Sleepers & Super8

Our train from Pingyao to Beijing was 13 hours and overnight. We started at 9:30pm, so it didn’t take me long before I was ready to hit the sack. I figured sleeping the majority of the time would make it go faster.

Steve's bunk is up top

A few things about sleeper cars: there are two types, hard and soft (1^st and 2^nd class basically). The soft have four bunks to a cabin and a door you can close. The hard have no door and six bunks to a section. The top and middle bunks aren’t tall enough for a grownup to sit up in but are fine for sleeping. For the people in these bunks, there are fold down seats on the opposite wall of the carriage with a small table for each two seats. The bottom bunk had enough space to sit on, and many people (sometimes people for the top or middle bunk if they are friends of the person on the bottom bunk) will sit on the bottom bunks and hang out with one another. The train provides you with a pillow and blanket, regardless of the type of sleeper you’re in. The blankets are really thick and warm and the pillow is just an average pillow. 

waiting for the snack cart to arrive!

We personally like the top bunk the best, partly because it is the cheapest out of the three, but mostly because it offers a certain amount of privacy. If you are on the bottom or the middle, anyone walking through the carriage can and often will look in on you, and in our case, stare at us. But when you are on top, you are too high for people to look in on you. That’s nice, because one thing that has happened a lot thus far is us being stared at. Lastly, the bathroom facilities on the sleeper trains are much like those throughout China—smelly and a little unpleasant, but nothing one can’t manage.

We hadn’t had the best luck, it seemed, the first go round in Beijing, so we were hoping this time would be different. Nope. The metro to and from Beijing West isn’t connected yet and we couldn’t find the connecting section, though it surely wasn’t far from where we were. So we tried another option—the bus. With traffic and stops, it took us over 30 mins to get to Beijing Main station, from there we could take the subway to our hotel, which was to be a short 10 min walk from the station. Ha. Yeah right. We walked. And walked. And walked. And still no sign of the hotel. So finally, Steve forged out while I stayed with the bags. After searching and walking for over an hour, he came back to report that we were nowhere near our hotel, but that he had the correct location of our hotel, written in Chinese. So we grabbed a taxi and we finally made it to the hotel.

It was a Super8 (yep, they have them here too!) near Wangfujing Street, located in a hutong (who-tong: an old neighborhood with narrow streets hardly big enough for two cars at once, most of which were torn down in Beijing when the thrill of the Olympic Games being held there was at its peak and also just as the city expands and commercializes). The staff spoke excellent English and the rooms were inexpensive yet clean and nice. It was a good place to stay that’s near attractions but not at the cost of being right in the middle of the action.

We stayed there for a total of 3 nights. Was supposed to be 4, but with a mistake on the hotel’s part for our booking, they were full for one of the nights, so we had to stay just down the street at a not so nice hostel instead. The other 2 nights we were in Beijing, we got to lie in the lap of luxury at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Wangfujing Street. We’ve run the gamut as far as accommodations in Beijing, that’s for sure!

An Ancient Walled City, if You Please.

The D train from Beijing to Taiyuan was just fine, only about 4 hours. We then had to take a city bus to the bus station to get an intra city bus to our ultimate destination: Pingyao (Peen-ou in ‘ouch’). While aimlessly walking about, a woman from a bus yelled at us “Pingyao?” So we run over to the bus and paid the 26yaun each to get on. We had been told that there were buses that run for 24yaun p/p, but this was close enough for us. The only downside of taking this particular bus was that we went rather slow, so the 90 mins it should have taken us ended up to be solidly over 2 hours to get there. Once we arrived a man immediately approached us with a flyer from one of the hostels we had seen good things about, so we negotiated a price, and he took us there.

Coming in to the walled city. What a sight!

Our beautiful room. The bed is so comfy!

The hostel is called Harmony Guesthouse. The staff speaks excellent English and is very kind and helpful. They have daily tours to the various sites nearby (which we did not partake in). And they also own a bar a few doors down called the Cozy Bar, and it’s just that. They have food available at both the main guesthouse and the bar, and it is delicious and slightly cheaper than the other restaurants serving the same things. The room was amazing (though our bathroom smelled most of the time) and very beautiful. It was a great place to stay and we would recommend it to anyone looking for a place in the walled city.

One of the many restaurant fronts

A random collection of trinkets to buy

some matches (presumably special in some way) for sale

The city itself is a bit touristy with its repetitious stalls, restaurants, and shops selling exactly what the one a few doors down has, but it is quaint and fairly quiet, especially on the weekdays. You will have better luck negotiating prices on the weekdays when there is fewer tourists, therefore less business for the vendors. Also, many of the people speak at least some English, but if they don’t they will tell you the price of the item with their calculator.

