After a twelve hour flight to Munich, a connection from Munich to Heathrow, and a callous hurtle into an eight-hour-behind time zone, I am now fully back in England - to stay (probably. For a few months. Or until a good deal comes along.) So now I'm all Englished up with my bad weather and my cup of milky tea, I'll recount the last few days of the whole Trans-Siberian adventure, China-style, for any of you who have retained interest and/or attention for lack of excitement/alternative nearby reading material.
On my fourth day in Beijing, I changed from the fairly upmarket Jade Hostel (well, it had a God of Wealth in a nook by reception) to the 365 Inn in the more down-at-heel but definitely trendier Xuan Wu district (the Chinese Euston versus the Chinese Hackney, or something like that.) Xuan Wu is a brilliantly labyrinthine place full of fake watch sellers and non-tourist restaurants where a bowl of noodles as high as your head costs less than 10 yuan (a pound); where you can get lost among the schoolchildren playing in alleyways next to conspicuous bunches of gamblers next to impromptu food markets and just-as-impromptu hairdressers. Ten-minute-long businesses crop up everywhere: the old man with a spare chair starts cutting kids' hair, another one offers to sell you a dog he found and put in a humorous position on a statue, another one has an 'English menu' that offers you 'green snow' for a dollar, and 'green snow' turns out to be imported Sprite. I spent two days just soaking in the atmosphere of the district, and two nights braving the notorious 'bar streets' with a varied bunch of people who had been on the TS Express from Mongolia (more on THOSE nights later...maybe.)
The best thing, however, about being in the Jade Hostel the few days before had been the night markets. Quiet streets at night transform completely at nightfall into huge food stalls of everything you can imagine (starfish, seahorses, and cockroaches on sticks a specialty.) The noise is incredible, the market sellers in their regulation communist-red hats and aprons leaning over and bartering with locals and tourists simulatenously, switching expertly from Mandarin to English and back again, trying to convince the westerners of the quality and superior taste of snake meat, handing the less curious locals sodas full of billowing dry ice that make children squeal.
I went back to the night market twice, less inclined to try snake meat than a guy in my group of Trans-Siberianers, happier to stick to fruit kebabs encased in caramel (which gave me enough mysterious stomach cramps. Lucky I didn't go for the snake.)
It took me six days, however, to gather the courage to actually use the Beijing subway alone.
'It's easy!' said the Chinese people at reception in the 365 Inn, shoving a photocopied metro map at me. 'Get on line 1 at Chian'men, change to line 2, get off six stops down the line and you'll be at the old silk market. Which westerners LOVE.'
Travelling somewhere that 'westerners love' sounds like something that would usually make a backpacker self-righteously vomit, but what the hell, I was battered by three weeks of unfamiliarity followed by a week of mock celebrity in the eyes of the Beijing residents, and off I went.
Luckily, the Beijing metro is actually really easy, since they had to clear up their Chinglish act Olympics-wise. No longer is their gastro-unit proclaimed as the 'THE CHINESE ANAL HOSPITAL' on the skyline, although the sign in the bathroom at the Jade Hostel still retained its 'Beware of Landslide' sign (after feeling extremely uneasy, I worked out this meant 'beware of slipping.') The metro is slick and announces every stop in Mandarin and English. Like Singapore, oppression makes the underground shine; and like all terrible governments, we can justify China by saying the trains run at maximum efficiency every time.
I got spat out somewhere near the other side of Beijing at the Silk Market: a load of market stalls in a building six storeys high. Electronics jostle against jewellery and Dior jackets and iPhones that 'fell off the truck' at the same place where a couple of zeroes fell off the price. Bartering is compulsory, and eventually fun; after you have your first reasonably priced item, you work off that in order to barter for other things. I bartered for a so-called Dolce and Gabbana trenchcoat using an iPod speaker I'd just bought as a prop.
When I returned to the hostel, I had to dump an unfortunate pair of shoes and a towel in order to carry my (ill-gotten?) gains back. Otherwise my spine may well have folded somewhere between leaving the hostel and hailing an airport cab.
The end of this day was my last night in Beijing, offset lovingly by the Trans-Siberian people who hadn't already left China hopping in a taxi with me and finding the 'party district.' The night went by in a blur of vodka-Redbull-mad-German-tourists-and-Lady-Gaga-sang-on-request-by-Chinese-people-who-can't-speak-English haziness. At one point I may have said 'I love you guys.'
8am, my iPod faithfully woke me, I slung my backpack on and let a Chinese girl from the hostel hail me a taxi. An hour later, I woke up to the driver chucking me out and telling me we were at Terminal 3; Starbucks greeted me like a horribly familiar mirage in a shiny metallic sea of moneyed travellers. Post-security, Beijing Airport has 'oases of peace' every few steps that include waterfalls and meditation areas for the hungover flier.
Next thing I was in Munich.
Now I'm back home.
Blog abandoned until the next travelling experience, which hopefully will never be too far around the corner.
