Sunday morning, September 3rd set a pattern that we were to follow for the rest of our stay in Beijing. I rose earlier than Cindy, showered and shaved, and went down to the hotel lobby where I picked up a complimentary copy of china Daily and read it. I found many of the articles and editorials in it thought provoking so I read it every day while we remained in China and look at its web site now, although not on a daily basis. I couldn’t help a wry smile when I read an article about how the Chinese textile industry was complaining because the rising value of the Yuan was eating into their profits. Considering what they had done to the American textile industry I can’t say the complaint met all that sympathetic a response on my part. The next day the China Daily ran an editorial saying the rising Yuan was an economic reality and that the textile industry better learn to be more efficient.
Cindy had read about an area specializing in tea and wanted to see it. On the map the area looked to be a short distance from a nearby subway stop so we took the subway to that stop which cost us 3 Yuan, or about 40¢ apiece. The subways(Winser: Beijing subway is changing every single day. see the latest info about Beijing subway here) were clean and nice with a reasonably short interval between trains. It was a lot nicer than New York, but then every subway system I’ve encountered, with the possible exception of Rome, has been nicer than New York and I’ve now traveled on three domestic and five foreign subway systems.
A short distance turned out to be ¾ of a mile. (I measured it on Google Earth) That only got us as far as the West Railroad station. I was carrying my GPS receiver, marking the places of interest with it, and the batteries gave out. I had no spares figuring I could buy them in China. I could, but in my only disappointment in the hotel concierge they could only give me the vaguest idea of where.
Anyway at that point we punted and hailed a cab. The first taxi driver couldn’t speak English and of course our Chinese was non-existent, but a second driver who could came up to us and took us to the tea market. Market it was, primarily selling loose tea. We explored it for a while then stopped off in a store that sold various accessories for making tea. I saw a brewing cup marked 15 Yuan and expressed interest in it. The proprietor immediately marked it down to 10 Yuan and I bought it.
We stopped in a small restaurant a few doors away from the store. It was a good thing that Cindy had her phrase book with her as they spoke no English there. We ordered pork – something. I dropped a 100 Yuan note (about $12.50) on the floor without noticing it but several people immediately pointed that out to me. Then the meal came. It turned out to be sliced pork which was served in a very pleasing manner, but whose taste was at best, tolerable. We finished, hailed a cab, and using the hotel’s business card indicated to the driver where we wanted to go.
When we arrived at the hotel we talked with the concierge about tours. We really wanted a kind of general introduction to Beijing and none of the tours seemed to give us that so we decided to hire a private tour guide just for that one day. We arranged for 10:00 AM so we wouldn’t be rushed in the morning.
I don’t know why but I found I was excited to be in Beijing. Basically Beijing is just another city. It has its tourist attractions, of course, but I have now seen the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben and the Coliseum without feeling this same sense of excitement. I’m still not sure why. Anyway, on the practical side, that feeling kept me awake for a while that second night.
Tags: Beijing trip, China travel, China trip, Google earth, Roy's Trip
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Language isn’t as big a problem as it seems. I don’t speak any language other than English but I’ve been able to get along in France and Italy as well as China. One advantage to speaking English, though is that hotels all over the world seem to have at least some English speaking staff. I didn’t include Korea on that list because we have close friends there who take good care of us.
We tend to travel alone because if we go in a group tour we wind up talking only to other Americans. We don’t have to leave home to do that.
actaully,the tea street Mr. Roy mentioned in the story, is called Maliandao tea street. 马连道 in Chinese. it is one of the famous tea streets in Beijing,even in China. T
In the 1950s, there was only one shop, but with the loosening of agricultural policies in China, tea traders from all around the country began to open stores on Maliandao because of its convenient location. As Mr. Roy mentioned,the street is not far from Beijing west railway station.
in 1999, the Beijing Business Commission and the Xuanwu District government cooperated to repair the road and improve the environment in order to encourage the growth of the street.
The Maliandao tea street then became what we can see today.