Beijing: Part 1

北京 

Beijing: Part 1

After another reasonably short flight even further northward, I finally touched down in Beijing, China's capital city and the home to many of it's most revered cultural sites. Whereas Shanghai is very much a modern Chinese city, with most of it's iconic sites having been constructed in the last century or so, Beijing represents the historic centre of China. With its proximity to the Great Wall, collection of imperial palaces, revered temples and ancient streets and alleyways, Beijing offers no shortage of things to see and do.

I arrived in Beijing on the 17th of February, the day before the start of Chinese New Year celebrations, allowing me to have a very different experience than what the city normal offers. Before booking our trips, we had been warned by various people that China's smog is at it's worst during the winter and that it would be a waste of time visiting Beijing; we would be unable to see or do anything. However, when I arrived in Beijing the skies were clear and blue, with the pollution at times sinking to green levels on the pollution index (indicating a 'good' air quality). The alleged regular crazy hustle and bustle of people crowding the streets and cramming themselves on the subway had been replace with a quieter calm (and on most occasions I was even able to get a seat without difficulty!) Finally (and more disappointingly), many of the shops and restaurants throughout the city were closed while people took time off to spend time with their family at home, both in and out of the city. Nevertheless, Beijing still offered me plenty to do, and the fireworks, decorations and temple fairs definitely made Chinese New Year feel like an exciting time to be there!

On my first night in the city, I got speaking to a couple of people staying at the hostel and we decided to explore the area around our hostel, which happened to be very conveniently located only a short walk from Tiananmen Square and the impressive buildings surrounding it. All of the buildings (easily visible in the clean air) were lit up and glowing, and it was pretty spectacular!

The Mausoleum of Mao, home to the body of Mao himself. Unfortunately, the Mausoleum was closed throughout most of my stay and I didn't get the opportunity to visit when I was there!

The entrance to the complex to the Forbidden City.

One of Beijing's many guards, standing vigilantly outside the Forbidden City.

The next morning was Chinese New Year and (unaware of how many things would be closed), we decided to explore the area again with the aim of going into the Forbidden City. We started with Tiananmen Square, one of the largest city squares in the world, and surrounded by many of Beijing's important historical and political buildings. As it was the first day of Chinese New Year, the square was nearly empty and had a very peaceful atmosphere.

The National Museum of China

Beijing, like Shanghai, has a very obvious police presence, and Tiananmen Square more than anywhere. The square was filled with groups of policemen, sometimes marching in unison like the picture above. In order to get into the square, you had to pass through a metal detector and scan any bags you had with you.

The flag of the People's Republic of China, with the entrance to the Forbidden City complex behind.

Upon approaching the Forbidden City, it became increasingly apparent that main attraction (it's 'Palace Museum') was closed, but there were two complexes on either side of it which were open, so we decided to check them out.

Dragons, a recurring theme in most Chinese architecture, had a strong presence in the area.

The Forbidden City is huge, containing 980 buildings (many of which are closed off fully to the public), all of which are in a very uniform style like this one above.

A small garden, characteristically filled with unusual rock formations.

The closed off entrance to the main part of the Forbidden City.

In one of the gardens we went to, there was a large pathway surrounded by bamboo on either sides.  Upon a closer look at the bamboo, it became apparent that many of the plants had been carved with graffiti, which looks especially interesting in the form of Chinese characters.

After we finished exploring the areas we could, we headed back to the area where our hostel was, located in one of Beijing many hutongs. The 'hutongs' of Beijing are ancient streets and alleyways from Beijing's past, typically consisting of old grey stone buildings and lots of pedestrian only walkways. They give the city a pretty cool character and were fun to just walk around.

The buildings in the area were fully decked out in Chinese New Year decorations and the whole area had a really upbeat feel to it as locals cheerfully walked around the streets in smart clothing and crowded the famous Beijing duck restaurants in our area.

Beijing is legendary for it's fireworks displays over Chinese New Year, with many guide books advising people to bring earplugs if they are light sleepers! Officially speaking, Beijing (and many other Chinese cities) have a ban on fireworks within the city, and there isn't even a government display held anywhere. However, I've read that in the weeks before Chinese New Year, it is difficult to miss the firework stands scattered throughout the city, openly selling their illegal fares. This was not hard to believe as on the first night of Chinese Year, the sky erupted into an endless display of fireworks in every possible direction. A few of us from the hostel decided to explore the streets and not infrequently was our way blocked by people of all ages setting off firecrackers and fireworks (along with numerous policemen who stood by enthusiastically watching them).

A man running away from a firework he'd just set off...

We walked through the alleys around our hostel for a while before finding larger road with pedestrian bridges crossing it. This gave us a great vantage point to see the fireworks, which would pop up in every direction, including on the road below us! The whole view was pretty amazing and you could slowly turn in circles for ages without getting bored as new fireworks continued to explode from every direction.

The red paper remnants of burnt out firecrackers and fireworks were a very common site.

The next day, the typical popular tourist attractions were still largely closed, but we were given the unique opportunity to visit the Spring Festival temple fairs which sprout up throughout the city during the first week of Chinese New Year. We decided to visit Ditan Park Temple Fair, which is the biggest and most popular in the city. 

The temple fair was marked by a huge red and gold gateway.

The fair was set in Ditan park, otherwise known as the Temple of Earth, the second largest temple in Beijing, making for a very interesting setting!

The whole area was covered in stalls selling food and holding carnival games. Meat on a stick seemed to be an especially popular delicacy in Beijing.

There were also stalls selling very cool looking spun sugar, which were designed in the shapes of various zodiac animals.

Here people could play to be carried around in a circle in side this decorated booth.

As you can see, the fair is pretty popular and had huge crowds of people!

Can you what the colours of Chinese New Year are?

After we'd had our fill of Ditan Park Temple Fair, we decided to explore some of the other temples in the city. After a short detour in which we tried to and failed to visit the Lama temple before realising that we were going on the same day that swarms of Beijingers make a pilgrimage to the very same place. So we decided to go visit another one of Beijing's iconic sites, the Temple of Heaven.

While staying in Beijing, it becomes immediately obvious that nothing is done on a small scale, and the Temple of Heaven is no exception. The actual complex of the temple and the park surrounding it was massive and took a significant amount of time to walk around and cross. The temple itself was used by the emperor as a means to worship and hold sacrifices for the heavens and definitely had a more imperial feel to it, making it feel a little more unique than the huge number of temples which cover China and Beijing (and which can sometimes start to blur into one). 

One of the many long walkways leading up to the temple.

The Hall of the Prayer for Good Harvests is the jewel of the Temple of Heaven (although the one which stands today was actually built in the late 19th century after a fire) and was used by the emperor to pray for (you guessed it) good harvests.

Many of the pillars on the stairs were decorated with heavenly imagery, with those on the top layer being decorated with clouds,the middle layer having phoenixes and the bottom, dragons.

Another main attraction of the Temple of Heaven is the Circular Mound Altar, a huge altar which was used by the emperor to make sacrifices on winter solstice. Allegedly the altar was specifically built in a way that could amplify the emperor's voice as much as was possible. The middle of the altar however, had a huge number of tourists all taking turns standing in the middle (where the emperor would stand) so we decided to pass on the opportunity to see if our voices to might be as loud as 'the collective voice of the whole nation'.

The altar marked the end of the temple of Heaven, and with our feet soaking wet from the puddles left by the snow which had been falling all day, we headed back to the hostel, ready for a relaxing evening before our early trip out to the Great Wall in the morning...