaling. It’s just a waste. Scarves, I imagine, are just as useless if not more so.
this is what I look like outside in China hahahahahahahahah #bankrobber
We made our way on our first afternoon to Torana Clean Air, a smaller store than we expected with a small range of face masks and room air purifiers. They did have the masks we wanted in the sizes we needed, just not a big range of colors, so we were stuck with this weird octagon color pattern. Whatever, I don’t care what I look like if it’s keeping my lungs safer. The mask is called the Vogmask, and it helps protect from airborne particulate matter and “non-oil airborne particles” like dust, pollen, and, best of all, SECONDHAND SMOKE! I’m gonna wear this baby on the trains so hard! I know that obviously this sort of mask isn’t perfect, but it is good at filtering big and tiny particles, according to studies, and decent at the dangerous sort-of-small particles, so as long as it’s better than nothing and better than a doctor’s mask, I’m happy. I would like to get one of those total face covers with the mouth hole that you blow out of but like I’m already stared at enough here I don’t think I would be able to handle more.
They were a bit expensive at about $30 USD, but that’s super worth it for something that is helping you not get asthma and lung cancer and all kinds of shit. I do feel like I can’t catch my breath sometimes here, so I will have to see a doctor when we get back about whether China-induced asthma is a thing, but overall it’s okay. Hooray for us looking like fools but acting like smarties! I like being healthy!
So, about that…
After we left Mongolia (hip hip hoorayyy!), I had some abdominal discomfort, like, in and around the kidneys. I was peeing a helluva lot more than usual, which by now you know is a lot anyway, and it wasn’t because of drinking much more fluid, so I was concerned. We decided to go to an international health clinic we had on our emergency list (we have a list of all the hospitals and clinics where we are going where mostly expats go, so they speak English), called Parkway Health. They made a same-day appointment for me and were so nice and professional and I love them.
It was a hilarious experience, if you forget the part about me not feeling great. With my symptoms, they pretty much just needed to do a urine test. So one of the many nice nurses led me to the bathroom upstairs, but it was locked. She got another nurse, and they both tried lots of random keys to unlock it, but nothing worked. I was just standing around for like 20 minutes. Finally one of them said, “Can you just hold it?” I did my best to communicate, “Um, I don’t just need to pee, you need to test my urine, like that’s the whole point of why I’m here??” Finally they got it open and took my sample off to the lab. Meanwhile, I met the doctor. She was a lady doctor so in your face, riddles. Her English was slightly less wonderful than all the main nurses’, but still good and I felt comfortable with her. She asked if we had been traveling hard for a while, and I explained that yes, we don’t sleep we just take trains to random places for like months now. I said I had just gotten to China from Mongolia AND SHE SHUDDERED. She gets it. I said how we were pretty much in a car for 7 days there where I had to hold my pee all day and I was also dehydrated. She was like no no no this is all bad! Are you sleeping? No I’m not sleeping as much as I should be or usually need to. She was SO CONCERNED. She kept putting her hand on my shoulder like for moral support, that’s how upset she was with like, these very minor complaints. It was like if I became a doctor. I would SO be the doctor telling everyone to sleep more and drink more water and getting so upset if they weren’t doing enough of either. She was like, listen, you need to sleep more, you need to drink more water, you need to eat berries, especially red ones (amazing medicine). Then she hit a language snag and said, “You need…it’s in Chinese pingwan (or pingyan I don’t know)…just….lying down on the bed is good.” I THINK SHE WAS TRYING TO TELL ME TO TAKE NAPS. I love this doctor! The results came back and showed signs of infection, and given the symptoms was 99% a UTI. Which, given how many jokes I made about getting UTIs in my recent posts, shows that the universe looooves messing with me.
if anyone knows why I’m sharing this picture we should be best friends
We went over the things that can cause a UTI and kind of just laughed:
Dehydration – CHECK
Holding urine – CHECK
Long car rides/travel – CHECK
Squatting instead of sitting when urinating – CHECK CHECK (all that business about how it’s better anatomically to squat is just for #2; for #1 for women it leads to incomplete emptying which leads to infection in the urinary tract which issss UTI)
Poor hygiene – CHECK did you READ the Mongolian outback post?
THANK YOU PARKVIEW I WUV YOU |
They brought me a paper cup of water in a plastic holder lolol |
I mean, every single thing! Man alive! She put me on a cycle of antibiotics (and I’m all better, p.s., this blog is on a 2-week tape delay). I went to the waiting room and told Z the good news (not sarcasm; it’s a simple easily treatable thing, that’s good news). Then I said, “The doctor said I need to sleep more, drink more water, and eat berries.” Z responded, “Oh SURE she did. Did she also order you to pet more small dogs??” I almost passed out laughing so hard and had a very hard time convincing him that doing more of my favorite things was indeed doctor’s orders.
I’m relieved that we went to a real doctor who believes in medicine and fixed me up. And mostly, I’m super grateful for our UK health insurance, which covers us worldwide and immediately gave the clear when the receptionists contacted them so we didn’t even have to pay out of pocket first. We area so lucky to have such good insurance that covers us everywhere we go – well, except in the USA. It covers us in freaking China and will continue to cover us in Kazakhstan and everywhere else, but it can’t cover the USA because their healthcare system is too much of a mess. Every other country is fine though! Jesus America.
