Three Cheers For My Lungs!

Thursday, April 25, 2013
Beijing, China
It's my last night in Beijing and I'm ready to come home. I've had a great time but I'm a bit over it now - over the pollution, the crowds, the attention my baby gets (and everyone wanting to touch her hands), the pollution, the language barrier, the excessive use of plastic, the pollution, the inconsiderate smoking... did I mention the pollution??
Today was lovely because a strong wind blew all the pollution to some other unfortunate place but just 2 days ago, you could not see further than a kilometer into the distance . I could taste it, it was so thick and heavy in the air. I get through it knowing that the lungs are a fantastic pair (or triplet, really) of self-cleaning organs which, given the chance back home, will do so.
Previous travelers to China had warned me about the smoking. Spitting and smoking. The spitting has been barely noticeable since I had prepared myself for another Indian experience. The smoking has been very confronting. You can read about smoking on a train in Darren's Beijing blog but it happens everywhere. I've been accosted by baby-enthusiasts wielding smoldering cigarettes in bakeries, restaurants and toilets. Nowhere is sacred. We're staying in the King's Joy Hostel (which we've been a bit disappointed with to be honest), a hotel turned hostel where there are no smoking signs plastered all over the walls of the corridors on every floor. Yet at 8am, the waft of burning tobacco makes its way under our door from people smoking in their rooms with the door open (so as not to suffocate themselves, I imagine). You could argue that smoking in any circumstance is a silly thing to do but in a country where the air quality is so poor, it seems akin to putting a gun to your head. Unlike spitting where you usually get a throat clearing as a warning to jump out of the way, when you're stuck behind a smoker on the street, the cloud of smoke, much like around a campfire, it seems to follow you no matter which direction you swerve. Carrying a baby, it really gets my goat . So that's my smoking rant. Now for my plastics rant.
I try to avoid the use of plastic at home. It's something I feel quite passionately about. And I feel that Australians are often wasteful with plastic and use it an unnecessary excess. China takes that excess to a whole new level. EVERYTHING comes in plastic - a mandarin, lemon or apple comes individually wrapped in plastic; biscuits come individually wrapped in a larger plastic packet and given to you at the counter in yet another plastic bag; chopsticks come wrapped in plastic; cutlery in a diner comes wrapped in plastic; the street vendor serves her noodles or dumpling soup in a plastic bag which sits in a bowl thereby saving her the trouble of washing up; even the traditional key has been replaced with a plastic card! the Chinese seem to love the individually wrapped item. I'm surprised cigarettes don't come individually wrapped inside the carton, seriously! I don't know what it's about but it's frightfully wasteful and shocking when you consider the population. And not just with plastics!
I was watching an English-speaking channel on the TV here and they mentioned that if China continues to grow at the current rate (8%!!!!), by 2020 it will be consuming half of the world's energy - that's 1/5 of the world's population consuming 50%. And no wonder - there's TV's in the subway tunnels, TV screens on the walls along the escalators, posters don't exist - ads are all in light-boxes. It's frightfully cold in the winter and stinking hot in the summer and everyone in a city has heating and AC
I'm going to detail one more gripe then I'll tell you about all the good times we've been having. Last night I caught the subway back to our hostel with my baby daughter while Darren went to his noodle-making course. I had a small suitcase we had filled with our souvenir shopping and some groceries. I had to catch 2 trains; a seated passenger offered me their seat both times. This has happened on just about every subway train we've boarded. Even if we're only taking the train for 2 stops, the passenger insists we take their seat. It's polite and I like it. But last night, between getting to the station, getting to the platform, changing platforms, exiting the station and then crossing the road via an underpass, I encountered 8 flights of stairs. The bag was quite heavy and together with the 7kg of baby, I found carrying it up and down the stairs of the subway quite difficult. Plus I had a sore ankle from the Great Wall walk a few days before and so I would have looked as though I was struggling, yet NOBODY offered to help. I was a little shocked. Standing on a train for 2 stops is too much of strain on a woman carrying a baby but we'll happily watch her lug a baby plus a suitcase up the stairs. People of China, Help me understand this, please. And please don't give me the 'population excuse'.
So the good stuff: I certainly don't want to give you the impression we have had a bad time. Quite the opposite. 
