Sunday 24 September 2017

Day 1 ~ Saturday 21st August, 2015

Helloooo, is anyone there... Internet in Beijing is very limited... More to come soon, we fly to Canada in 12 hours, so updates will start flowing soon...

Long flight! Air China was great, but the seats are tiny and NO leg room! Food was really yummy and the service you couldn't fault. The flight was very full, not one spare seat! Steve didn't sleep at all, and I managed to get the odd hour here and there.

Met a lovely girl – Alex who was on the same flight, and heading to Mongolia to live in a YURT with the locals for 12 days!! OMG – how awesome is that – she's traveling alone and doing something amazing and off the beaten track and she's only in her 20's! She's already travelled to all the continents. I feel so boring with the travel I have done. (**must be more exotic and adventurous with ones travel plans for the future) There were only 6 Caucasians on the flight, we were starting to feel like the odd ones!

Made it to the hotel after an hours delay getting in. The airport is enormous and spacious, although it seems to be built for the future and not necessarily today.

We caught at Taxi to the hotel. WOW – now that was an experience! Steve sat in the front seat… even he was nervous! We now understand why they drive like they do on our Australian roads – its because there is NO rules here. They'll stop when and where they want to, even if it is in the middle of a highway. The only thing missing from Asian drivers in Australia is the use of the horn – this taxi driver basically drove with his hand on it the whole way. He spoke great english when he met us “Good Afternoon, welcome to Beijing, I'll be happy to Drive you”…. Thats ALL the english this guy knew – hilarious! Steve tried to have a conversation with him, but to no avail.

We made it to our hotel alive!

Thankfully our Hotel let us into our room early – 8.30am – so after a shower and settling in, we slept like babies till mid afternoon where we got up and wandered around INDIGO the huge shopping centre attached to the hotel. We ate some lunch and then checked out the hotel and shopping centre and took at look at the Subway & what entailed with using that.

Our Hotel Room View..
Vicki Deciding which turtle to bring home from the supermarket...

The East Hotel is really lovely. Its Asian with a western influence and is very modern. The staff all speak great english and nothing is too much trouble. Our room is an “Urban Corner Suite”, so we are on the corner of the building, facing the urban sprawl – we wanted to see the pretty lights at night time. We can see a tiny bit of the mountains off to the distance, but alas there is another huge building in front of us that is blocking more of that view.

We ate a light dinner from the supermarket and were both fast asleep very early, hoping to feel better in the morning.

Day 2 ~ Sunday 22nd August, 2015

After a good nights sleep & feeling much better, we had a hearty Beijing Breakfast and then braved the city by way of the Beijing Subway!

WOW ~ NOTHING will prepare you for this experience. If the language barrier wasn't enough, the shear number of people the public transport moves (very quickly) will blow your mind!

We firstly had to buy a ticket. The ticket machine did have an “english” translation, but knowing what buttons to push and in what order was still something we had no idea about!

Looking like western fish out of water, we were soon helped by 2 locals who helped us navigate the ticket machine. You have to insert your money VERY quickly into the machine otherwise it will cancel you out. Of course it cancelled us out as we had an old note and the machine didn't like it. All good – we knew how to use the machine….but no, the machine wouldn't take our money, after trying about 6 times! The look of fear on our face must have made the next local girl help us! She said in very broken english “follow me”! So we did! We had to navigate through the security screening ~ yes, just like in the airports, everything has to be scanned. I was pulled up for my bottle of water, but was all good & I was let through.

The girl lead us to a Ticket Counter… GREAT!! We can get tickets…. Hmm… sorry – you don't speak English?, hmm, we don't speak Chinese! Hilarious ~ eventually, after lots of chinese being yelled at locals back and forth, we found enough locals who knew a few english words which was enough to get the ticket!! RMB 10 = AUD$2.50 for 2 tickets (one way)

YAY!! 2 Tickets in hand, we make our way down, down, down into the subway.

Our first train left from Line 14 at Jintailu. SPECTACULAR ~ Very fast train, looked brand new, AWESOME air-conditioning, and plenty of room to move. WOW...if only Australia had trains like this. We figured the lack of people on this train was because it was a Sunday morning. Ha ha ha ha – oh those 2 Aussies...they have NO idea what they are in for….