Okay that’s enough about my insides! Here’s the treat I promised you (plus one more hilarious treat at the bottom) about our adventures in Beijing’s super intense electronics scene. One whole section of the city seems to be electronic parts superstores, selling all types of gadgets but most of all doing repairs and crazy customization of gadgets. Little baby laptop’s fan stopped working, so we took it to this section of the city and just dove in headfirst. We entered one of the giant buildings, and were greeted with four floors of indistinguishable counters with Chinese guys gadgeting huge messes of gadgets. We went over to one counter that we chose randomly and showed the guy the computer and mimed a fan turning with our hands and then did a NO gesture. He got it. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the part. We tried the next counter, and a guy was just not into trying to figure anything we were miming out (not as many English speakers as you might expect in such a city!). Onward! The guy at the next counter was in, and he rebooted the computer a few times and determined that the fan wasn’t actually broken, but that something was stopping it, so he needed to just go in there and clean the parts instead of replacing them. How we communicated this is a feat of human interaction and behavior because it did not happen with actual language.
So we watched as he took apart the entire little netbook, because since it’s so small everything is under the keyboard, and he really had to take every last piece out. Like, we went down to the motherboard. Little baby was in 30 pieces! And to check if what he did worked, he had to put it all together again, all the tiny little barely visible screws that each have a very specific part they go with so you have to keep all these tiny screws straight and it’s a mess! Of course, the first go-round didn’t jive well with the computer, because it refused to work! So back apart it all went, a little more fixing, and then back together. Oh it was EXCRUCIATING to watch. How can people watch actual surgeries?! Finally he did a few more rounds of fiddling and it was back! It took over an hour of stress and just sitting in the super hot warehouse with people staring at us like whaaat are these tourists doing here. We also increased the computer’s RAM (I think that means it has horns now!) and we got a Chinese power cord so we don’t have to keep plugging it in with an adaptor, and it all came to I think 230 RMB, which is less than $35. Not bad! It was kind of fun to have the kind of electronics experience usually reserved to locals who have a clue what they are doing with electronics. It was definitely out of the ordinary and cool to see.
ahhh GUTS
Okay, one more random thing, I guess relating to health? At the checkout at most grocery stores we went to, they have tons and tons of condoms where in the USA there would be, like, gum and candy bars. It’s a little disconcerting but hey, China is serious about birth control which is good! But one brand jumped out at us and we were CRACKING up.
UH HUH, that’s a condom brand called JISSBON. So shocking and hilarious! But it gets better, if you can believe it. Our Chinese friend said that jissbon is ACTUALLY WHAT CHINESE PEOPLE CALL JAMES BOND. So this condom line is named after James Bond! And it JUST HAPPENS TO SOUND HYSTERICALLY PERFECT FOR A CONDOM. Omg I can’t even believe. The writing underneath says something like “you can’t even see it”, something very 007 spy-like. Ahh it’s so funny!
Okay that’s all the random thoughts I have for today. And don’t worry Mom I’m all better and it was like nothing!
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Beijing, China: Big Buildings, Great Sights, Pushy People, & Crowds
After the endless dilapidation of Mongolia, the modernity and familiarity of a big city like Beijing was a breath of fresh air. Well, a breath of air. Walking around the smog with giant smiles on our faces, we have never been so happy to see Starbucks, H&M, heck they even had a Uniqlo! There were SKYSCRAPERS! THERE WERE SIDEWALKS! The cars were driving on paved roads! With painted lines on them for following traffic! No one followed the lines or any semblance of traffic laws but still, they were there! We were so happy to be in an established city, you cannot believe. Every time we saw stairs that weren’t falling apart, we smiled. Sure, for some reason the stairs all over the city are only 3 inches in height (what’s going on there) and we have to take them at least 2 at a time to make any progress and going down two steps at a time is suuuuuperrrr awkward, but hey, it’s A CITY!
EVEN MORE SALE?? well by gum!
There was so much to see and do, but our first day we decided to leisurely explore and eat and try to take it easy while we could, with four packed sightseeing days and months of hectic travel still to come. We had an amazing lunch (separate post natch!), stocked up at the vegetarian shop (will be in the food post), and checked out Tiananmen Square, the thing we had to do our first day.
HELLO MR WOBOT I WUV YOU WOBOT
So many people but because the square is so big it’s probably the least dense crowd anywhere in China!
Damn that place is big! And crowded! And very impressive. It’s the world’s largest public square, three times bigger than Red Square, and speaking of Moscow, I haven’t seen such a police presence since our time in that city. All around Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City environs, it’s all police barricades, all the time. The lines can stretch for enormous city blocks, and you have to go down stairs and through underground tunnels and back up only to be in another line for security and metal detector checks, then back in a line to cross the street underground then MORE labyrinthine underground tunnels to try to find the part of the square you actually want to be in. It is not easy to get around, and you cannot bet on being somewhere at a certain time because the path that makes sense to get there will not be available. The heavy police control of the area put the Moscow barricading shenanigans to shame.
