5/8/25
Perfectly smooth and quiet train ride, mostly air conditioned carriage, pitch black interior. A recipe for a good nights sleep. Enter, the appalling snoring of one overweight man. All bloody night. Pissed off, was to put it mildly. Every time we dropped into sleep we were woken by the oblivious idiot. And there we thought that sharing with a child would be a problem; they slept the entire night, just like a baby.
Beijingxi (West) station was an uninspiring location. Exiting through a tunnel rather than back into a concourse was saddening. The impact of their unnecessary security procedures. Dumped out into a heavily concreted area that gave us the air of Beijing. Four darkly uniformed police officers marched past us, holding what appeared to be man catchers. Sitting in the saddest mall in the world, baby cockroaches clambering around, we drank a coffee and desperately tried to unlock our WeChat account. Of course we failed entirely. Once ostracised from their “Meow Meow Beans” (google it!) system, it’s next to impossible to get back in.
Discovering that the most popular Beijing attractions required reservations put paid to our plans of just “strolling around Tiananmen Square”. Unable to use WeChat meant we couldn’t access the reservations systems either. How, or why, a government uses a social media app for official business is beyond curious. Apparently, according to the internet, going to the Forbidden City, on the day, was possible as a foreigner. Chinese people however, absolutely had to make reservations in advance.
After taking the metro to Jinyu Hutong, we followed the signs and people into Donghuamen Street. Barricades prevented straying from the pavement, crossing roads was only permitted once the barriers had been moved by the police. A kilometre further along a pedestrian walkway took us into the square where the formidable Wumen gate looked down on us.
The ticket office had several lines, and as we arrived we heard the other westerners talking about lines 5, 6 or 7. There were only foreigners in these queues. Passports are tickets, so we knew no one had a ticket yet or why would you stand there. Half an hour later and we were at the front. We had to sign a form confirming that we weren’t part of a tour group, and some other rubbish about not having a smartphone. It didn’t make any sense. Struck through was a sentence about not having a WeChat account.
The Palace Museum was nicknamed the Forbidden City because commoners weren’t allowed in. But here we were, 100 years after the last emperor of China, the regretful Puyi, was evicted. Being very honest we were a little underwhelmed. Grand halls and walls were very nice but we couldn’t help but feel that many things were behind padlocks. More than 1000 clocks are held but perhaps 50 were shown in the add on of the Clocks Gallery. Besides that we saw a few ceramics in one of the galleries that were immensely hard to find.
On the way out a young boy pointed at Jonathan, saying something his mother told him off for. We’d been experiencing more of these disappointing, slightly off moments since we’d headed east. Reminding ourselves how easy it is to let one or two experiences colour us incorrectly, we brushed it off swiftly.
The tube station was deeply authoritarian at Tiananmen East. Various checks on cyclists on the road. In the tube station there were dozens of officers with directing wands. Queues of locals being stopped by ID checking machines. Not a side of China we’d seen much of. We took a metro ride to Songjiazhuang to stay in a reasonable priced hotel.
After washing all the sweat off ourselves we went back to Qianmen. ‘Vege Tiger’ was a highly recommended buffet restaurant. Expensive, for China, at ¥78 each. An absolutely ridiculous spread of dishes was available. Burgers, pizza, sushi, cream cakes, unlimited soya ice cream. On top of all the usual Chinese fare. We physically couldn’t eat as much as we’d have liked to.
Bubbling with food we entered a food coma and struggled back to the hotel. Even the allure of a truck of durian couldn’t rouse our stomachs.
Surly They Won't Make It 