Postcard from Beijing

I took a career break towards the end of 2023 and headed to Asia for a long-term trip. My first stop was Beijing, the capital city of China, where I spent two weeks.

Hotel Horror

We got off to a rough start in Beijing. We arrived at our hotel in the early afternoon. After a 10.5-hour flight, we were eager to get some rest. Unfortunately, our hotel did not resemble the photos online – the room was dingy, damp and cramped. But we were tired and jetlagged from the flight, so we instantly fell asleep. But the worst part was yet to come.

We went for a late dinner on a nearby street – overpriced noodles, but options were a bit limited at 10pm. When we got back, to my horror, there was a huge brown bug on the bed, its antennae flicking as it rested on the white bedsheets. I’m getting second-hand trauma writing this. It didn’t look like a cockroach or a cricket, but I didn’t look too closely. The resident bug disposal expert, aka my boyfriend, quickly got rid of it. I somehow managed to get a few hours of sleep, but in the morning, I asked to change rooms. The manager did not look surprised when I mentioned the bug, and we got a new room without any protest. Our new room was bigger and much nicer, although cleanliness was still questionable. But the main thing was that it was bug-free…

Everything Has Changed

Beijing is a city that I know well from numerous family trips to China over the years. Our flights from England always used to land in Beijing, so we would spend a few days sightseeing there before moving on. But the last time I visited Beijing was 5 years ago, pre-pandemic, and it’s changed quite a bit.

The first thing I noticed was that Beijing was much cleaner and less polluted than I remember. Gone was the pervasive smokiness that trailed from old car exhaust pipes – a welcome surprise. I had heard of nationwide initiatives to drastically reduce pollution in China, but experiencing it first-hand was something else.

I also saw far fewer foreign tourists in Beijing than I was expecting. But even at tourist hotspots like the Forbidden City and the Great Wall, there were only a handful of foreign visitors. Granted, I was there in November and fewer tourists travel to China in winter. Arrival quarantine requirements were lifted almost a year ago, but international tourism in China is still taking a while to recover, unsurprisingly.

It seems that you can’t venture too far from your smartphone these days. Payments, ticket bookings and even ordering at restaurants is all done through smartphones. The QR code is king now, not cash. Everyone is chronically online – I saw more than a few young people walking on the road with their heads down, eyes glued to their phone screens. It seems to be a common problem, as some subway stations had signs warning people not to do exactly that.

Apparently I’m a Journalist Now?

We got turned away from visiting Tiananmen Square twice!

This was my first real trip to China without any parental supervision – a pretty big deal for me. For some reason, I was more intimidated by the idea of travelling alone in China than my entire 5-month South America trip. I know it sounds ridiculous, as I landed in Rio de Janeiro barely knowing a word of Portuguese, whereas I can actually speak Mandarin. But writing Chinese is a whole other kettle of fish. I think I underestimated my language skills though, as I ended up navigating Beijing, including booking tickets online in Chinese, without much hiccup. Until we got to Tiananmen Square, that is.

Tiananmen Square is considered to be a place of huge cultural importance in China. It’s located at what used to be the main entrance of the Forbidden City. The Mausoleum of Chairman Mao and the National Museum are also here. For Chinese people, it’s an essential stop when visiting Beijing. It’s also considered to be a politically sensitive area, a fact which I had slightly overlooked.

Our first attempt at visiting Tiananmen Square was opportunistic, so we were unprepared. We’d gone for a walk around central Beijing with no specific plans, and ended up in the area.

To get into the square you need to go through a security check, which includes an airport-style bag scanner and ID check. I don’t remember there being so many checks before, but things have changed. The security check was pretty thorough as it turns out, and our bag was pulled aside for an extra search.

