All the reading, anticipating and packing are finally over. On the plane I am thinking, “What did I forget?” And how am I going to navigate without Google? Is my phone going to work. I packed light and still I took too much. I took a long sleeve shirt and a light jacket in case of a chilly night. The chilly night never happened. I took a few masks for breathing in Beijing. I never used them. I brought a pair of unfashionable light pants and never wore them. I took two pair of jeans, and probably could have done with one, but by the twelfth day, those were very very dirty.
I took about 6 tee shirts. They were all dirty and wet with sweat by the fourth day. I took to washing them in the sink at the hotel, and I bought two more. I brought the right mouth of underwear and socks and washed both twice along the way.
The United flight sat for two hours on the tarmac before it took to the sky. In the twelve hours of flight I had only one strong moment of claustrophobia, where I wanted to jump out of my seat and scream. We landed 12 hours later, then another 13 hours because of time difference put me in Beijing at 9 am in the morning following a huge crowd of mostly Chinese through customs. The ten lines handled the crowds with relatively quick dispatch. I took the train along with the others to the Dongzhimen Bus and Subway station. I had a stack of paper maps, hotel registration information, registration to help guide me to the proper stop. Truckee had texted me earlier that his flight was delayed a day.
Where did the day go, Monday? I was riding the subway with my luggage and looking at my printed map of the hotel location. I had printed a map that supposedly showed exactly the location of my hotel. The landmark was across the street from the Apple Store. I exited the subway at Dongdan, just East of the Tian’amen exit. After a couple of blocks I dropped into a computer store thinking that a techie might be able to ascertain the correct direction via GPS. He was friendly but not helpful. I had the words of the hotel printed in Chinese, and the address in English. Young Hotel, 5 Nanheyan Street, Dongcheng District. I stumbled in the main shopping district of Beijing and there before me was the giant Apple Store, but it was not likely that my hotel was anywhere in the vicinity. Addresses did not match. I stopped into a small motel, and the staff was very helpful. Two young women drew a little map and pointed me in the direction across the street. Everything seemed to turn to a dead end. I tried a jewelry store. Again four young women were determined to help me find my way using their cell phones. One actually brought me to a little alley way and pointed the direction that I should walk- also equipped with yet another detailed map- 3 blocks, a little jog, then another block. Alas, I was lost again. I dropped inside another hotel. He had no idea, but it turns out I was only a block away. I crossed the street and 2 policemen had apparently just got off duty. They walked me to my hotel. I thanked them (Sie-sie), and we parted ways.
It was a modest hotel with maybe 20 rooms in an ideal location. I was next to a green way that followed the road, and saw there later an excavation of the early city wall of Beijing. As far as I know, none of the original city wall is left the remnants dismantled during the construction of the subway in 1965. A Ming era construction (1553), these were part of the Imperial City, within that the Forbidden City. It turns out that I was just 4 blocks from the Forbidden City. Outside the Imperial City walls were the Inner city walls and south of the Inner city the fortifications around the outer city- all gone now save the formidable walls around the Forbidden City.
The next morning the hotel had a large and mostly delicious breakfast spread- 4 varieties of mixed vegetables, hot and cold, bacon, chicken, two kinds of eggs- one somewhat unpalatable for me, fried rice and the now familiar weak sweet coffee. I spent the next day walking what felt like endlessly around central Beijing- Tiananmen Square, the largest square in the world, the outskirts of the Forbidden City, past the Monument to the People’s Hereos, around the Mao Mausoleum, and visiting the Shenyang Men Gate.
