The Amazing Eurasian Odyssey
as told by characters Matthew Garrick and Stephen Williams
Part 9: The Imperial City, Part 1

Two days on a train is not nearly as bad as one might imagine it to be, especially when one is a hard sleeper. Switching from the Vietnamese train to the Chinese train at the border was like night and day. The Vietnamese train was, dirty and old. The Chinese train was surprisingly gorgeous, clean, carpeted...

It was a largely uneventful ride, except for the Mongolians with whom we shared the berth. A family was traveling on the train, but the members were split between rooms. Everything was fine until the second night when they switched the pleasant mother for the sick, coughing, germy sister. Suffice it to say, we weren't exactly pleased by this unfortunate turn of events.

We arrived in Beijing and went to a hostel where Matthew stayed when he visited in February. It was cozy hidden away several floors underground in subterranean tunnels. We dropped our stuff off and made our way to a different train station which was the international station that served Russia. We needed to book our Trans- Mongolian tickets to Irkutsk, Russia, as soon as possible because the trains go there only twice per week.

We met up with an Israeli- Mexican pair with the same goal. After much debating, we found the tickets aren't actually sold at the train station but rather at the China International Travel Service (CITS) main office in a huge hotel down the street.

We arrived at closing time and perused the prices. We were disappointed to find the next train to Irkutsk would not be for another six days. While it would be easy to spend six days in Beijing, our financial situation was tightening day by day and we could only afford to see the major sites. This made the six days an unnecessarily long layover period.

It wasn't too late in the day so we walked toward Tiananmen Square where the student protests was in 1989. Unfortunately, China has largely censored any reference to the tragic massacre where hundreds of student protesters were killed after martial law was declared, so the events are largely unknown to youth of this day.

We were just in time to see the guard lower the Chinese flag, a maneuver which, to our eyes, wasn't performed with any formal precision. Within the Tiananmen Square grounds is also Chairman Mao's mausoleum.

We immediately made our way to the Outback Steakhouse, located a convenient five minutes from our hostel. This would be our one time to seriously splurge on food for the trip. We had been planning this Outback stop since Cambodia, and it was certainly worth the wait.

Contrary to the norm in America, other nations have yet to catch on to the free drink refill mentality. This makes drinking anything a bit expensive. Outback Steakhouse honors this American tradition. I don't think I have downed so much Coke in one sitting in my whole life. At the same time, Matthew was devastating the iced tea reserves.

A Chinese Construction Bank, partly owned by Bank of America, was nearby so BoA account holders don't pay international ATM fees when withdrawing from a CCB ATM.The ATM hungrily accepted my card, and I got some cash for the train ticket. And then the machine did not return my card or even acknowledge it had taken it. Dumbfounded, we flagged down a nearby shop owner who spoke to the security guard at the CCB, and the answer was "Come back tomorrow." Man, I love China.

We walked around Wanfujing Street, which is the main tourist drag in Beijing. Shops offering clothes, hats, (fake) watches, etc., line the streets. Shortly thereafter, we headed back to the hostel for bed. The next day we went to the CCB and retrieved the card without incident. Then we went back to the CITS ticketing office and purchased our train tickets to Irkutsk, another two- day ride. But again, it was still five days away. It was raining most of the day, so we really didn't do anything else.

The next day we slept ridiculously late, and despite the continuing rain, we hopped the metro in search of the still- under- construction Olympic stadium, as Beijing will host the 2008 Summer Games.

This was largely Matthew's endeavor, but I thought it would be interesting to find. Even though all postings: subway stops/maps and street signs are in both Chinese and English, we could not find the stadium. We even took the new, extended line to the outskirts of the city in our search but to no avail. We returned, had some dumplings, and walked around Wanfujing some more until the day was over.

The next day, we were off to The Great Wall! Matthew had seen it in February, so he recommended a different spot where we would be dropped off at one point and picked up four hours later at another. The stretch to hike was 10km (six miles) long.

Upon arriving, we found we were in quite a mountainous area. Unfortunately for us, The Great Wall was built along the highest apex of the mountain chain, ensuring that it was always at the tallest possible spot to repel enemy invaders. It worked pretty well for about 2,000 years until the Manchus made it through and conquered Beijing in the 17th century.

Next week: Imperial City,

Part 2