So we arrive at Line 6 at JinTaiLu Transfer Station, we navigate our way from Line 14, up to Line 6 and work out what train to take to the Zoo. Steve finds the right train heading in the right direction and we jump on the train. Ha ha ha – you know all those 21,000,000 million people who are living in Beijing? Well, they were all on this train! We let one train go, as we couldn't get on. But then we soon learnt that EVERY train was the same, and we just had to barge our way on there and push and shove to get a spot! Hysterical. You are up close and very personal to everyone around you – there is NO room between people, and when you want to get off the train, well, you have to push HARD to get out.

We finally make it to Station PinganLi which is another Transfer station and we navigate our way up to Line 4, along with half of the 21,000,000 million locals who also get on the next train. It helped that the mass of people kind of dictate which direction you are going in – we figured we'd go with the flow. We once again worked out which train to take in the right direction and we find the ZOO !! YAY It took almost 1 hour from the moment we left the hotel and walked to the subway station to when we walked up the platform to the entrance of the Zoo. We travelled from one side of the city to the other, so we thought that was excellent timing, considering we had no idea what we were doing or heading, and was fairly slow and finding our way.

We have to say that the Beijing Subway is amazing. It is spotlessly clean. The Locals are extremely courteous and kind and very calm in amongst the sea of chaos. I guess it is normal for them, but if this had of been in Australia, well, there would have been mass murders and shootings from the sheer rage!!

Beijing Zoo.
Zoo Entrance Fee and Panda House Experience ~ RMB 20 (approx AUD $5 each)

OMG ~ YES, 21,000,000 million people are all lined up outside the Zoo to get a ticket – or so it seemed. Was boiling hot, and humid as hell. We almost bought “umbrella hats” as they seem to be the latest in Chinese fashion. We joined a line and eventually we got to the ticket counter, bought a ticket and went on our way inside.

PANDA HOUSE - Was the first stop. Word to the uninitiated – just go straight through, and forget about looking at the pandas that are inside behind the glass. They sit with their backs to the people and with so many locals all screaming and then add children screaming, and the heat and humidity, and the finger prints on the glass, its really not worth it. But still we stayed and tried to get photos – we thought this was our only chance to get to see the Pandas. We stayed until our bodies were dripping with sweat and I could stand it no more!!!

Head outside and be patient, eventually a Panda will come outside to escape the noise and heat, to bask in the shade. So that was our experience. One Panda graced us with his presence outside and we got to see him flake out up on his platform. 



What was the funniest thing by this stage was how everyone was looking at Steve with his HUGE 200mm lens on the monopod. More locals were watching Steve than the Panda! We had a girl come up and want to have a selfie with Steve…. And then another selfie…..and then I was eventually asked for a Selfie too ~ seems we are famous! Lol

We were people watching and people were watching us! We knew we were the only westerners on the subway, but we soon saw we were basically the only westerners at the Zoo as well! We saw only a handful of non-asians all day. We had people running up to us wanting photos with us – we thought it was hilarious, but they did. So we obliged. Now I know what it feels like to be famous!

There were numerous times when Steve was busy checking the back of the camera and looking at the photos he just took in the LCD screen – unbeknowns to Steve, he had a crowd behind him, all too looking at the back of his camera, all in awe of the photos he took! One guy was trying to take a photo using his iPhone of Steve's LCD screen! When Steve turned around the first time to see what all the fuss was about, he was shocked at the huge crowd! Lol

Everywhere Steve's big lens stopped – so did the locals. If he had it pointing at something, then it must be because something is there! He did this at an empty enclosure in the Panda House, (Steve was looking at his photos he'd taken, not because he was taking a photo) and within a few minutes we had a crowd surrounding us all trying to “see” the panda hidden in the enclosure – HILARIOUS! I had to stop myself from pointing up to the sky, to see if they'd all stare upwards to see what I was looking at! lol

The Zoo was AMAZING! We read heaps of write-ups from Trip Advisor and most were negative, to the point we were nearly not going to bother going. The place is enormous, with different “Parks”. We paid the extra to get to the Panda House. But we could have bought tickets to the Aquarium….it wasn't till the very end of the day that we found that area and wished we had of bought tickets – it would have been mind blowing. But the Zoo is full of beautiful lakes, and the willow tree's were so tall and so beautiful. Sure, some of the animal enclosures could do with bringing them into the year 2015, as some are still behind small glass boxes, but on the whole, the enclosures weren't anywhere near as bad as I thought they would be & the animals look to be in good condition.




The Brown Bears were fantastic and were extremely active so we got to see them quite close. The Monkey enclosures were also fantastic. We saw so many animals, but we also missed so many enclosures as well, just due to the size of the place.



