Beijing Journal, Days 1-2

I am writing this entry on my way back from the Seoul airport, heading back to the apartment. This seems like as good a time as any to recount the events of the last few days, so here goes.

The trip to Beijing was pretty uneventful. I had a connecting flight through Dalian which, from what I could see (from my landing and views from the airport) looks like the most miserable place on earth. It is right on the water and it looks like all waterfront space is taken up by large coal-related factories, etc, that are loading up huge tankers (which are lined in the water like ducks, waiting to get filled up (what?)). The rest of Dalian was the largest collection of ugly apartment buildings I have ever seen. My guess is that the stretch I could see was 5 miles long and went inland for as far as I could tell. It was certainly the biggest mass of big apartments I’ve ever seen (and the most ugly, with the closest rival being some of the ones I’ve seen on the way into Hong Kong). I passed the time in Dalian by spending an hour at a rather nice airport tea shop, in which I sampled a fairly large number of teas that the tea lady was happy to let me taste (as well as some tea treats I’d never had, such as tea-soaked chocolate covered nuts and tea tomatoes). She apparently thought she could get me to buy a bunch of tea just by letting me taste it. She was right. It was overpriced, but I loved it. And bought too much of it.

Once I made it to the hotel, I went immediately to the restaurant that both TripAdvisor and the NYTimes rate as the best place to get Peking Duck in Beijing. It was trendy and expensive, but the roast duck was RIDICULOUS. Seriously, I have never tasted duck as good as this. The skin and layer of fat underneath were particularly unreal. They had coarse sugar to dip it in, which was pretty much ideal. I don’t understand how duck fat could get this juicy and tasty. Each bite was a big duck explosion in my mouth (I had to put that line in there, knowing that only a one-letter typo could completely change the context of my entire message).

Day 2 of the trip began my journey with Gael, the French guide who would be escorting me to the Great Wall. He picked me up promptly at 9:45 (on an expected arrival of 9:30) and we took off. I have to say, this was an awesome way to see the city (and countryside, as we left Beijing and headed for the Wall).sidecar was completely in the air and he was holding the thing in a sideways lean (I’m pretty sure Indiana Jones does that in one of his movies). He did that (and the sliding in the snow stuff) at every practical opportunity and, while ridiculously unnecessary and dangerous, it was a blast.

When we actually made it to the Great Wall, we did so by leaving the bike at some friend’s house in a tiny village that was in the middle of nowhere. We then hiked up a trail in the hills to the Wall and hiked the wall for about 3 hours, stopping one important time for a French picnic of roast pork that he made the night before, baguette, salad, potatoes, cheese, and (obviously) red wine. Once we hiked back and were climbing onto the bike for the ride back he said something like “hey, why don’t we stop by this hot spring I know and have some beers.” Here’s the way my mind worked on that one.

Thoughts racing through my head:
“But you’re driving a motorcyc--”
“I don’t have a bathi--”
“What are we gonna w--”
“Don’t we have to get b--”

What I actually said:
“Sure.”

The hot spring turned out to be at a weird suburban development, but the water was hot, we had some bathing suits (he picked up a couple on the way at a cheap shop), and the guy brought us two huge beers each. I know, you’re thinking “But David, is is smart for a tour guide driving a motorcycle to drink two large beers while sitting in a really hot hot spring for an hour?” My response to that is “Hmm, well when did you go and become Captain Logical all of a sudden? Maybe you should put yourself in the shoes of a French motorcycle/sidecar driving tour guide and I think you may see things differently. Boom.”

Once we got into Beijing, we decided to stop by a French bar/restaurant that a friend of his manages and had three more drinks each, before his wife called to tell him it was 9pm and he should come home. So he dropped me off and did. It is probably worth noting that the web site says this all-day adventure goes from 9:30am to about 4:30pm. It was clear that I had a special guide on my hands, so as I went back to the hotel and crashed, I looked forward to what the next day’s adventures would bring.