We arrived that first time in the evening, and there was a huge crowd of people waiting around waiting for something. We were excited – what had we chanced upon? We found European lookers who we guessed would speak English, and they said that just every sunset there is a flag-lowering ceremony, and same for raising at sunrise. Dude. Y’all need better activities. We did not wait around for that.
The north side of the square is marked by the huge portrait of Mao, at the Gate of Heavenly Peace. The Chinese really know how to give epic names.
The north side of the square is marked by the huge portrait of Mao, at the Gate of Heavenly Peace. The Chinese really know how to give epic names.
The square seems to go on forever, with a few important buildings on the sides but nothing really in the middle except billions of people. Most striking to us was our first glimpse into the government’s close monitoring of its people: there are loads of security cameras everywhere, mounted on every pole, everywhere you look.
We went back to the square another day for an epic day of sightseeing. We had SUCH a schedule: Get up super early to see Mao’s tomb (another embalmed corpse to add to our list this summer!) (opens at 7:30am), explore the Forbidden City for the first half of the day into the afternoon, and then visit the Temple of Heaven in the afternoon. It would be a lot, but there’s a lot to see here! Our plans to get to Mao early and done with were thwarted by several things. First, the police barricading was off the charts. We walked for a good 30 minutes past where we wanted to go because we just couldn’t get into that section. It was ridiculous. When we finally got to Mao’s tomb, we were concerned at the lack of visible queueing, considering everything we read said that the lines would be super long. There was a single guard outside his tomb, and a few straggler tourists looking in like ‘hey why can’t we go in?’ But yeah, we couldn’t go in. We googled. Mao’s tomb has been closed for months for renovations or new embalming time or some such nonsense and won’t open till the fall! Nooo! Our most important corpse of the summer! Lucky Z saw the shiny body when he was here for the Olympics, but now I’ll have to come back. Or, ya know, I’m okay. I have seen a lot of shiny corpses lately. Just a disappointment not to add the big kahuna to my list.
MAO I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE LET ME IN
Anyway, we then made our way to the Forbidden City, along with all of China’s billion+ people. Hot damn, I don’t think I’ve ever been in such an enormous crowd for so long. It was the most crowded place ever, so big and endless a site but teeming with people in every corner, at every turn. I figured, jeez but at least this is like, the MOST crowded and important tourist attraction in the biggest most populated city in China, so it can only get better from here. HAHA but Beijing isn’t the biggest city! I made an ass out of you and me! Shanghai has almost like 9 million more people! AND SHANGHAI ISN’T EVEN THE BIGGEST! This country is enormous! Even little cities we’ve never heard of have more people than NYC! ahhhhhh. So yes, the Forbidden City is amazing and important to see, but dayum, take your Ativan, because PEOPLE BE PUSHING.
when it started raining people hid under cover like they were gonna melt
Not just the name of a Chinese restaurant we used to get takeout from in the Illadelph, Forbidden City is a palace complex that was home to two imperial dynasties until the last Qing emperor. So not a city, but as big as a city. They’re trying to get away from that whole ‘wait is it a city no definitely not a city but sort of’ name by calling it the Palace Museum but that sounds super lame compared to the imposing connotation of the real name. Now it is full of ancient gates and buildings used as museums now, for imperial jewels and art and clocks and stuff. The gates and the buildings from the outside are the most impressive, but it goes on and on forever. FOREVER. It’s hot in the summer and sticky, and even though it rained for a bit when we were there it was still so gross. And people touch your arms because there’s no room even though it is CITY-SIZED and there’s no worse feeling than strange sweaty arm touching your sweaty arm and brb I have to go vomit.
First stop in the palace grounds was the pottery museum, because the BOOK SAID SO. It was fine, I mean pottery is not thrilling, but the ceiling in that building was awesome. Yes I liked the ceiling best.
Then we started making our way through the famous gates. The best part is that I got to act like Mulan and take a picture in front of the steps of where she flies in at the end and like saves the emperor or whatever I forget the plot but I know the music is great.
Then we started making our way through the famous gates. The best part is that I got to act like Mulan and take a picture in front of the steps of where she flies in at the end and like saves the emperor or whatever I forget the plot but I know the music is great.
So oh, backtrack, because if I try to move pictures around it’ll crash because getting on the internet here in China is precarious like a perch. Upon arrival at the Forbidden City, you get in a super long line to buy tickets. Suuuper long. We waited at least a half hour. It doesn’t include everything in the grounds – as always, you have to pay extra for some exhibits like the Clock Tower and the Treasury. Boo. Right before entering the ticket area, there’s a big toilet. No one does public toilets like the Chinese! Right outside, we chanced upon this water show, like a baby-Bellagio.
You enter the Meridian Gate, and you take pictures with a billion Chinese people in them. Then you go through a temple, see a throne room, then go through another gate, then another temple, then another gate, all separated by big plazas and millions of people and it takes forever and you are literally like 1% through the enormous grounds.