This whole trip was inspired by my brother's 6 month stint here, filming with CCTV for an ABC kiddies program ('Hoopla' - keep an eye out!) . We thought we'd make a holiday out of visiting him and I'm so glad we did. It was, as it always is, awesome to see him. Luckily the week we had planned to be in Beijing to see him coincided with a press-launch which we found ourselves invited to. What a great insight to how Chinese do business. I hadn't realised what a big deal the creation of this TV show was - a first time collaboration between CCTV (the largest Chinese TV station - they must have 15 channels on Chinese TV) and the ABC. So the Chinese were out to impress at this launch. If I hadn't got that impression after the 30min-long introduction with the individual acknowledgment of every honoured guest in both Mandarin and Chinese (yawn), then the fireworks gave them away. Whoever was in charge of organising the fireworks played it safe and went with excessive. For 15mins it was like being in a war zone. Miraculously, my baby slept through the lot. She must have been exhausted after playing 'famous' with the TV crew. 
A couple of days before that, we dragged little bro out on a hike of the Great Wall on his only day of rest. I reckon it was worth it though. Just the right kind of challenging, and as remote and untouched as you're going to get for a historical site in these parts. We did a section of the Simatai-Jingshaling wall with a tour through Downtown Backpackers. I would have preferred a bit more information from the guide but on the whole, it was a great experience. Unlike the popular and heavily restored sections of the wall, we rambled over original portions of the wall without the crowds . I highly recommend!
We saw the Forbidden city today which was a bit ho-hum for me. Maybe it would have been more interesting with a guide? Or maybe it wasn't my thing. Not sure. Tiannamen Square was a bit lost on me too. But as in the other cities we've been, the food here has been unforgettable.
There's been a few hits and a few misses. There was this one time I didn't know what I was ordering. I pointed to a picture on the menu and then used my picture book to point out a cow as I thought it was beef. I didn't notice it at the time but in hindsight, the waiter hesitated before he pointed to the pig. The meal came out, sizzling and full of colour. The first bite tasted OK, the second was harder to swallow... I think I got 4 pieces in before I told Darren I didn't think I could finish it. The meat lacked that stringy texture - it was like sausage meat but really strong in flavour. I called the waiter over and took out my picture book again, pointing to my meal and then to a picture of a sausage. "No, no" he said and pointed with certainty to the picture of the pig and then his own side, just below the ribs. Mmmm... pig's liver... I'll have the noodles thanks!
The second gastronomic tragedy was the deep-fried starfish. I'd read about this in the Lonely Planet and often used the starfish to convey my excitement at embarking on a journey of new and exciting flavours. So... new flavours are not always exciting! It tasted fishy and was gritty with sand - as you'd expect a bottom dwelling sea-animal to be, I suppose . I took 2 bites (the second to be sure it wasn't going to get any better) and then spent the next 10mins trying to find something to wash it down.
Now for the exciting experiences. Both are listed in the Lonely Planet but having had disappointing experiences with their recommendations in the past, we approached these places only after the good word of fellow travelers.
Dali Courtyard: you book and communicate any dietary needs. You are served whatever the Yunnan chef decides to cook that day (usually several dishes) based on which foods look good at the market. We had tofu skin with mint in a chili-vinegar dressing, sauteed mushrooms (not the kind you get at home), bean leaves, Squash and pork, deep-fried prawns with deep-fried lemon leaves (unbelievably good!), and a baked fish to finish, with a hot and sour sauce. It was so exciting to not have to order and the flavours were simple and tasty.
Today we decided to splash out a little and try a restaurant in the Embassy district, famous for it's Peking duck. You gotta do Peking duck in Peking! We had 2 entrees during the 40 min wait for the duck; smoked bamboo shoots with daikon, cucumber and chili and a plate called 'Tastes of Spring' which was a platter of broad beans, quail eggs, roe, edible flowers, rocket, enoki mushrooms, shrimp, pickled ginger wrapped in daikon, strawberries and red radish. And then the duck arrived - a whole duck with condiments and crepes with duck soup and chilled strawberries to finish. I think Darren got it right when he said the soup tasted like the water the ducks had been swimming in, but the rest was sensational. Aadi polished off the duck skin and strawberries and fell into a food-comma 2 mins after leaving the restaurant. Plus the service was excellent. Three thumbs up for Beijing Dadong Roast Duck Restaurant! Definitely worth breaking the budget-traveler bank for!
So the duck will be the final taste in my mouth of our Beijing experience and I'm very pleased about that. It's been an adventure of a holiday - our first as a family and i can't wait to pack us all up and do it again!
We're heading home tomorrow but keep an eye out for the 'Traveling with Baby' blog that's still in progress. I've learned a lot! And would love to inspire other mums and dad's to continue their love of traveling as others have done for us.
Xie xie, China. Looking forward to seeing how it all goes for you.
 
 

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