The Ol’ Spring-Break-in-Beijing Classic!

Whaa?? Where am I? Oh, hello!

(*dusts himself off and looks around to get his bearings*)

Returning to this blog feels (I can only assume) like falling through a hole in space-time, like Lucy discovering Narnia, or Jack Skellington finding himself in Christmastown. But maybe this Twilight Zone-esque bewilderment is an appropriate metaphor for a Western traveller whose first foray into Asia was a week-long sortie into one of its busiest, most ancient metropolises (metropoli?).

Though going to China for a single week seems preposterous, the planetary alignment in this case (Sara having an actual Spring Break due to a clerical error the previous year / that Spring Break coinciding with mine / both the aforementioned Spring Breaks coinciding with the end of her medical exchange in China) was too good to pass up. We decided that the best way to immerse ourselves in this wildly different world was to spend the entire week in the bustling city of Beijing.

 

The sprawling 3,000-year-old Imperial palace, ominously known as the Forbidden City, is practically synonymous with Beijing. Standing in its first plaza, vast and paved enough to put an IKEA parking lot to shame, one gets the impression that the sole intent of this place was to intimidate visitors, to suggest the size of the army that could be assembled in such a gathering place. And then, after crossing that infinite expanse of concrete, one passes through the extravagant arch on the other side and enters…ANOTHER INFINITE EXPANSE OF CONCRETE! AND ANOTHER! These plazas repeat themselves almost to the point of absurdity, with decadent names such as Hall of Eternal Happiness and the Hall of Infinite Prosperity, finally culminating in the Imperial Garden, a refreshing Eden of exotic trees that feels like the organic nerve centre of this massive geometric body. The effect is staggering.

Breathing the fresh air of the Imperial Garden.

 

Sara making herself at home in the Hall of Literary Brilliance.

 

The next day we took the metro (which, incidentally, is a great crash course in Mandarin characters, since all the stops are just some combination of the words for north, east, south, west, gate, bridge, lake, and river) to the Temple of Heaven Park: equally majestic, but with the intimidation factor replaced by lush tranquility. Here we saw the mellow side of the otherwise frenetic Beijing lifestyle: people dancing, elderly folks doing gravity-defying tae chi, and parents playing with their kids.

 

I insisted we take a fairly lengthy metro detour to see one of my favourite architectural wonders (/anomalies): the CCTV Headquarters, aka THE PANTS!

If you are ever in Beijing, you absolutely must visit the Wangfujing Snack Street. Yes, it’s touristy, but it’s also delicious and completely unique. Where else can you find live scorpion kebabs, heaps of tentacles, or whatever donkey wallow is?

Our final major destination was the Yongzhe Lama Temple, Beijing’s largest Buddhist establishment. If the Forbidden City was formidable and the Temple of Heaven tranquil, then the Lama Temple was, in a word, reverent. A ubiquitous blanket of fragrant smoke keeps each individual alone with their thoughts, free to explore the sacred maze. I was fascinated by the worshippers, recognizing the looks on their faces but not the bells, flags, wheels, and statues that held such meaning for them.  Being an outsider in a place so intimate made me think of the old parable of the blind men who each touch a different part of an elephant and thus think they are touching something different entirely. What I was witnessing was indeed a very new and different part of the same proverbial elephant than I’d grown up with.

 

Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Beijing’s hottest travel destination, and although you won’t find him in Lonely Planet, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind being referred to as such. My friend and fellow teacher, Travis, played the role of perfect host throughout this trip, letting us stay in his apartment, keeping me up til 3:00am on the night of my arrival to break me of any potential jetlag (watching him play hockey in a freezing cold arena for two hours helped, as did the copious amounts of beer and jianbing at the local expat bar afterwards!), helping us with everything from buying a metro pass to asking for less slippery chopsticks in restaurants (the wooden ones make it a LOT easier, okay!!), inviting us to hang out at the Canadian embassy after a ball-hockey game to partake in the finest hoser beverages in all of China, driving us to and from the airport, and finding the best spots for Peking duck (thanks Han!), hotpot, and malatong. T-Rav, I can’t believe we ACTUALLY got to take you up on your invitations to see you in your natural habitat. Xiexie for a fantastic time!

Sara and Travis greet me at the airport with a sign taped to a hockey stick using a band-aid.

 

A first and unforgettable experience of Peking duck.

 

A toast to Canada’s finest spirits, hockey team, and expats!