The best part of the Forbidden City is the Imperial Garden, which is likely the last part of your visit so make sure you leave time for it. I wish we had gone faster through the endless gate and temple part to spend more time in the gardens, but it was all super crowded anyway. Literally all my garden photos look like just group shots of Chinese people, so this is my attempt at photographing the northern sections with as few people as possible:
garden
I went IN THE DEPTHS OF CROWD to get this picture. It was so sweaty so many sweaty arms omg omgomg
I think we didn’t even see all of it, because it’s kind of a maze of 7000 square meters of beauty and 7000 million other visitors. It’s lovely though.
Nine Snakes Wall or something
The best thing about the Forbidden city, besides of course seeing all these important sights, is that they have a good number of well-signed toilets. Harder to find but just as important is the restaurant, which does bento-style (is it wrong to use that word to describe Chinese food) meals and has a mushroom-based vegetarian option. I’m including it here and not on the food post because we are talking about the Forbidden City and it just makes sense.
This was actually really good and not just because I was very hungry! It was 46 RMB (like $7) which is great considering it was the one restaurant in the entire grounds and they could have seriously overcharged. There are several snack stands and cafes with little boxed burgers and other nonsense, so the restaurant is worth finidng. Bring a lot of water and snacks though, especially in the summer because it will be hot and sweaty. You’ll be able to buy water here and there but it’s expensive, and I saw mostly just little tiny 16 oz. bottles which is a joke, those are good for one sip.
The Forbidden City is a must do, of course, but is kind of stressful so be sure you are in the right mindset for it. Like don’t go to a museum beforehand or anything completely foolish like that. It did seem less crowded when we left around 3 or 4pm ish, but considering we arrived at like 10am, you don’t want to risk not having enough time if you arrive late. Go, get it over with, get good pictures of famous sights and a million strangers, and then move on to the more enjoyable places.
Like the Temple of Heaven.
We went to the Temple of Heaven immediately after our super long Forbidden City day because we are masochists. The beautiful, relatively calm park features wide open but manicured spaces and several important buildings to visit inside. You need to get the more expensive ticket option in order to enter the important buildings, most especially the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, which is a gorgeous blue building that, I’ma guess, was for praying for good harvests.
So beautiful, right? This is a 19th century reproduction of the building that was originally built in 1420 – it was destroyed in the 1800s by a LIGHTNING BOLT! What are the odds.
The Imperial Vault of Heaven is another of the inside sights to see. It was for the early gymnastics teams to practice their vaults, I assume.
I’m sorry if this pic is actually not the vault place it’s hard to remember so many things when I have so many song lyrics in my memory spaces
The Echo Wall is apparently able to carry a whisper from one side to the other, so you could communicate with someone far away, and the book says that it’s hard to find a time when the crowd won’t inhibit your efforts to do so, but what really inhibited us was the complete lack of signage about where these supposed whisper spots were located. FOR SHAME. Whatever. You know how else I can hear Z? By standing next to him.
The Echo Wall is apparently able to carry a whisper from one side to the other, so you could communicate with someone far away, and the book says that it’s hard to find a time when the crowd won’t inhibit your efforts to do so, but what really inhibited us was the complete lack of signage about where these supposed whisper spots were located. FOR SHAME. Whatever. You know how else I can hear Z? By standing next to him.
There’s also a place called the Animal Killing Pavilion which like, yes I’m sure that’s an accurate name but COME THE F ON, BRIDGET. Aside from that, the Temple of Heaven was a lovely park. I wish there were more toilets – it was hard to find one inside the park and I almost pulled a Mongolia behind a tree. But it’s definitely a must visit.
Another day, we did some temple-viewing: first, the Lama Temple and then the Confucius Temple & Imperial College. It’s so interesting how similar they are in terms of architecture and structure and design, except the former is the typical kind brimming with piles of money and fruit given in devotion, and the latter has none of that. I like Confucius’s style. It bothers me so much to see poor people put their money and food in front of a golden statue. It’s SO weird. Like, use that to feed yourself. Religion is such a scam. But at least these temples are beautiful.
i can’t smile because my hat is so messed up
The Lama Temple is apparently the most renowned Tibetan Buddhist temple that is not in Tibet, which is a big deal. The guide book says it’s “a glittering attraction in Beijing’s Buddhist firmament,” which cracks me up because that’s like almost exactly what Lina Lamont says in her interview and I keep hearing it in her voice and getting the giggles. The temples are imposing and gorgeous, and the statues aren’t boring even though by now we’ve seen many iterations on the same theme.
New here though, and common throughout China we would find, is that they give you incense to burn at designated fire pits, essentially, to assist in your prayer. Even though I hate incense, smoke, and perfumey smells of all kinds, I participated because I got to burn things for free. There really are fire stations all over these temples, with big open flames with tons of people just pushing each other trying to get their sticks into the fire. It is dangerous. We got ours enflamed and then were like, so now what do we do. We looked around for guidance and realized that all these people were in fact Buddhists and were bowing to the statues with their incense smoke being offered to their deities. We were like oh maybe we just stand back.
They gave us packs of 10 sticks but the signs said only to burn 3 and we didn’t want to offend the gods so we have partially full incense packs from Lama Temple as our very first souvenir of this entire summer. What are the odds they actually make it back to London?
daaaaaaaamn what this bitch’s problem!
