A-nyhao!
Bad pun, I know. Nihao y’all. It seems we’ve been enjoying our Chinese leg so much, blogging about it has taken a dramatic back seat – time for a little update. After a long, empty flight (stretched out on rows of seats we had to ourselves) via misty Hong Kong we landed in Beijing just as the sun was setting. The modernity and cleanliness of Beijing airport left us stunned & excited – and heralded the stark contrast between China and India, which we had greatly underestimated.
The immediate difference is in wealth – Beijing’s streets are awash with pretty women, sparkling Audi’s, glittering skyscrapers, highly fashionable clothes shops, hairdressers (ugh) and shopping malls (ugh^2).
The 2008 Olympics still echo everywhere – products proudly proclaim their endorsements, posters still line the streets, public transport is efficient and obsessively clean, the mascots are still all over the state-run TV programmes, and security is tight and well-drilled at all the recently renovated tourist spots (in a few cases over-renovated, losing some of the authenticity that’s so vital to the enjoyment of a visit to an ancient relic of China’s immense cultural baggage – though it does make for nice photos!). There’s no sign yet of a hangover from the party the country had hosting the events.
What a relief it is to have left a dry country. Alcohol is everywhere in China, served rather warm (highly unfortunate since Chinese beer’s pretty bland) in tall green 600ml bottles that wll set you back 40-80p (more in bars). Bars are few and far between away from tourist areas, but its not uncommon to see tables in restaurants with half a dozen or more empty bottles stacked up at one end as groups of drunken middle aged chinese men see in the night with noodles, noise and smiles aplenty.
The food is brilliant. I eat Indian and Chinese food in equal measures back home but whilst the food in India left me preferring the sloppier, spicier and sweeter English take on curries, Chinese food has far, far exceeded the predictable Chinese takeaway menu classics of back home. The quality of the street food here is the first thing to mention – eating on the cheap is a really enjoyable and diverse experience and though you don’t often have a clue what you’re being handed, it’s not often an unpleasant surprise, and the large crowds that form and sit at makeshift tables around the brightly lit, fuming foodcarts give you an easy way to pick out the best ‘establishments’ as well as provide plenty of banter whilst you wait for your food to cook.
The prevalence of meat dishes in Chinese cooking was a welcome change to the primarily veggie Indian fare but the Chinese are certainly less sqeamish about their animal intake – chicken feet, duck neck and lamb spine are just some of the horrors on show, and we weren’t particularly impressed when an expensive hotpot was brought out for us stacked over the brim with actual spines, broken into short rib-sized pieces bubbling away in a smelly brown brine, by waitresses wearing Inter Milan, AC Milan and Celtic football shirts!
Related:
- Travel bureaucracy: a nightmare
- Some stats: 4 friends. 7 visas to be obtained. 2 weeks to go before departure. 7 months abroad! 6 visits to the India visa centre. 3 visits to the chinese centre. 1 lost receipt – crucial. 1 lost passport photo – crucial. £350. Some observations: - both China and India now outsource their visa applications [...]...
- China wrap-up
- Stats: Time spent in China: 30 days Spending whilst in China: £570 (£18/day) Photos added to album: 500 (maxed out Google’s limit!) Stops: Beijing (the whole 9 yards – vibrant, friendly, fantastic treasures, cool art scene, fantastic eating, thoroughly modern and efficient post-Olympics infrastructure; shame about the air pollution that all typically deprives it of [...]...
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