The most amazing month ever ...first stop... Beijing

This past month has been simply incredible! I will write an individual blog post on each place that I went to!

Let’s begin with Beijing…

I took a fast train from Zhengzhou to Beijing. It only took two and a half hours. The train went at 308 kilometres an hour…that’s nearly 200 miles an hour!! The train station looked like an airport, it was immaculately clean, it was new and it had plenty of space. I was very impressed. It was so cheap too...especially compared with the train prices in the UK. It cost me the equivalent of around £30. Sadly, to most of the population of China, that's not affordable. Or maybe it's a good thing because these fast railway stations and trains are probably the least crowded places in Chinese cities!! 

As soon as I arrived in Beijing, I was approached by a man asking if I wanted a taxi. He was charging a ridiculous amount, 550RMB (which is like £50). I was sensible and went to the designated taxi rank. It ended up costing me 41RMB (like £4!) to arrive at the hotel where my family were staying. So when you’re on your travels, be aware that some people are seriously prepared to rip off foreigners!!

When I met my family for the first time in five months, I was nearly crying! I have lived away from home before, in university and in Italy. China has been different though. I have literally been counting down the days to see them again.

We had a little catch up and we were soon ready to begin exploring. We were only in each city for four days at the most so we had a lot to see and do in such little time!

Most of my friends here in Zhengzhou have been to Beijing before. Most didn’t think highly of it. Luckily, because my expectations were low, I was surprised to actually like Beijing a lot more than I expected to! The traffic everywhere was worse than Zhengzhou! Also, thank God I never have to catch a bus in Beijing. We walked passed a bus queue that seemed endless!

The first places we visited were the Lama temple and the Confucius temple. They were both very pretty temples. They were beautiful colours with old trees all around them. The shrines inside the temples were amazing too. I had no idea who Confucius was until I went there. I felt a bit naive not knowing who one of China's most famous historic figures was. 

Unfortunately, I don’t have many photos of inside the temples as it is considered bad luck and disrespectful to take photos there.

 Tiananmen Square was interesting. There were cameras EVERYWHERE! In front of the square was the entrance to the Forbidden City and a giant portrait of Mao (a Chinese communist revolutionary) on the wall. As we went inside the Forbidden City, Chinese tourists were having pictures taken touching the giant doors leading the way into the Forbidden City. They were doing this because the doors now symbolise the freedom of the public to enter a place that had always closed to the outside world. 

One night we decided to go to a peking opera. We tried to go to a famous restaurant that did an amazing duck meal (Peking duck), but we arrived too late and didn’t get a table. So we ate somewhere else then tried to find the opera. The taxi drove us to the wrong place and everyone we asked said it was around the corner but we just couldn’t find it!! Being in a situation like this made me realise it would have been so much easier if I could speak Mandarin, (not just the Mandarin for numbers, greetings and food)!! Amazingly, none of us lost our nerves and kept going. Turns out, my dad went to ask for directions in a hotel and realised it was actually in the hotel! It wasn't the best performance (maybe due to the fact I didn't understand any of it and the way of singing is very different to the Western style) but it was an experience.

One evening my dad and I decided to have a wonder outside our hotel. We walked past a wall that had a gap either side. We had never noticed it before. How astonished we were to peer around the corner and see China town. There was a long street filled with people, red lanterns and little restaurants. The place was buzzing! We walked down the street and came to a crossroads. In front of us were endless tourist stalls and to our left and right were endless food stalls. It was like a secret traditional world hidden from the outside modern city. They had scorpions, star fish and grasshoppers on sticks everywhere you looked. So many of them were still alive and moving on the sticks! My sister, who is a vegetarian, had to make a quick exit! I wasn't brave enough to try any of them!!!

The lack of Mandarin made life a little difficult for the John family! Even just phoning reception to ask for a bottle opener proved difficult. First they thought we wanted some robes, then coca cola then food. Eventually we got there. We were definitely needing some wine by then. Trying to communicate when you don't understand each other at all is so difficult!!! 

We didn’t have enough time to visit the Summer Palace or the Temple of Heaven. I was disappointed but I hope to return to the city again to see them! There’s only so much you can see in a few days.

So off we went to the next city, Shanghai…