During our time in Mongolia and in Southeast Asia, we learned enough about Buddhism and the various players that we are now able to recognize symbolism in the statues and be like oh is that Green Tara or is that the other guy? Pretty interesting and confusing. I’m reminded here of the yoga retreat/cult compound I went to in California where the elders told me that their esteemed yoga Founder was both Jesus and Buddha in a previous life. Cool. Cool cool cool cool.
Just down the street from Lama Temple is Confucius Temple & Imperial College, so make a big morning or afternoon of seeing both of these sites plus all the neighborhood’s many hutongs (narrow alleyways with historic courtyard homes set back from the busyness of the city; the books make a bigger deal about these hutongs than they’re worth, like, you’ll see them just being out in the city and they’re fine but not like ‘do a whole hutong walking tour!’ levels of importance). The Confucian Temple’s tranquility was undeniable, with pavilions and important old trees and, of course, the statue of the big guy himself.
YO FYOOOOSH WHAT’S THE HAAAAPS
It’s nice just to walk around the outside grounds (I wasn’t really into the museum-y parts lining the perimeter, they are boring) and enjoy the moat and bridges around the main temples.
I love a good moat
On the same grounds is the Imperial College, not to be confused with the one that spawned many a great University Challenge team, but the one built by the grandson of Kublai Khan in 1306. It was once the most important and highest regarded academic college, for three dynasties.
it totally still feels like a college!
Am I just drinking the Kool Aid or does Confucianism seem totally reasonable? I think I need to learn more about it, but the choice quotes they had reprinted in English along the grounds were hard to argue with. Stuff like be kind and don’t be a daft prick and stuff like that. On board.
Honestly, the best part about Beijing – besides being in a real city with real city perks – is that it put all the amazing English tee shirts and stuff we’ve seen in Russia and Mongolia to shame. Of course the stuff we see in China is going to be soo much better, it’s all made here. And I don’t feel super bad about pointing out how dumb it all is because western people trying to use Chinese characters (or any character-based language) is 100x worse. This is mostly adorable. Every time, we want to be like, do you know what your shirt says?! From 90-year-old men wearing shirts that say “Parental Advisory: Explicit Content” to young men wearing shirts saying “The Future Looked Bright” to girls wearing “Dream of Hope and Tomorrow is Yes” sweatshirts, it’s an endless and amazing onslaught of bad English.
does it say anything ABOVE plagiarism???!!! I hope not
THAT’S NOT VERY NICE
I guess that’s close enough
As such, the signage around the city (and country) is flipping awesome too.
looks like someone just saw the movie with Sarah Marshall where the cell phone KILLS PEOPLEEEEE
I don’t know what this means
WAIT WAIT, HOLD THE PHONE – PEEING IN THE POOL IS YOU ARE THE BEST???
The above toilet sign is obviously my Life Credo
just super impressed that they got this verb tense right but then spelled around wrong, SO CLOSE
And of course, those of you on my facebook have seen this incredible one:
We also loved these people taking a photoshoot of their baby right on the street:
The least best thing about Beijing is realizing how rough it will be for us throughout China coming from the UK, Land of Proper Queueing. Chinese people DO NOT QUEUE. We’d be waiting in line for something, anything – the subway’s security check (every metro station begins with a bag x-ray), a toilet, tickets for a tourist attraction, checkout at the grocery store – and without fail at least two people will just cut right in front of us when we get to the front. And I don’t think it’s out of rudeness – they really just do not recognize that as wrong. It’s very much dog eat dog (I won’t make the obvious dumb joke), everyone looking out for himself, and discourteous behavior is not good or bad, it’s just part of the culture. It’s annoying in crowded places like on the subway – you know how if someone is trying to pass, you’ll scooch up a little to let them pass, fully intending to reclaim your space after they pass and not remaining on your tiptoes with no center of gravity? Yeah here, someone will take that little bit of space you scooched for before you can put your heels down. It’s annoying. The subways really are sooo crowded. And despite being such an international city, everyone stared at us for being white. It is not fun, and I imagine it is going to get super old super fast, and only will worsen as we go into the not-so-touristed bits.
You know what else is super hard wrap my head around? Everyone burps and farts, and LOUD. It’s insane. We knew about all the spitting – we didn’t realize just how prevalent it was, but we knew people would hack up a lung and spit it on the street. (I didn’t expect young beautiful women to do it, which was sexist of me, because I quickly learned they are gross champs at it. It’s kind of hilarious.) (Is it because of the pollution? It’s more forgivable if so.) But we did not know about the farting. It is unmistakable – in restaurants, cafes, museums, trains, we keep hearing like a sound effects version of a fart and realize it’s coming from a nearby person and then another and another. SO GROSS.