We had a microphone, digital camera, GoPro, selfie stick and external hard drive with us – all normal things for a pair of aspiring content creators. But not things you should take with you to Tiananmen Square, as we found out. Their main issue was with the microphone. The security guard explained that it wasn’t allowed inside the square, and usually needed a special permit. He then asked if I was a journalist! This turned into a slightly awkward situation, as I hadn’t understood the word for journalist and had to look it up in my dictionary app.

The security guard advised us to store our stuff at a nearby left luggage place (not free, obviously) and come back, but we decided to return another time.

A few days later, we came back to Tiananmen Square. This time, sans microphone, as I’d learnt my lesson, but with digital camera and GoPro in tow. My digital camera was allowed, but the GoPro was not. They told us that filming videos in the square wasn’t allowed without a permit, but photos were fine (although ironically, my camera can film higher quality videos than the GoPro). It seems the universe was trying to send us a sign.

Emperors and Imperial Beijing

Of course, it would be remiss of me to visit Beijing and not see the Forbidden City. Beijing is full of Imperial architecture, and the Forbidden City is the most spectacular example of it. It was the Imperial palace during the final two dynasties of China (the Ming and Qing dynasties). If that hasn’t convinced you, it’s also a UNESCO world heritage site, and has the world’s largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures.

I love a good organisational spreadsheet, but I also like to leave room for a bit of spontaneity when travelling. Some of my best travel experiences have happened through serendipity. However in Beijing, I found that being spontaneous was quite difficult. If we wanted to see popular sites like the Forbidden City, we needed to book ahead, sometimes several days in advance. Even free places like the National Museum and Tiananmen Square required booking at least a day in advance using passports. (That’s right, even if they hadn’t mistaken me for a journalist, I would have been turned away because I hadn’t made a reservation). This wasn’t the case when I last visited, where we mostly just turned up and queued.

We got to the gate of the Forbidden City bright and early to beat the crowds. Too early, in fact. There was hardly anyone else there. I’d gotten the opening time wrong (maybe I looked at the summer schedule) and we’d arrived an hour early, at 7:30am instead of 8:30am. Ouch. It was cold enough for our breaths to condense in the air. We ate some baozi purchased earlier that morning as we waited in line.

We picked up audio guides when we eventually made it inside the Forbidden City. The device was a thin plastic rectangle with flashing lights on a printed map. It automatically registered where you were in the palace and played the corresponding audio. Bearing in mind that it’s four times the size of Buckingham Palace and the route is all outdoors, it was pretty impressive.

I decided to try a Chinese audio guide, hoping for more historical context than the English one. To my amusement, there were four versions in Mandarin: a history-focused one, a culture-focused one, a children’s version and… a dumbed down ‘regular’ version. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which one I chose.

It’s become very popular in Beijing to wear traditional Chinese dress around the city to take photos. There’s a booming business in costume hire. There were plenty of ladies dressed up as Qing Dynasty princesses and empresses inside the Forbidden City. I also spotted a cute baby emperor being pushed around in a pram by his ‘dowager empress’ mother.

The palace seemed to be endless and my feet even started to ache a bit by the time we exited the complex. But the Forbidden City was as impressive as I remembered, and it was well worth the effort.

Check out my Forbidden City guide to plan your visit.

Third Time Lucky?

After seeing the architectural marvel that was the Forbidden City, we headed to the National Museum of China. It boasts an impressive collection of historical artifacts, none of which are stolen, I would like to point out (*cough* British Museum *cough*). Their exhibition on ancient China and the different dynasties was a particular highlight. Most of the informational plaques even had English translations.

We were ushered out of the museum at closing time. And, would you believe it, we had exited onto Tiananmen Square! On the third attempt, and actually unintentionally, we’d made it to Tiananmen Square. Of course, I had to take a selfie to commemorate the achievement.

P.S. We actually had the GoPro with us, but the museum security check was more concerned with things that could deface the priceless artefacts, like pens.

