“Beautiful. Breezy. Beijing.”

Ok, ok before you get ahead of yourselves, I know Beijing is not beautiful. It’s a sarcastic quote from an episode of ’30 Rock’ - which by the way is brilliantly written and pure comic genius. If you’re not watching it, you really ought to be. Tina Fey for president! Just kidding haha (um, not really). But I digress...

Beijing. First impressions: bitterly cold, depressingly grey, and...”Are we bloody there yet?!?”. I apologize now - but I have to rant before I can rave.

It was really cold! Below-zero. I’m sorry to say it, but walking around for 6-7 hours a day feeling like a human popsicle really dampened my experience. I had expected it to be cold and so deliberately bought a down jacket before I left Hong Kong, but it just wasn’t enough. Everyday, within the first hour of being outside, I was unable to feel my toes or fingers. I wouldn’t be able to feel them again until returning back to our guesthouse each night. I know everyone thinks I’m supposed to be magically immune to the cold having grown up in Saskatchewan, but I’m not. I was pretty miserable. On top of it all, the guesthouse we were staying in was a converted traditional courtyard home. Although very authentic, our “ensuite” bathroom was actually separated from our bedroom by a porch area. The bathroom wasn’t heated, and it was only about 2 degrees warmer than outside! I would pin the average temperature of our bathroom at somewhere between -1 to 5 degrees Celsius. It was pure madness. Every excursion to the bathroom was a shock to the system.

Actually come to think of it, almost nothing in Beijing was heated: restaurants, shops, the airport, the subway… nothing. This may be because they don’t install insulated doors on their buildings. Instead they opt to hang a curtain of thick, heavy, and yellowing plastic strips in their doorway. The type you see in meat lockers. I didn’t understand what purpose they served. It obviously didn’t keep the cold out and it was frustrating and annoying to walk through. Most of the time you got a piece of swinging plastic slapping you in the face from the person that walked through in front of you.

The city is grey. I assume it’s a lot prettier in the summer when the trees are leafy and the gardens in bloom. I found the city to be a bit depressing with all the dull grey communist blocks which, set up against a backdrop of an equally dreary sky, was even sadder.

Lastly, the city is HUGE. It gives a new meaning to the word “sprawling”. What appears to be 2 blocks on a map usually involves a 10 block hike. There were so many times we thought we were lost or had walked too far because the maps were so deceiving. Walking around the city is completely out of the question. Everything is just too far away and most of the time there isn’t much interesting in the areas between destinations. Not only are the metro stations few and far, far, far between but the attractions are far, far, far between. This meant that the amount of time we spent getting from Point A to Point B was likely equal to the time spent at B.

Last (again), but not least, a surprising number of people don’t speak a word of English in Beijing. Now I can appreciate that. I am not one of those arrogant tourists who believes they should be catered to in English. What bugged me the most was their persistence in the assumption that I spoke Mandarin which I obviously do not. When they finally came to accept this fact, one of two scenarios would transpire: a) If they didn’t speak English they would look at me with wide eyes before bursting into a fit of giggles and running away, or b) If they did speak English the response was always “Oh, but you look Chinese”. Maybe I was too sensitive but I always noted a tone of disdain. Half the time I didn’t bother saying anything more - the other half the time I tried to explain that I do speak Chinese but that I spoke the Cantonese dialect. Their lack of acknowledgment or response, I came to understand, was one of indifference at best… and pity at worst. To the rest of China, it seemed, Cantonese is insignificant and unworthy of mention. To them, I might as well acknowledge that I don’t speak “Chinese”. This was really frustrating and I was a more than a little irritated not to get any credit at all.

Ok, so on the bit more positive side of things...

The Great Wall of China was beautiful and enchanting. The day we visited it was dusted with a layer of fresh fluffy white snow that had fallen the night before. Few tour buses would venture out onto the slippery roads that day. When we arrived early in the morning there was not a footprint in the snow. We were the first and only ones to explore the Mutianyu section for the first few hours of the day. It was an amazing experience! It was exceptionally special because of the tranquility of having the wall all to ourselves. It was a relief after we had read about how crowded and tourist-infested the Great Wall can be.

For me, Tian’amen Square and The Forbidden City were very interesting politically and historically but aesthetically a bit lackluster. The Summer Palace however, was very pretty and I would very much like to return when the gardens are in their full spring/summer-time glory.

Hutongs, which are the back streets or alleyways typical of Beijing (lined with traditional courtyard homes) are the best places to see the typical lifestyle of locals. We had read about how interesting they were to explore and for people watching but the cold temperatures left them deserted and less lively than anticipated. Again, this is something to revisit one day.

Last but not least, our guesthouse presented us with the idea of seeing a Chinese Acrobatics performance. We were skeptical at first but faced with a decision whether to go, we figured “Why not?”. Wow. It was definitely a new experience for me. Something I had never seen before in my life…actually MANY things I had never seen. Each act was more mind-blowing than the one that preceded it and each proceeding stunt was even more ridiculous than the last! I found myself laughing nervously and hysterically throughout the entire performance. It was impressive, no doubt about that. But each tremble made my heart leap and each wobble made me gasp. I would immediately regret this as I watched the acrobats (athletes really) complete each stunt whilst maintaining perfect composure. While entertaining, it was quite stressful to watch humans catapulting each other 25 feet into the air only to land on the tips of their toes atop a 20 foot pole – as it was watching 13 girls piled high on one bicycle!

As you can see, I have a very mixed opinion of Beijing. I’d be hard-pressed to say I would NEVER go back...but it’s definitely not the first on my list of “must returns”.