HOTEL
We stayed at one of the 161 Wanfujing Hotel chain outlets, right down the street from the nicer Courtyard version of the hotel. It was fine, more like a hostel than a hotel, or at least a budget hotel, but with our own bathroom. The bed and bathroom were clean at least, if the room at large just…wasn’t, and the lobby area was nice. They had a mezzanine seating area that the sign said was open till 11pm (the wifi was better there; awful in the rooms) but every night a girl would kick us out at 10pm and say ‘just tonight is special closing time’ or some nonsense that by the 3rd or 4th time I just refused to leave until 11pm. The only trouble with the hotel is that there’s a tourist service desk in the lobby, a separate company’s representative, but still, in the lobby, and the guy selling the tours is a big bag o’ dicks. We got our Great Wall tour through him (so did everyone in the hotel and all surrounding hotels and hostels, apparently, it was just for the most popular big bus trips there) and it was different from what he sold us in terms of size and vehicle and other details. When we confronted him after the fact, he asked if we had a recording of him to prove that he lied. F-ing hell I wish I punched him in the throat but I can’t get arrested here. Luckily it wasn’t that big a deal, we still had an amazing time on the Wall, but to be confronted with a level of customer service that makes London’s look good is astonishing.
Aside from Prickadick McGee, we really enjoyed our time in Beijing and would happily go back. On the corner of the main street leading to our hotel was a supermarket (yay cheap water!), and every night there would be a group of old ladies dancing on the corner in a choreographed dance. It was amazing. We wondered how they learned it, but then one night we saw the instructor calling out moves, presumably teaching a new dance. Was so fun. I love old lady public group dancing.
GOALS
The food was amazing (next post), as was the Great Wall, which warrants its own separate post too. No matter what you think it’ll be like, it will still surprise you with how spectacular it is. I would love to go back to see another section of it. As a city, Beijing was exactly what we needed at this time, and was a great welcome back to civilization. Getting anywhere was a bit intense, just because there were so many people, but honestly after our time in sparse Mongolia, a huge number of people in a big city was kind of refreshing. More like home! Obviously, we got sick of the unfathomable crowds quickly (1 in 5 people in the world are Chinese now? that’s more than are Penn State graduates!) but for our first stop of 5+ weeks in China, Beijing was everything we could have asked for.
if you look closely, you should see why Panama should be pissed
St. Petersburg, Russia: So Much Better Than What “Anastasia” Taught Me
Greetings from Cankt Peterbourg! I wish I could access the Russian keyboard on this little netbook but I can’t/don’t feel like it. We’re having a great time in St. Petersburg, which in English adds the ‘s’ after Peter but in the Russian there’s no ‘s’! Fun! With! Languages! Before this trip, my only exposure to this quite charming city was the song from “Anastasia” that starts: “St. Petersburg is gloomy! St. Petersburg is bleak! My underwear got frozen standing here all week!” But it’s better than that. Well that is a very low bar but St. Petersburg is very nice. Though it has been raining hard a lot which is gloomy, and yes it is cold but like, for the summer, not for the earth, and definitely not cold enough to freeze undies. The city is a very interesting mix of old and new school while still seeming totally European. We are surely easing in slowly to the onslaught of Soviet towns we will be seeing later, because right now it still feels like we’re in Europe.
Well, except for the Cyrillic everywhere! It is so strange and so cool to finally see what we have been preparing for with our Russian classes. We’re doing great, if not at communicating with people (omg SLOW DOWN (oh and maybe could you write it down I’m better at reading kthx)) then at least at reading signs (and menus! Most are in English too! We’re great at that!). They say for all languages you really learn when you are immersed, and I can see how true that would be for Russian, now that we actually are surrounded by it and its alphabet. We’re definitely getting stronger with reading Cyrillic quickly and I have high hopes that that will lead to comprehension. Maybe by the time we get to Siberia we will actually be able to handle the fact that no one will speak English! I dream big.
When we got off the train on Saturday at Finylandskiy Vauxhall (named after the country we had just left? That’s confusing!), we walked around the station to find the giant Lenin statue, commemorating the big speech he gave when he arrived in St. Petey’s in 1917 during the Revolution. We start our sightseeing immediately, even when we have 90-pound backpacks on (and I’m frontpacking too ughhh I have too much stuff but I don’t know what I can get rid of! I really did just bring the bare minimum but we’re going to every season!). We walked the half hour or so to our hostel, The Travellers’ Palace, and it was hot so that was pretty rough because like I said, 90 pounds. I will either break or be super strong by the end of this. The receptionist at the hostel is very friendly and helpful, and even though we can hear every footstep people take at all hours of the night and they sound like gorillas stomping around and even though someone stole my bananas and apples from the fridge (they were labelled!) (and I KNOW bananas in the fridge is weird but I was keeping everything together in the labelled bag (so f-ing ironic!)), we like the hostel fine. The shower is legit the strongest I can remember taking in my entire life, like it was intended for an elephant and I wish I could take it with me. The rooms here are named after famous Russian literary characters, like Onegin and Catherine. It was quite the good omen when we were put in Karenina, considering Anna K is my favorite book (once you pretend that that final section about Levin finding Jesus by talking to peasants (“Life is often so unpleasant / You would know this, as a peasant!”) doesn’t exist)! There’s a little light-up train on my bedside table and everything, haha so morbid. And across the hall is the room called Bolkonsky, like the prince’s family in War & Peace! So it’s like the universe wants me to keep singing “The Great Comet” at every moment of this trip!
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Nevsky Prospekt
Horse Wash!