A thunderstorm blew in late in the afternoon, so once that had passed, we walked in the rain and decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel. Hmm…. We thought it was busy in the morning heading in, well nothing prepared us for coming home. We walked through the “Markets” to the subway and there were thousands of people all queuing for “something”. Armed guards or police were yelling at them, and they were all fenced in. Steve made a comment, something along the lines of how funny they are all stuck there, and wouldn't it be funny if it was for the train…. Well, his laughter soon turned around and bit him on the ass, as we too were in the bloody lone line! We had no idea why we were in the line, but there we stood with thousands of others. Eventually the line moved and we found our way back to the subway, and we had to buy a ticket…. So we lined up with everyone else and we eventually got one (we did well, except we didn't know the name of the station to come home to) – so after some locals helped us locate it on the Ticket machine, we were issued with 2 tickets and we joined another queue and from there we made our way through another security scanning checkpoint, and then down to the subway and then home to the hotel.

BOY are our feet SORE!!!

Quite positive we walked a good 10kms today if not more. I carried the backpack all day, and Steve carried it on our trip back home loaded up with the heaviest of camera gear. I was thankful for the reprieve...it was heavy and HOT.

Oh, our Hotel “East” is attached to “INDIGO” shopping centre – a bit like Chadstone for those Melbourne People. VERY expensive stores, all designer label with price tags to match. More expensive than Australia. There is a supermarket there, and what an experience that is! The Fruit is very expensive. I didn't see any meat for sale. Lots of frozen goods. Prices for anything imported looks to be highly priced (don't be craving chocolate – you need to the rich to afford to buy that). And yet there are things which are so cheap its ridiculous. There is a “fresh” market area where you can buy take away foods for lunch etc. I had “noodles” for dinner last night which cost RMB12 (AUD $3), and tonight I ordered fresh Wonton/Dumplings – 380g RMB12 – they were EPIC – so I will be having them again possibly for lunch whilst Steve is at the conference!

I have been trying different local things to eat, but Steve ate 2min Noodles - well, last night at least, tonights he bailed on – too many vege's in with the noodles for his liking, so he ate Pringles! Ugh

Yesterdays lunch at the Indigo centre at a local cafe cost us AUD $60 for Eggs Benedict and a Salad and a Milkshake and bottle of water!!! So don't be eating at Indigo, unless you are happy to be ripped off. The shopping centre was built for the rich locals, and they do shop there – the car park is full of Porche's and Bentley's, Range Rovers etc.

So, Beijing, I have to say you are NOTHING like I expected. I excepted Smog – & to date there has been none at all. I excepted more 3rd world and industrial factories at the door – None to what I can see so far. I expected us not to be able to navigate anything due to lack of english translation – well its pretty good on the majority of signage.

The locals can't speak english, and there is the odd one who will try (god love them).

I wonder what Day 3 is going to have in store for us? Do we get back on the subway on a Monday morning and brave the peak hour madness and head back into the city to see the sights and architecture, or do we head out to the Great Wall – Badaling? Right now are feet are screaming to us for NO walking, but there is so much to see and do and so little time.

Oh and the Forbidden City is closed whilst we are here as they are getting ready for a HUGE Parade on September 3rd which we will miss. And the Olympic Park is frantic with IAAF Games (International Athletic….something, something), so we might not be able to get there to get the photos we want.

Sorry for the long blog – you all know I don't know how to write a few words! :)

Day 3 ~ Monday 24th August, 2015

GREAT WALL OF CHINA – BADALING

WOW, what a day!

We had breakfast and then caught up with Clifford from Genelec India office who had Prashant with him who is the distributor from India. They were going to the Great Wall of China – Badaling, and we were invited to go with them.

We headed off in a people mover approx 10am, with Hahn our Driver who spoke NO english, and drove into the mountains. WOW, what an absolutely amazing country. The hills are so very steep and the vegetation is completely different to Australia, very lush!

The roads are amazing. They are wide and with many lanes. Yes, the people drive all over the place, but there is organised chaos. It was amazing to see the city fade away and the HUGE high rises which people live in… makes the Collingwood slums look pretty tame to these. No words or photos from the ground can describe the scale and sheer amount of them, but I guess they do have to house 21million people just in Beijing.

