There are no very glamorous business trips in my line of work, sadly. Sometimes you get sent to Berlin, or to Paris, and that's kind of cool, but that's usually as far as the university budget will stretch. And then sometimes, out of the blue, you get shipped off to Beijing, all expenses paid, and that sort of rocks!
Mind you, that was a couple of years ago (wow! two years ago already?), but i'm pretty sure not much has changed since then. It's not exactly a hopping city, if you know what i mean. So, this is one of my reminiscing posts... off we go to Beijing, ca. 2010!
Let's start by getting the touristy stuff out of the way... we visited the stunning Summer palace:
We walked around, admired the Longevity hill, the Cloud-dispelling Hall and the Sea of Wisdom temple (you gotta love the names),
had some green tea (that tasted like seaweed to me, and probably was seaweed for all i know), and hiked all the way up to the Tower of Buddhist Incense to take in the view....
It's a fascinating place, and so peaceful - right? wrong. Like every other tourist attraction, it's crawling with people:
It can be a bit difficult to get a very zen vibe when there's about a million loud Chinese people running about. Because that's one thing i didn't know about the Chinese: they are LOUD. And that's coming from a greek. Go figure.
We went to the Ming tombs, where we learnt that the Ming dynasty liked to be buried in red coffins, in scary underground mausoleums:
From there we got a very confused taxi--driver to take us to Badaling, to take a walk on the wall. Small tip: the first impression can be not quite what you'd expect, since the ten square meters around the entrance are crawling (i guess that's our word of the day.. if everything in Copenhagen was stylish, everything in Beijing was crawling with people. true story), with dressed-up chinese (high heels and everything) that hop on the wall, take a picture, then hop off:
So while you're standing there, between shouting Chinese, getting shoved around, trying to dodge the cameras or posing for pictures with them, you might not immediately get that feeling of grandeur and magnificence you've been expecting. But walk a few meters down and the crowd thins - tourist groups don't venture any further, and only the brave (like us :-) ) keep walking....
and walking...
and walking....
NOTE: Another thing i did not know is that the Wall is NOT flat. It's got steps EVERYWHERE!!
And it's a bloody tough hike. But when you get to the end, and you're all alone with the mountains and the wind, it becomes what you've imagined it to be: magnificent, humbling, and beautiful.
(i'll leave you with that for now, but stay tuned for more Beijing!)
We walked around, admired the Longevity hill, the Cloud-dispelling Hall and the Sea of Wisdom temple (you gotta love the names),
had some green tea (that tasted like seaweed to me, and probably was seaweed for all i know), and hiked all the way up to the Tower of Buddhist Incense to take in the view....
It's a fascinating place, and so peaceful - right? wrong. Like every other tourist attraction, it's crawling with people:
It can be a bit difficult to get a very zen vibe when there's about a million loud Chinese people running about. Because that's one thing i didn't know about the Chinese: they are LOUD. And that's coming from a greek. Go figure.
We went to the Ming tombs, where we learnt that the Ming dynasty liked to be buried in red coffins, in scary underground mausoleums:
We also learned that modern day chinese tourists like to walk around in disciplined groups with neat matching baseball caps...
....that take loudness to a whole new level, since every guide carries one of these babies:
 |
| sign inside the Ming tombs museum! |
So while you're standing there, between shouting Chinese, getting shoved around, trying to dodge the cameras or posing for pictures with them, you might not immediately get that feeling of grandeur and magnificence you've been expecting. But walk a few meters down and the crowd thins - tourist groups don't venture any further, and only the brave (like us :-) ) keep walking....
and walking...
NOTE: Another thing i did not know is that the Wall is NOT flat. It's got steps EVERYWHERE!!
And it's a bloody tough hike. But when you get to the end, and you're all alone with the mountains and the wind, it becomes what you've imagined it to be: magnificent, humbling, and beautiful.
(i'll leave you with that for now, but stay tuned for more Beijing!)
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