Once we dropped our stuff, it was already late afternoon, so the best use of our time was to stroll the Nevsky Prospekt, the main boulevard running through the city that everyone spells with a K even in English so I’m rolling with it. It houses all the big stores, lots of restaurants, a good number of statues and monuments, and lots and lots of people. Walking along it is a great first thing to do in St. Petey’s because you can get a sense of the city’s layout and feel, while seeing both important historical markers and fun Russian chain stores (like the Russian version of Sephora whose Russian name is pronounced like Rive Gauche lol that and Sushi Wok, where the ‘sushi’ is in Cyrillic but the ‘wok’ is in our/Latin characters, crack me up every time. There are also horse statues along the various canals which we liked because it reminds us of our flat in London (those who have been over and have seen what we call the Horse Wash will know why!).
Singersss
On the Nevksy Prospekt is the famous Singers sewing machine factory, or the building that used to be that and now is a giant bookstore in the most beautiful building along the boulevard. Inside, they had a snack section that had vegan bars (similar to Lara Bars)! Marked and everything! Come on obviously I love books and bookstores but we can’t buy books on this trip (or anything) but we need snacks. We also saw this monument to Catherine the Great (with her laavaaahs).
you can call me kitty kat
So many canals all over the place, so they call StP the Venice of the North and it’s hard to get a handle on streets
The other hugely famous building along the Nevsky Prospekt is the giant department store Gostiny Dvor. Although we are so determined not to add anything to our packs right at the beginning of the summer, we have a necessity exception – and we needed umbrellas so we bought umbrellas there yesterday (after we got drenched in a downpour, naturally). Upstairs at the Gostiny Dvor, the long, curving walkways are nearly empty and provide great views of the Prospekt. What most people don’t find, however, is the INSANE CELEBRITY FIGURE AND ANIMAL SCULPTURE GARDEN around a far bend that no one goes to. OH MY GOD, look, it’s Hagrid and the Harry Potter kids STANDING BEHIND PUTIN! No big deal! Don’t mind the peasants with sickles! OR THE DINOSAUR! Why this isn’t the #1 thing to do in St. Petersburg I will never understand. As it is, it’s pretty much hidden and NO ONE was there or even nearby so I think I discovered some kind of magical walkway.
you’re a wizard vladdy
Ruby Sparks was a very good movie
As for serious things, the Kazan Cathedral is along the Prospekt, a Russian Orthodox church dedicated not to Elia or even Zoe but to Our Lady of Kazan, which I know is very helpful. It’s not a very nice looking Cathedral, kind of the most Soviet and drab-looking thing we’ve seen yet, but it could just be that it is severely outshone by the gorgeous cathedral across the way from it, The Church of Spilled Blood. I know, I know, it doesn’t exactly sound like the most beautiful spot in all St. Petersburg, but it is! It’s real name is the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood which yes doesn’t really help my case. So it’s built around the spot where Alexander II was mortally wounded and inside there’s a little stone area and canopy marking the exact spot where he was hit by grenades and suffered the injuries that killed him a little later (he actually died in the Hermitage) you know what why don’t I just show you:
no use crying over spilled oooohhhh nm
come at me laser jesus
See it really is soo beautiful even though it’s so dire. But all churches are built around and commemorating dire circumstances. This church, which we went in yesterday, is one of the most incredible churches I’ve ever seen, definitely in my top five. I know I said in a recent Spain post that ugh churches, who can tell them apart after St Peter’s, but this was a great one. I was blown away by how beautiful it was inside and outside. Usually they’re whatever on the inside, full of paintings of oldies and crucifixen, but this one is decorated in 100% MOSAIC. Every painting and image you see is made up of tiny tiles (that is what mosaic means!). See that lady getting lasered from the heavens by a laser-happy Jesus? ALL TILES. How incredible is this?
what happens if the glue stops working rain of tiles |
This canopy covers the actual spot where Alexander II was hit by the grenade/s. They built the church around it. |
this is the most beautiful lavish door to jesus I’ve ever seen
THE HERMITAGE
erma gerd, the hermiterge
On Sunday, we woke up early (lol not) and went to The Hermitage, the endless museum inside the Winter Palace. We read about how crowded it is, especially in the summer, and how the lines for tickets can stretch to a kilometer long. Because of this, we were tempted to buy tickets online, but they cost $18 online and only 700 rubles in person so we decided to risk it. And it’s a good thing we did, because there was no line. We bought tickets at one of several kiosks in the courtyard and went right in. On a Sunday! In the summer! We were so pleased with ourselves and got a little too cocky about it because after about an hour and half the Chinese cruise ship groups arrived ahhhh! It was wall to wall and they really like to push so it got a little rough. But it was still great. The Hermitage has millions of pieces of art, so you really need a plan to make sure you see what you wanna see. The state rooms of the palace and the Russian art are the most important. The Italian and French art is great, of course, but we’ve seen that literally every weekend at museums in London. That sounds very ridiculous of me but when you live in a museumy city like London, it’s important to see stuff that’s different from what you see all the time and feel okay about skipping the same same stuff. So in the Hermitage, we focused on the palace parts, the preserved rooms and furniture and sculptures and stuff, over paintings that have nothing to do with Russian history. And the palace rooms, hoo boy are they amazing. We both love malachite and cobalt shiz and this palace was full of both. It was all so stunning. I especially loved this gazebo.
i wish luke and lorelai got married on this one
We were both obsessed with the library, which was so Belle. And I loved the Peacock Clock, which I didn’t know at first even was a clock. I mean the tiny mushroom thing at the bottom has a clock on it so it’s not like the whole amazing gold artwork is a clock, it’s literally just the smallest piece of it that is a clock, but still, pretty cool. I got in fights with Chinese men who were trying to push me aside when I was taking this picture.