To avoid the repetition and the higher tourist prices, we recommend you venture outside the walls and into the city itself. Just outside the west gate there is a market area with lots of vendors, stores and street food! You can get a bowl of noodles for 5yaun, skewers of meat from 2-5yaun each, and meat or veg stuffed steamed bums for 5yaun for 2! It’s a nice break from the high prices inside the walls, and it’s also fun to see the various foods and people. We ate at this market a few different times before we left, once we found it.

escaped from the compound!

Our four days in Pingyao was much more of the respite we were looking for than we received in Beijing. Though there wasn’t enough to “do” there to stay long term, we could have stayed at least a few more days and just lounged around and leisurely walked about and been completely content. The only reason we didn’t stay longer was because we had to leave. We were set to meet our friend Karen, and her son Joe, back in Beijing. So regretfully, we packed our things and said farewell to the lovely walled city of Pingyao, and we took our first overnight train, back to Beijing. 

beautiful park somewhere in the midst of the maze of walls

paper cutting by a famous local artist. absolutely impressive

One of the many forts of the walled city

the corner of the outside walls--from the inside!

Looking out across a waterway outside the walls of the city

Outside the city walls just before sunset

a grandfather and his grandson at work catching something

Please don't toot your own horn on this street. Thank you.

sadly it is blurry, but the orange glob in the center is a harvest moon with the lights of the city below 

Beijing Round 1: Take a Rest

With seemingly little effort, we made it out of the airport and onto a bus bound for the area of town our hotel was supposed to be in. We had done it. We left Korea and we were now somewhere in Beijing. And we needed to find our hotel.

We had the name written in Chinese and showed this to four taxi drivers, all of which gave us a headshake or a hand gesture to indicate that they weren’t going to take us there. After walking for over 2 miles and finding the wrong hotel by the same name, I was losing steam and we were losing patience. So when an unmarked car pulled up and we showed the hotel name to him and he nodded yes and said ok, we got in. There had been warnings of taking taxis that were not official, but at this point, neither or us cared much.

The unmarked taxi ride did cost us more than a real taxi would have, but since a real taxi wasn’t getting us to where we were going and this guy did, we were happy to pay double a normal taxi just to be at our hotel.

We stayed for four nights with the sole intention of resting, relaxing, and not being demanded of. It was nice. We stayed in a Green Tree Inn, which is a fairly prevalent chain around here. We booked online for a better price and the room itself was very nice and clean and the staff was as helpful as they could be with their limited English. We would highly recommend the chain, though it seems that they tend to be located in areas away from where things are happening, so keep that in mind when you book.

On our way out after 4 days. Was a nice room to rest in.

At the end of four days, we decided we needed to get moving. Our first choice was Harbin (Har-bean) a city to the north and east of Beijing, famous for it’s ice festivals in the winter and the Russian influence in architecture and food. Sadly, when we got to the train station we were told that trains for the next three days were standing room only (on a 14 hour train!), and that we were not willing to do. So we opted for tickets to a city called Taiyuan (Tie-you-en) to the west and south of Beijing. But we couldn’t get those tickets until the next day, so that meant one more night in Beijing.

Mao and all his glory. This is as close as we got to the City

To simplify our lives, we decided to stay a bit closer to the railway station. Under guidance from what we thought to be a reliable source, we got on a bus heading west and then got off at the designated stop to begin our hunt for a new hotel for the night. Though the person told us that there were many cheap hotels around, we never saw any. We walked for over three miles that afternoon looking for a place to stay. Our search did take us by Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, so we got a photo and kept trekking.

Not as nice as our first room, but it was only for a night.

We finally ended up in a dank little hostel, 4 floors below ground level, not far from Wangfujin street (the famous shopping street in Beijing). It was over-priced and gross, but it did the trick for the night, and we were out the next morning on an 8:30am fast train to Taiyuan. 

And So it Begins

It's finally here; the joint blog effort that has been just that! It was rumored that this would be up and posting before we left Korea...but you'd just be amazed how quickly the hours fly by once you don't have to keep track of them any more. But, we've finally sat down and knocked out the finer points of the blog and we're ready to get it started! 

So to start I will report that the last week in Korea seemed like more of a chore than the week of rest and recuperation that we so dearly needed. But all the craziness of lunches, dinners, drinks, meeting someone here or there, and just basically being a headless chicken meant that we got to say goodbye to everyone we wanted to. 

We left our apartment at Deokpo Beach Saturday afternoon and stayed with a friend for our last night in Korea. We got on the plane and didn't utter our first sigh of relief until the fasten seatbelt sign went off at altitude. We had officially left Korea.

For any that don't know, leaving Korea was a mixed bag for us. But mostly, it was a "seeing is believing" sort of thing. I had missed my original departure date because of the accident back in early July. I was cautious too put too much expectation into this one. But Korea relented. And even gave me a parting favor: a massive head cold. Thanks, K. Love you too.

So though this is late in getting started, that is the start to our adventure in China--we first had to leave Korea. So, now it begins!

At Gimhae Airport, hoping this really is goodbye.