Jet Lagged

Yeah, I know the moniker of that Wall they have close to Beijing, but I didn’t think one small section would take hours and hours to climb. I also knew the Forbidden home of the emperor was a palace, but I didn’t really understand why they called it a City, until hours of trekking got us passed multiple squares and castle walls the scope of which simply cannot be described or photographed well.  In comparison, the Summer Palace, with it’s more modest name, was even more grandiose, with temples, pavilions, and a gigantic lake.

Honestly, beautiful views aside, I just ended up getting numb to the gargantuan temples, parks, and palaces we went to – The Jade Temple, The Summer Palace, The Temple of Heaven….great names for big places, added upon by new structures -Tianaman Square, The Water Cube, and The Bird’s Nest.

But what I remember are the little things. Panting up the watchtowers on the Great Wall, happily seeing other foreigners and natives equally as worn out as my own nonathletic self. The call of locals trying to make a buck selling water at a price gouging rate in the Forbidden City. And looking at the faces of Chinese tourists and realizing that these places are just as awe inspiring to them as they are to me, a testament to how big this country is and how interconnected we humans can be, no matter our background, while traveling.

I was personally very shocked at Beijing. What I knew about the city was from documentaries and National Geographic Mags I had read as a child, so I was expecting a small area of traditional buildings  overfilled with people bicycling to work on cluttered streets.

What I saw was a city that dwarfed almost any other city I had seen. Our large tourist bus trundled along unnoticed amongst the sea of traffic along wide, clean streets devoid of bicycles. Our routes took us through downtown areas (although “downtown” is relative in a city with so many skyscrapers marching without stop across the horizon) filled with behemoth buildings.

I suppose it was the modernness that really shocked me with my static notions of Beijing. Our tour guide told us that back in the day, the mark of a upwardly mobile family was a bicycle and a watch, but that old Beijing was long gone, driven over by sleek new, imported cars. The streets were impeccable, and surprisingly green, hedged by carefully manicured flowers, trees, and grasses.

Rickshaws in Beijing

Yet, the rapid destruction of ancient buildings to make way for new high rises and condominiums has been halted in some areas. Close to the center of the city, we got a chance to take a tour of the traditional extended family houses, the houtongs, which offered yet a different perspective of the city. Riding in rickshaws through the narrow alleys and visiting a houtongs family, we got to catch a glimpse of what Beijing might have looked like before, albeit a tourist-friendly, government subsidized rendition of the past.

Photos courtesy of Jim Darling

Inner courtyard of a houtong

Rickshaw cyclists on a break