The Hermitage is important to visit, I think, since it’s such a well-known tourist attraction, but it’s exhausting. It goes on forever, and the bathrooms are very poorly located. We had to backtrack through to the entrance to find one, when we were like in the middle of the top floor. So dumb. It shouldn’t be that hard! But I’m glad we went and saw the great pieces they had. It’s easy to spend hours and hours there, but don’t.
I expect grander thrones 
how beautiful is this fancy witch’s cauldron 
a clock that is also a giant piece of furntiure |
not sure what this was but i liked it it was like a big like thing 
this was called the boudoir but it was just a lot of velvety chairs so nice though |
Even though we were pretty beat after our day at the Hermiterge, we decided to walk to St. Isaac’s Cathedral next (in the pouring rain! no umbrellas yet!) and climb the 260 stairs to the top of the golden dome! For the view! So pretty! The golden dome you see in the picture is very striking in the skyline. The climb wasn’t that bad at all, and it was worth it for the stunning views. Note that the main Cathedral is one ticket and the entrance for the climb to the top of the dome is another separate ticket. It’s worth it though! Again I’m proved wrong because the insides of this church were beautiful too. Russia keeps proving me wrong about church insides! St. Isaac’s was full of malachite columns which were stunning.
the view from the top of Isaac’s
main altar at Isaac’s |
that’s Isaac! no i don’t know |
The cathedral tour of Russia is only just beginning! After we saw the Church of Spilled Blood, we went to the Peter and Paul Fortress, the original citadel of St. Petersburg built by Peter the Great in 1703. It’s a big complex full of various museums, but we skipped the many museums (so many museums!) and went straight to the Peter & Paul Cathedral, the gold spire in the city skyline. This Cathedral houses the tombs of Russian czars from Peter I to Alexander III, and there’s a little room off to the side with the Romanovs, including Anastasia, which I was excited to see and then realized how messed up that is. But speaking of, I still haven’t written about the new Broadway musical so maybe I will do that in honor of seeing her tomb! So morbid I’m sorry. It was a decent show, and a decent church. The fortress was best for its views of the Hermitage and other stately buildings from the other side of the river. Luckily today was the one sunny day in the middle of lots of rain so this view on our walk along the riverfront fortress was lovely.
the Romanovs tombs
After we saw all the things Monday, we took the subway (new subway!) down to the Grand Maket Rossiya, which is a private museum of a scale model of ALL OF RUSSIA. It is AWESOME. It shows everyday life in every part of Russia, from St. Petersburg (included the building we were in, weeeird) and all the monuments we’ve seen so far, to Moscow, to Siberia and the Urals and the Sochi Olympics and farmers everywhere and a movie studio with various funny backlots and people on the beach and lots of trains and lots of construction and just EVERYTHING you could imagine in life, they had it on the model. It was so cool, and so giant and detailed that it took an hour and a half just to walk around it once. One of the coolest parts was that the lights would go down every 13 minutes for 2 minutes, gradually to show the sun setting and then rising. Some of the ‘night’ sections there were thunderstorms which was kind of crazy. My favorite part, of course, was that Vinnie Poo (the Russian Winnie the Pooh who is NOTHING like the Winnie we know) was hidden in one of the forests. I also loved the “Bad Husband” section that showed a man in his underwear on the sidewalk as his wife threw all his clothes out the window. Like. What.
Is that Putin riding a bear?? 
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So yeah so far St Petersburg has been very nice! The weather is ploha, with super heavy rainstorms most days. Yay for anoraks! Drivers here are absolutely insane, like super speeding down the Nevksy and no cops ever stop it. Don’t rent a car here! Traffic is really bad too so we mostly walk everywhere. One thing I’ve noticed is how confusing but nice the pedestrian crossings are. Most have green walking man countdown clocks, and most give you a crossing time of well over 30 seconds, some even 90 seconds! BUT, the confusing part, the red man/don’t walk man gets a countdown too, and sometimes they switch red to green/ stop to go without finishing the clock. Like yesterday we were crossing and green man said we had 30 seconds left but then it changed to red man and cars started going. I don’t know about that! I am tired. We’ve done a lot and we still have some museums we haven’t discussed yet! Today we are thinking of going to Peterhof, like the Versailles of Russia, but again it is super storming and it’s really a good weather type thing. We will see! Last night we saw the World’s Longest Opera at the Mariinsky Theatre, which was, well, long. It wasn’t as long time-wise as the Mastersingers but it was longer soul-wise. It also might be as fun to write about as the Mastersingers was so stay tuned! A little more on St Pete’s to come (and food!), and then we’re off literally on a midnight train to Moscow. Byeeee!