Adventurous Eating in Beijing

It would be remiss of me not to talk about the food in Beijing. This is a food and travel blog, after all. Beijing is in northern China, so the staple foods are wheat flour rather than rice-based. That means plenty of baozi, dumplings and noodles, i.e. three of my main food groups. Heaven!

This trip wasn’t just about revisiting old favourites, but also about discovery, so I decided to try a few more adventurous foods. The first was something called douzhi, or fermented mung bean milk. Even the name doesn’t sound appetising, right? It’s a popular breakfast beverage particular to Beijing, and known to be strongly-flavoured. But hot soy milk, which I enjoy, is also a popular breakfast item in China, so how bad could it be?

It was bad. The douzhi was very sour and tasted like something had seriously gone off. I had to hold my breath to drink it, but even then it was too gross to finish. And I really tried because I hate wasting food. Sorry Beijingers, but I was not a fan of this at all.

I also ventured into trying two dishes that contained offal: chaogan (pork liver stew) and luzhu huoshao (a pork offal soup). The chaogan was a gloopy mix of pork liver, intestines and starch. Very appetising… About halfway through, when I started drinking the gloopy liquid directly from the bowl, the ‘proper’ way to have it, I started to feel really sick. Again, I couldn’t finish it (this is becoming a theme).

The luzhu huoshao was a rich herby broth containing pork belly, lung, intestines, tofu and flatbread. It was also topped with coriander. The broth was really tasty, and I didn’t mind the pork lung. I actually enjoyed this one, apart from the intestines which I left behind in the bowl.

Being raised in a Chinese household, I’d eaten liver and kidney plenty of times. But I after trying these two dishes, I realised my limit: I cannot eat intestines. The fatty taste and smell are just too overpowering. And that’s without thinking too much about what organ I’m actually eating. I’ll be steering clear of offal-based foods for the near future…

Moving swiftly on, a culinary highlight were the noodles at No. 69 Fangzhuanchang. They specialise in making zhajiang noodles, which is Beijing’s signature noodle dish. It’s made with a rich meaty sauce mixed with crunchy vegetables. The restaurant also happens to be in the Michelin guide for Beijing. The noodles were so good that we ended up going back twice!

Highlights of Beijing

Some other highlights of my time in Beijing were:

• Great Wall of China at Badaling – always a classic, and easier to climb without the sweltering heat and heaving numbers of tourists of summer.
• Temple of Heaven – another architectural beauty, where the emperors made religious offerings for good harvests etc.
• Tombs of the Ming Emperors – one of the tombs (Dingling) has been excavated and you can go inside the underground ‘palace’. There are carved stone thrones for Emperor Wanli and his two empresses. The whole place had a very eerie feeling, but it was cool to see it in person.
• Chinese Opera – we went to see a Chinese opera show with some friends who also happened to be in Beijing! I meant to buy Beijing opera tickets, but accidentally booked a kunqu show. Kunqu is a different style of Chinese opera that’s actually older than Beijing opera. The sound is a bit less brash and the pronunciation is slightly more intelligible, so perhaps it was for the best.

Our last hiccup in Bejing was the day we were leaving. Having severely underestimated Beijing traffic, we arrived at the station 2 minutes before the train’s scheduled departure time. This might just have been ok in a tiny two-platform station in England, but this train station serves a megapolis. Needless to say, we didn’t make it. Luckily, we managed to rebook onto the next train without any extra charges, and we were soon speeding along on the bullet train to our next destination.

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Well that’s a wrap on my first two weeks in China. Beijing was a whirlwind of Imperial architecture and bustling crowds. Things went mostly smoothly during our stay, and I surprised myself with my competence in reading Chinese. I’m excited to continue my travels in China. Read about my next stop in Yantai, Shandong.

Thanks for reading, and if you made it to the end of this post, leave me a 🥟 emoji in the comments!

Planning a trip to China? Have a look at these guides:
Paying in China
Essential Apps for China
Getting a SIM Card for China
Booking Hotels in China
Getting Around in China