Asia Holiday 2014, August 08 (Breaking Badaling)

I got up early for breakfast again, most of the food was the same as the previous day but they also had a big tray of french fries ! I asked at hotel reception if they could write down in Chinese the details of the Shanghai ticket I wanted to buy, but somehow that simple request was a little too difficult for them. The staff did at least indicate that there was a travel agency just outside the hotel that would open later in the day, I asked what time it closed, but words such as "closed" and "shuts" were not in their vocabulary either.

Big breakfast.

With that going nowhere I took the subway over to Beijing North Railway Station - I've almost visited the complete set of railway stations already. I found the waiting area for a train to Badaling, it wasn't leaving until 9:00am but people were already standing up in line at 8:15am so I joined in the queue too. I don't know why people feel the need to line up so early and so close together - we were squashed in much more than we needed to be so the wait wasn't much fun, I think I checked my watched every 45 seconds for an update. At about 8:45am the doors opened and everyone started running - something I enjoy a lot more than standing on the spot. The train didn't have reserved seats and was all the way down the other end of a long platform, so it was a foot race to get to the carriages and secure a seat. Because I was in line quite early and can outrun old women and small children with surprising ease, I got a good seat with plenty of time to spare.

The great train race.

During the trip to Badaling I caught up on some sleep as the scenery wasn't very exciting, then a woman came in to the carriage and spoke in Chinese for about five minutes non-stop on a megaphone. I have no idea what she needed to talk about for so long, but apparently part of it was about buying your tickets on the train for the entrance to The Great Wall to save time...and money, who knows... I got confirmation of that from the kids sitting next to me, who understood just enough English to tell me what the ticket cost as well, then I chased down the woman who was already in the next carriage and got my tickets - you have to buy some combo ticket which includes access to a museum or something useless, but in total it only cost a little over $10. In the last five minutes of the train ride we finally got to see some parts of The Great Wall, which was exciting.

On the way to The Great Wall.

Getting off the train at Badaling I thought I would be able to just walk up to the entrance of The Great Wall, but everyone was jumping on to these buses so I followed. Turns out it was about a thirty second ride on a shuttle bus, which saved us all of about five minutes of walking up the hill. I only had large bills left in my wallet so I got a magnet and some drinks before going to the entrance so that I had some change in case I needed it later.

The Great Wall was longer than I expected - I know it goes on forever, but I didn't think you would be allowed to walk along much of it at the tourist spots, instead it looked like you could keep going for hours in both directions if you really wanted. I chose the north side first, because about 75% of people seemed to be going in that direction I figured they knew which was best. I went for about twenty minutes before I reached a narrow point where it looked like I might be stuck or moving extremely slow for a while, so I turned around and went along the south side instead. The south side seemed to be a little steeper and was a lot emptier, you could walk at your own pace without too many people getting in the way. I walked along the south side for a while longer, so in total I probably spent between one and two hours walking along the wall. It was an enjoyable walk and definitely worth spending the morning on, if I had more time in Beijing I might have made a day out of it and walked a lot further.

One of many at The Great Wall.

The Great Wall again.

One of the steeper sections.

I went down to the train station to head back to Beijing, only the 11:40am had already gone and the next was...1:40pm, great service. Instead I tried to find the bus back, but had no idea where the bus stop was. There were some signs for the bus stop with the distance decreasing on each one, then the signs just stopped. I got on a bus which was actually just another shuttle bus, although this one took me to the real bus station.

I knew that I needed a Green 919 bus to get back to Beijing, so finding the stop wasn't too hard. I figured when the bus arrived everyone would get off to see the wall...instead only about five people got off and there was major panic as people tried to shove past them and get on the bus for one of the few remaining seats. I was lucky to be good at pushing through people and got a seat, otherwise it would have been a pretty crap ride back to Beijing because it took about an hour.

I used the time to update my travel notes on my tablet which was good, and I've now had enough time to form an opinion about taking a tablet on holiday instead of a laptop:

• The GPS is useful and the tablet is just light enough to carry in a backpack
• Not having a delete button is incredibly annoying
• Having to change the keypad from characters to numbers, and from lower to upper case is also annoying
• Trying to move the cursor position is really fiddly
• Basic actions like select, cut, copy and paste are so much more difficult to achieve

I went back to the hotel, but got off one station later and discovered a supermarket and a mall that was like 10% open. You could go in and walk around but it was like a ghost town. You could call it a "really soft" opening.

Back at the hotel I went to the travel agency to book a ticket to Shanghai in a few days time. It cost 550 RMB plus 30 RMB service fee - still significantly better than using Ticketmaster. The only problem was they would only accept cash, so I was just about bankrupt at the end. I also wanted to buy a return ticket to Tianjin for tomorrow, so I had to run down the street to the closest ATM for more money before they closed. A fun fact - you need to have an id card or passport to buy (and to board) an intercity train, seems kind of weird and unnecessary.

With all those tickets taken care of I took the train down to the Chaoyang district. Next to the station was Silk Street which is a building rather than a street. They weren't just selling silk, but aisles and aisles of clothes shops in little cubes. Lots of cheap suits and fake sports shirts, but the place was almost empty so it was a little depressing walking past all the store owners, I didn't stay long or go beyond the first floor.

I walked over to Ritan Park which was fairly small but a great relief from the pollution covering the rest of Beijing - I don't think I was just imagining the air feeling a lot fresher inside the park.

Parklife.

Once I had sufficiently freshened up my lungs I went to The Place mall in search of dinner. Overhead they had a massive TV screen running the length of the mall, pretty impressive but it wasn't turned on yet, maybe not until later in the evening. The place was a bit empty but I found another bakery and a froyo store which seemed strangely expensive. If I read it correctly it was 15 RMB for 100 grams.

The Place.

Down in the basement I found a place called Pizza Maru which had a intriguing pizza that I had to try. It was called "bite pizza" and it had little cheese rolls on the end of each slice. I'm not quite sure how they made it but it did take quite a while to arrive. I ordered the Italian Cheese flavour which apparently includes corn, not really a great addition, it didn't make too much difference I suppose. I tried to pay with a credit card...only it didn't work, awesome.

Corn pizza, at least they got the salt right.

On the way back to the station I happened to be near the CCTV Building which looked pretty cool. Since I was on another train line I got off at a third different station to return to the hotel, this time in the Sunlitan district. This district appeared to be a spacious, shiny, new, expensive shopping area. I just walked through quickly, but I did pass "bar street" which I had high hopes for. Some guy was selling mojitos on the street, so I thought I might get lucky and find a place selling frozen margaritas, but sadly I was out of luck and just had to settle for soft drinks from the convenience store again.

CCTV building.