We arrived at the Badaling Wall – remember the 21,000,000 million people who were at the zoo yesterday? Well, they were ALL at the Badaling Wall today with their families!! Honestly, it was hysterical. We knew it would be busy, but once again, nothing prepared us for the sheer volume of people. Why aren't these people working? Why aren't the children at school? So many questions, but alas no one speaks english to answer us.

We bought tickets – RMB40 for the entry fee (AUD $10) and then paid RMB100 (AUD $25) for the cable car ride up to the top of the wall – now you can walk up to the top of the wall, but I would have paid $200 for the cable car ride – IT IS STEEP PEOPLE!!

Of course once again Steve and I were asked for photos with various random strangers, all wanting photos of the Westeners! Clifford and Prashant were amused by how “famous” we were!! Children were grabbing at my arms to say “hello” and smile. Still not sure why they wanted photos with myself and Steve. Thought for a while it was because of the huge camera's…. and then maybe Steve's beard, but we weren't holding big camera's and they still wanted photos with me. Anyway – bring it on – love being famous! :)

Poor Hahn is afraid of heights so we found out on the ride up the cable car, so he hung onto the seat and us and shuddered the whole trip up. Poor man, we all felt for him… thought he would be sick at one stage. What a guy having to endure his fear to take us tourists up there.

Once out onto the wall, the first flat part which has no steps, is VERY steep – everyone was on a 45 degree incline just to walk up it….then we got to the steps. Thankfully there were so many people crammed in there, it kept the pace slow and manageable. 




Did we get “the shot” we wanted? No – not with that many people, and not at that time of the day, but we can say we've been there and we've experienced it, and the photos we do have will be a great reminder of our experience.



The temperature was 33 degree's in Beijing, and it was a very pleasant 25 degree's at Badaling with a slight breeze. We still sweated BIG TIME with all the steps and walking, but thank god it was manageable! :)




So we headed back to Beijing, only for Clifford to ask if we liked Peking Duck, as the worlds BEST Peking Duck restaurant DaDong is here and we have to eat there. So off we went. OMG, what a place. Would have to be a 5 Star restaurant for sure, the fit-out was immaculate and extravagant. And then the Duck – WOW, what an experience. I've had Peking Duck before, but not like this – this was truly out of this world amazing. We ate 2 ducks…. I think I ate a whole duck on my own. Steve ate some duck pancakes and tried the Duck Bone soup! Very proud of Steve!! Clifford and I ate till we couldn't eat anymore (did someone say “diet?” - yes, well, when I get back home)… but thank god for the steep walk up the Great Wall beforehand – means I had some calories to burn in credit! Lol











So back to the East Hotel to meet up with the gang from Genelec who've flown in from around the South East Asia region and beyond. Maybe off to dinner later – hopefully its not Peking Duck! lol

Day 4 ~ Tuesday 25th August, 2015

Vicki's Day Out ~ Summer Palace

As Steve was now at his Genelec Training, it meant I had the whole day to kill on my own. So I braved the Beijing subway all on my own and found the “Summer Palace”. This was a long way from the Hotel – totally other side of the city. It took a good hour and a half on the subway to get there.

After an initial hick up leaving the station (I didn't follow everyone and didn't find the entrance) – so I went where the crowds were and found the entry. I came in via Entrance D – North Entrance. RMB60 (AUD $15) entry.

This meant that I had to scale the enormous steps up to and over the “mountain” with a view down to the lake.




It must have been 40 degree's in the shade, and 100% humidity, and I was wearing my hiking boots and my soft shell hiking pants (for alpine weather), so I wasn't coping at all well. I thought I was going to pass out of heat exhaustion at one stage. With many stops along the way, I was there for a good 3 hours, and didn't get near the lake….or see half the sights. But it was ok, I was feeling awful so I headed back to the hotel.

Here are some images from the day walking around the Summer Palace.






So I crashed out and slept. By the time Steve got back to the hotel around 7pm, I was sick as a dog, and coughing and I had high fevers and shivering. So Steve bolted off to the front desk to ask for medicine in Chinese and then he was off walking (running) the streets to find a Western Medicine Pharmacy. Apparently he was well in the back blocks with the locals giving him weird looks. Nothing is sign-written as we know it, so Steve found a shop that had boxes in the window and it looked pharmacy like, so he entered only to find it was a sex shop, with huge dildo's in front of the boxes!! LOL!!! Needless to say he didn't buy anything from there and he finally found the “chemist”.

