life could be erratic sometimes..: Beijing..

After the 13 hours train ride, I'm just so relieve that I safely arrived in Beijing in on piece minus my butt that hurts so bad. After get out from the train, I just followed the crowd to the exit with my big heavy backpack.

By the way, just need to mention, I love this backpack not because it's easy to carry but it's the longest time that I even own a bag that lasted for years. This backpack has been through a lot. From the hurricane evacuee of New Orleans, crazy city of glamour in LA, sandstorm in Canyon, the everlasting heat in Arizona dessert (this is the most intense heat I ever get thru with), rough terrain in Yosemite, big hectic crowded city of NYC, casino life in Macao, salty ocean of Maldives, the elephant ride in Cambodia, tuk tuk in Bangkok, being a fashionista in Harajuku, memories of Geisha in Kyoto and now the 13 hours ride of China and it still in one piece that's only few to be named. Amazing!

Ok.. so the walk wasn't that short.. it was a long walk from the track to the exit. And once I'm out from the exit, I've been welcomed by thousand of yelling people of Beijing, it's just so typical in China, the louder you are the more attention you get even when you are not looking for one. Haha. The train station is conveniently located next to Marriott Hotel but I'm not staying there. I had made an emergency booking at some hostel somewhere out there. So I was wondering around to look for a taxi because I don't want to be bother carrying this big backpacks with me, did I mention that I have two of them. Alright, onced I saw the line I was called by this old mid 40's years old man. He was asking me where I'm heading to, at first I just kept quite I don't want to be bothered. He was speaking in mandarin to me. It's typical for the local to speak in mandarin even if you have the bluest eyes and the fairest skin. They didn't care about how foreign you look, as long as you are in China, you need to speak mandarin. Well, I know some mandarin, a little actually. This is where I get conned. Shit! But at least I don't have to wait for hours to get the cab coz he actually made me jump over the barricade then took my heavy luggage, of course not my valuable stuffs luggage and just went to this taxi. He asked for RMB 50 but I bargained, ended paid him RMB 20. I thought that was the taxi fares but it's not. I had to pay the taxi fare again after I arrived for less than RMB 20! Shit!

Arrived at the hutong (small alley where they said it's historical, nothing is historic at this hutong beside the aged looking public toilet!) to the hostel where I'm staying. But the taxi refused to get into the hutong since there was a construction going on. So I had to walk. Af first I refused, but then I just had to. I didn't realized that the hostel is located in the hutong, and I don't want to walk into the hutong since I feels it wasn't safe. So I just walked. By looking at my map, which I downloaded from Google but ended walking for almost 2 hours looking for this hostel. During the searched, I asked like 3 persons for the direction and only one that gave the right direction the other 2 well, got me into some where that I wasn't looking for also involved with some very dirty experience which I'm not going to share here only for me to know. Haha.

Ok, got to the Hostel, drenched in sweat. I'm sweaty and dirty from the walking and from the 13 hours train ride. Went to the checkin counter and the receptionist is a female receptionist whom I think that she's slightly deft. Coz she keep on yelling with high pitch voice. Trying to make conversation to me, but I'm not interested. Sorry, I'm just tired. But I still did talk when she asked me where I'm from and so on. Got my room card and bumped into this lady that just had a facelift also staying in the same hostel. By the way, do you know that in China, it's a trend to get a plastic surgery.. and it's cheeper than in other part of the world. If you plan to visit China, why don't you get something done here and there.. hehe.. Seems that Chinese now has become self absorb with their look. They are trying to get the sharp western features. So sad.. How I know this.. coz a day before I saw a documentary about this in the CCTV News..

Well, the room is not as clean as what I imagined. I staying at one person room with attached toilet. The toilet floor is clean but wet.. I guess they just had it cleaned and there's few strands of hair here and there. I just had to wear my flip flops.. just want to be sure. The room floor is sticky, since I'm always a prepared traveller (I am a very prepared traveller excepts on things like battery chargers and camera cables haha always missed them), took out my disposable towels with disinfectant spray and mop the whole floor using hehehe the hostel towels.. haha I'm not gonna use their towel on my body.. no way! You don't know how clean it wouldn't be. Bed sheets looks ok, but it would be outrages for me to bring on my own bed sheet, so I just didn't bother to change it. I know I'm not that crazy. But I did brought my own when I was backpacking in Cambodia and Thailand.

Crouching Panda..

SO I took a shower and prepared my itinerary for my day one tour. First thing first would be Zoo! I want to see Panda. haha. So went to the receptionist asking for the train station and heading out. The closing time for the zoo is at 5pm so I have less than 3 hours to get there, which I think is sufficient. Got to the subway station, also need to mention that, all the subway stations in Beijing and Shanghai it is compulsory for you to x-ray your bags before you get in side the platform. It's a hassle but it's a safety precaution. The subway fee is a flat rate, only RMB 2 to go anywhere unless you get out from the station and it's well connected. Very convenient not like in Kuala Lumpur. I felt like I was in Tokyo except that in Tokyo, you would see a lot of people holding/typing/playing their OWN handphone, ipod/iphone or any electronic gadgets but in Beijing or Shanghai, yes there's a few, but some are looking over your shoulder if you had happened to be playing/typing/holding with your phone. There's no personal space here in China. Even when you are reading books, they will try to peek on what are you reading. Oh don't tell me about when they talk.. it's loud. And they are allowed to eat and drink inside the train. Thank God they banned the spitting! Pushing and cutting your line is a survival skills in China. Don't worry, if you think that you won't do it, by at the end of the day one, you'll become one of them. Trust me. You need to!

Birds at the man-made pond

Owl in the glass cage

Got to the Zoo, paid my entrance and went inside. The entrance fee is for all the area except the Panda. So if you wanted and dying to see the Pandas, you need to pay another entrance fee again. I can't remember exactly how much I paid, but both cost me not more than RMB 50. Seems that the Zoo is only so-so. It's not well kept but they are doing some upgrading work. So most of the animals are kept somewhere else. I spend few hours in the Zoo, taking few snapshots there and head out. Well, it was already 5-ish and since I have no other plans beside Zoo, tried to walk around the Beijing city scape.

New CCTV Building

Beijing city is huge and spread out. Not like Shanghai whereby mostly concentrated in Pudong and Hunagpu but Beijing it's everywhere. So really need to plan out well to travel around. Since I'm an independent traveller and always will be, I just go where ever I wanted to go. But with some proper plan. So I spend the rest of the day walking aroung in the city and on and off with the subway. Subway lines save me a lot of time. Oh by the way, walking around in Shanghai and Beijing helps my half marathon training very well. I walked almost 16 hours a day and one time in Shanghai I walked almost half of the city from Hunagpu area, took a ferry cross the river than walk again in Pudong and then back. I think I did walk like more than 50km a day. I did brought me my trainers but couldn't be bother to run, the air is not clean, worse was in Beijing. On good day, you can see up to 500m away, worse day, not even half of that!