China was a much different country than I thought it was going to be.  Being the first communist country I visited I didn’t know what to expect.  What I found was that it was a pretty much normal country.  Beijing, in fact, turned out to be my most favorite city to date.  What got me about the city was how many people lived there (14 million) combined with how much space is taken by tourist destination points.  The Forbidden City, for example, is located right next to Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing.  These two areas are massive.  The forbidden city could actually be a small town.  Tiananmen Square is said to have held more than 1 million people for Chairman Mao Tse-tungs’ funeral. I can’t picture either of these two places being able to fit into the downtown areas of Toronto, New York or Seoul.  It seemed as if every place we went to  was “super-sized.” Here is the run down on what we saw and when:

 

Sunday:    ~Temple of Heaven

                         ~Chinese Circus

 

        Monday:    ~Jade Factory

                         ~The Great Wall

                         ~Ming Tombs

                         ~Tea Factory

 

        Tuesday:  ~Pearl Factory

                         ~Summer Palace

                         ~Tiananmen Square

                         ~Silk Factory

 

        Wednesday ~Returned home

 

The tour group consisted of 22 English teachers from Korea and 1 Chinese guide who’s name was Sam.  Interestingly enough he was a student protestor  at Tiananmen Square and spent 10 days living there. There were 15 Canadians, 4 Americans and 3 Scottish. It’s funny…you can always tell Canadians by looking at their backpack.  While in Korea or China any Canadian who carries a backpack ALWAYS has a Canadian flag located somewhere on it.  Guaranteed.  If I know someone is Canadian I always look at their backpack…guaranteed every time there is a flag.  In Canada we sometimes consider ourselves unpatriotic but abroad I don’t think that’s the case.  Rarely ever do I see an Americans backpack with an American flag on it.  When you think about it, that’s probably a wise choice not to tell the world your American.  Three of the Canadian girls grew up in Omemee across the lake from Emily Provincial Park.  One of the Canadian girls spent 1996 living with her family on South Beach Road in Young’s Point and attended Lakefield District Secondary School.  I traveled thousands of miles away from home and met someone who used to live 30 seconds from my home in Canada. 

 

China seemed very westernized in my opinion.  Remember too that I was in the most westernized area of the country.  I don’t think the whole country is like that.  There were fast food stores such as Mc Donald’s and Burger King as well as western products such as Coke and Pepsi.  What is  a stark contrast to western cities is the number of soldiers marching around or standing guard.  It was a little intimidating.  I managed to get a few pictures of them but I don’t think I was supposed to.  Even with a gun in their hands they probably didn’t feel like arguing in English with a big white guy about not taking their picture.  I did ask to pose with one of them but they refused. 

 

The first thing I noticed driving from the airport was the number of Volkswagens.  My “guestament” is 1 in 3 cars.  Our guide says there is a Volkswagen plant in Biejing.  In Korea maybe 1 in 1000 is foreign.  Most people drive Huyundai, Kia or Daewoo. Another thing I noticed was how clean Biejing is.  Maybe it was just where we were, but the place looked petty well kept.  A stark contrast to Manila where I constantly felt the need to bathe.

 

The reason I went on a tour was because I didn’t think I would be able to find my way without a guide.  The first night in Beijing we were given a map of the city with every tourist destination clearly marked.  I realized then how easily it would be to go to Beijing and get around without a guide.  Cabs were cheap (except on the last night when the guy wanted to charge us 10 times the regular price).  One thing I didn’t like about China was the constant haggling with merchants.  With the exception of convenience stores we had to haggle with everyone (including cab rides and beer).  Most times we would haggle down at least 50% from the original given price.  Every time I haggled there was always someone after me that would get it for a cheaper price.  It turns out I’m not a good haggler.  We had heard about DVD’s that you could buy for a dollar US.  When we asked some foreigners about it, they said “Just walk down that street over there.”  There were no buildings that said “DVD’s”, just people who would walk up and ask you if you wanted to buy some.  Sure enough we were approached and brought into a bar.  They guy brought out bags and bags of DVD’s ( without the plastic case but instead with a cardboard one). I ended up buying 25 DVD’s for about 30 dollars US.   When I got home to Korea only 19 of them worked.  Still, that’s 19 DVD’s for the price I would pay for 2 in Canada.  Not only did we have to haggle but we also had to watch out for the wrong currency.  We were in the country for 2 hours when I bought something for 50 Yuan ($7.50).  A girl in our group bought the same thing for the same price.  I gave the guy a 100 Yuan bill and he gave me what I thought was 50 Yuan in change.  But the colour of my 50 Yuan bill was different from the girls’ bill.  The merchant had given me 50 Rubles (Russian currency).  Our guide caught on and yelled at the guy.  After that I never bought anything without closely examining the change given back to me. 

 

Over all I had an excellent time.  I would definably like to go back to China sometime.  I took over 100 pictures and put most of them on this website.  Click an icon at the top of the page for the destinations’ pictures and description.