We still aren't exactly sure what medicine I have as it is all in Chinese, but someone from Genelec who knows Chinese said it was good for me. I honestly didn't care, I took two and slept like a baby only waking at 1am to take another 2. 



I woke up feeling better, the fevers had gone, so had the leg cramps and whilst I wasn't better completely, I was definitely better than I was. Just “cold” symptoms remained.

Day 5 - Wednesday 26th August, 2015

Vicki's Day Out # 2 – Beijing Zoo & Aquarium (yes – again!)

Felling better than the day before and having been loaded up with “indian medicine” from Preshant (god I love him...and his medicine), I headed back to the Beijing Zoo, as I didn't see half of it and I wanted the see the aquarium and hopefully see the while whales.

Another subway journey conquered – I am a master at this now! :)

I got the cheapest ticket into the zoo RMB15 (AUD $3.50) and then navigated across the zoo to the other side where the Aquarium is, and bought a ticket – RMB150 (AUD$30)

WOW – my first impression was that Steve will be spewing he missed this the other day! Impressive is an under statement! It is amazing, and huge on a grand scale as only the Chinese know how.



I must have taken a good 400 photos of fish! 





And then I found the White Whales – 2 of them. OMG – they are so beautiful and playful and they looked happy. I stayed there for a good 20mins and took another hundred photos. Trying to capture their happy face as they played.





There was a huge auditorium where they held animal tricks etc a few times a day and it seats 3000 people and this auditorium must have been 90% full – on a Wednesday for crying out loud – why aren't these people working?

Anyway, it was good – your typical performing seals and dolphins jumping and the white whales came out too.



I loved the Jelly Fish section and the coral reef section too. It was just amazing!





 Here are some of my favourite fish photos!  :)  ('cause you knew I had to add more photos right!?)








And once I had left the aquarium it was another big lap around the zoo to see all the things we missed the other day. I still didn't see it all, but I saw the monkey section in full (only the gorilla's were not out, and the Chimpanzees were not interested in being social). 







 I found the avairy and saw some exotic birds. I didn't go back to the see the Panda's today. It was another stinking hot day and I am sure they would have been sleeping somewhere out of sight.




 This is a Racoon!

This is the "Lesser Panda" - or as we know it - The Red Panda.
 This is a Brown Bear cub posing for the people!


I stayed at the zoo for a good 4.5hours all up. Its bloody awesome! Its huge, the grounds are so beautiful and picturesque. Every corner a postcard (if it wasn't for the thousands of people in the way). 




Sure some of the animals enclosures could do with a good upgrade, but you can't get hung up on that, as it is their country and they will make improvements – they can't not do it. The animals are active and lively and thats more than we get half the time at our own Melbourne Zoo's! So I was very grateful for all that I saw and experienced.

Oh and no one wanted to take photos with me today :( feeling very unloved I was!! But it might have been because I was sweating profusely and looking terribly “ill” with it.

So another subway journey back to the hotel and possibly my last, so I enjoyed every minute of it – even being crushed to death on Line 6 for 4 stops! Lol I made my way to the supermarket and bought my last lot of wonton's in various flavours and some more fruit and treated myself to a french pastry from the bakery! 

Wonton's - I love these!!

 Fruit Salad - AUD$3

 mmm..... Egg Tart and Cream Cheese Citrus Tart - yummy!!


I am feeling so much better this afternoon and very grateful for Prashant and the magical medicine he gave me this morning!

Had a very long luxurious bath and now getting ready for dinner with the Genelec crowd.

Unfortunately by 7.30pm when Steve arrived back at the hotel to get me – the lurgie had taken a hold again and we decided I was best to stay in the night.

I saved Steve from a fate worse than death as it turns out – as they ate Silkworm and Bull-Frog for dinner!! LOL I wonder what tonight will hold in store – poor Steve!! A few more hours and we'll be in Canada and he can eat “normally” again! Lol The poor man has lived on “Pringles” and 2min Noodles for dinner so far. Thank goodness the hotel breakfast has been good, so he's loaded up!! lol

NOTE: Have found out why the air in Beijing has been so crystal clear, and why there are so many people with kids around. There is a huge military parade on the 3rd September, and as a result, they shut half of the factories in the area down for 1 month!! And people can only drive their cars every other day as they want the city to appear cleaner than it really is for the parade. With nice blue skies instead of heavy smog.  So with half the population being off work – they are all out enjoying “holidays”. This is also why we couldn't visit The Foribbden City as it was closed in readiness for the parade. Only in China! :)