Thursday was our travel day, as we got up early to catch our bullet train to Beijing. The train itself was fairly confortable, with adequate legroom and seats that reclined generously. Covering the considerable distance between Shanghai and Beijing in less than five hours was satisfying, though the novelty of traveling in excess of 300 km/h quickly wore off. Arriving in Beijing, we stopped to get a quick bite at the train station. I went to the KFC, because I had heard it said numerous times that visiting a KFC in China was a necessary experience. Maybe it was just a train station KFC, but I wasn’t impressed with the venue or the quality of the food. The shop didn’t have an English menu, which led some Chinese people nearby to laugh at the silly Americans. I looked at them and did my best to communicate that I knew that they were talking about us, but that didn’t seem to abash them.

Shanghai train station

After checking into the hotel, we headed out to get some street food, including sugared strawberries, Tibetan yogurt, scorpion, starfish, and lamb. The starfish was sand/salty with an unpleasant aftertaste, but everything else was quite good. We closed out our first night in Beijing by visiting a renowned Peking duck restaurant and having an extravagant meal. Walking back to the hotel, I was surprised to notice fireworks shooting off all around, including directly on the street we were walking along. According to our instructor Shelby, it was the Lantern Festival, which marks the end of the Lunar New Year celebration. That was the closest that I have ever been to such large fireworks and, amidst getting pelted with the ash, I was definitely questioning the wisdom of firing off firework in the street. It was undeniably a cultural experience, however.

Fried scorpions on a stick

Waking up the next morning, it was time to see some of the main attractions in Beijing: Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Our first experience at Tiananmen Square wasn’t the square itself, but the massive security line leading up to it. We found out later that ten people had been knifed earlier that day in Gungzhou and that it was the first day of the National People’s Congress, so security was much tighter than usual. However, in the first security line, the guard actually pushed me ahead of some of the Chinese people waiting in line and none of the white people in our group were patted down. I guess they don’t see us as much of a security threat. At the second security line, we were able to get through even though we didn’t all have our passports once the guard found out that we were all from Houston (He said something about the Houston Rockets). They did search us that time, though. Walking through Tiananmen Square rendered its massive character readily apparent (it was even more massive that the security line that we had gone through to get in). The Forbidden City continued the monumental theme with courtyard after courtyard, although I don’t think I fully appreciated the architecture of the buildings, given how similar they looked to one another. The gardens at the park of the palace were quite pleasant, but I was aghast at how blatantly everyone seemed to disregard the signs not to touch the ancient trees.

The vastness of Tiananmen Square

Getting back to the area around our hotel from the Forbidden City was no small feat, considering how difficult it was to hail a cab for a reasonable fare, but we eventually managed it and settled in for a late lunch/early dinner at a Tibetan vegetarian restaurant. The restaurant specialized in making vegetarian dishes that tasted like various kinds of meat, and it was quite interesting sampling their selection. Some of the creations were on point, while others were not as impressive. After dinner, I turned in for an early night.

We opened up Saturday by visiting the Temple of Heaven, another exorbitantly large complex. This time it was largely a park-like setting, with various parts of the temple interspersed. In spite of the thick pollution in the air, many people were doing all sorts of activities in the park, from dancing to wrestling to badminton. Our group even joined in a game of hacky sack as we were making our way through the park. Ascending up to the main temple, I was hoping to get a view of Beijing, but the pollution obscured the outlook. After the temple, the rest of our day was spent around the lakes near the Forbidden City, where we meandered through shopping streets and visited the drum and bell towers that used to be used to announce the time in Beijing.

Temple of Heaven

For dinner, we met Shelby’s old program coordinator Jin Lu. She was the only native to China that we spoke with in a formal setting on the trip, and it was interesting to hear her thoughts on pharmaceuticals in Beijing. Unlike the expatriates I had spoke to in Shanghai, she had a largely positive view of pharmaceuticals in China and said that she did not experience any significant difficultly obtaining the medications she needed. She did admit that it sometimes took a while to get an appointment to see a doctor. In contrasting her opinion with the others that I heard, I had to wonder if it is a difference in expectations between a native and expatriates, a difference between Shanghai and Beijing, or something else altogether. It is difficult to say, but I did note that Jin Lu’s assessments of Beijing and China were on the whole quite positive and that she didn’t voice many criticism. Contrastingly, although most of the expatriates we spoke with were also largely positive, I felt that they were more vocal in identifying China’s perceived shortcomings.

Sunday was our last full day in China and we spent it the best way that we could: going to see the Great Wall! The section of the wall that we visited was apparently less touristy than most other sites, which leads to me to wonder how many tourists must be at the other sites, since we still saw a goodly number of other tourists. Trekking up to the wall, I was impressed by how fit a Chinese solider would have needed to be. As steep as the approach to the wall was, the elevation changes on the wall itself were not inconsiderable either, and moving along it was quite an exercise in hiking. While we were on the Great Wall, the sky began to clear for the first time since we came to Beijing and we were finally able to appreciate the horizon without it being cloaked in smog. From the Great Wall, we moved onto lunch and then the Summer Palace, after a formidable drive through Beijing traffic. Our time at the Summer Palace was limited by the traffic that we had to go through to get there, but it was pleasant to stroll along the lakeside and take in the setting sun. For our last dinner in China, Shelby decided that we needed to experience a hotel buffet so he took us to the Grand Hyatt. Unfortunately, the service didn’t live up to his expectations but as someone who has never been to a massive hotel buffet before, I was impressed by the quantify of the food if not necessarily the quality.

The Great Wall

The Summer Palace

The next morning we were on the way to the airport and preparing to bid China goodbye. The process of leaving China was somewhat less smooth than entering it, however, as we had to traverse grumpy customs officials and intensive security that insisted on taking our bags apart. Walking abroad Delta flight 188 was a strange experience as I felt like I was returning to a familiar setting even before we left the momentarily blue skies of Beijing behind.  

Blue skies in Beijing

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