Chickety China Part 6: The Final Episode in Beijing

Janetta and I had both decided, before the party, that we wanted to take Thursday slow. It was our last day in Beijing and we just wanted to relax until we got on the train to Qingdao. So, we went out in search of the Pearl Market so she could buy jewelry. I was much kinder to the shopper than the Silk Market had been, but there was the downstairs area that had clothing and accessories and the same pushy people. Janetta was able to buy a ring and two pendants for decent prices.

Then we went on a mission to find her a new dress for a dinner she was attending for a friend's birthday. The shops we had passed on the way to the Pearl Market proved to be too expensive, so we got on the bus to go to the Silk Market once again.

We got to the Silk Market with our mission in mind. I thought I'd get a winter coat, since I'd seen some decent ones and knew I could talk the salesgirls down to 200 yuan, but I had to keep cash on me for the massages Janetta and I had planned for our day in Qingdao. I couldn't get the ATM to work, and neither could Janetta, so I told the girl I wouldn't take the jacket. Her response? "You're rubbish! Go home!" Beautiful people working that place.

Janetta didn't see anything she liked and I was getting tired. Finally, I saw a really cute fake lace dress, pointed it out to her and the problem was solved! Woo! Now to get out of that place.

Janetta checked her watch and noticed we still had time to hit up the park behind the Forbidden City before we had to meet up with the Belgians to go to the Night Food Market (where she wanted to eat a scorpion or something like that). I really wanted to see the park, since I was told it has a 360* view of Beijing.

Janetta paid for a cab to the park and we paid the tiny 2 yuan entry fee. My advise to those going to Beijing--go to the parks. They are beautiful and inexpensive. This put the Summer Palace to shame and we only walked to the pagoda with the view and back out. It was beautiful! It was quiet! It was very green. It turns out, this park was where the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty hanged himself after murdering his family while the people were breaking into the Forbidden City. There's a plaque where he (according to legend) realized what he did and forced his servant who had fled with him to kill himself and then he killed himself. And now, it's a beautiful park were children, locals and tourists can run around or relax under a tree.

We saw a woman singing Chinese opera (or maybe folk songs, but it sounded grand whatever it was) under a small pagoda. She was just singing it through a small speaker with her phone/MP3 player playing the accompaniment. There was no hat or basket for money, she was just performing. It was different from anything I'd ever heard before, but it was beautiful. There was a man doing something like Qi Gong in the same little pagoda and occasionally it sounded like he was chanting a harmony rhythm.



I would have loved to have gotten to spend a day in that garden, but alas, we had to go. This is were the day got a little tense. We had decided to take a cab back to the hostel, rather than walk again, so we were looking for an area to flag one down.

When we crossed the street to the side where all the cabs seemed to be, we were (of course) swarmed by the rickshaw drivers (both those with motorized and pedal-powered rickshaws). We were curious about the price of going on a motorized one (usually I'd be all for the pedal-power, like those in San Diego, but the men powering the pedals looked about 70 years old and I couldn't bring myself to use them as beasts of burden), it turned out to be about the same as a taxi, so we went for the experience of riding in a rickshaw--having shown the map from the hostel with the address in Mandarin.



We climbed in and (I) prepared to die in this tiny, gas soaked moped with a case around it.
We were weaving in and out of traffic, narrowly missing the cyclists and buses all around us, when we realized that he wasn't turning the right way. The driver took us through the "historical" housing--aka alleys--and then (thank god he didn't take my kidney) dropped us off outside of a restaurant in an area we didn't recognize. Janetta started to freak, but I told her to wait a second. I took out the big map of Beijing and pointed to where our hostel was, then showed him the 15 yuan we had decided on; then I pointed outside and shrugged my shoulders with a confused look on my face and put the money in my pocket. He looked confused. I said "Tienanmen?" with a searching look and gestures, then pointing to the map. He replied, "Yes."

This whole dance went on for a bit, then I told Janetta to get out and we'd ask directions and not pay the guy since he hadn't done what we (assumed to have) had agreed upon. She told me to give the guy 5 yuan, I sighed and did so as it was China and he probably needed it more than we did.

We walked along for a while, then got directions from the owner of a restaurant and double checked with some tourists coming from the direction we were headed. Turns out, he had dropped us near the Night Food Market (which is where we were going after returning to the hostel to meet up with the Belgians), and it was no closer to our hotel than the park.

We walked as fast as Janetta could, which wasn't very fast in my standards and she was the one all flustered about being late to meet the Belgians. We got there, it wasn't a big deal that we were five minutes late, and we set out again, in exactly the same direction from which we had come.

The Night Food Market was not on my to-do list, since I was under the impression it was going to be a bunch of animal products and people eating them, but it was our last night in Beijing and I didn't want to lose Janetta. I was the navigator in Beijing (and failed as one in Qingdao later as my 'East' and 'West' are flipped due to the whole flying 'West' to go to the 'East') and got us to the market.

The market was disappointing for everyone, it was basically street food and a crowd of tourists. There were two stands with fried starfish, snake, and other atypical animal products, but no scorpions. Janetta was disappointed since we had heard from
some other folks at our hostel that they had eaten scorpion--but they also mentioned going to a disappointing food market before finding the one they wanted. Janetta paid for some fruit on a stick, but the price was too steep for me. Then, I saw a stall with bigger fruit for half price and thought I had hit the jackpot--turns out the fruit was disgustingly crunchy and so sour I couldn't eat it and I would have been better off getting fruit when Janetta did.

As we strolled back toward the hostel, I had this feeling that I really should have checked the time of departure again (I usually read tickets two or three times on the day before and of departure so planning can go off without a hitch, but hadn't this time), so I pulled out the tickets. It turns out the train was leaving an hour earlier than we had thought it was. So, again, we were rushing back (read: I was trying to rush us and the others were lallygagging and Janetta was flirting with one of the Belgians and being all bouncy and cutesy and then getting distracted by flashing lights on kids' toys) to the hostel to collect our things, get a cab and get on the train.

After we (finally!) got back to the hostel, and got our things, we waited (yet again) so Janetta could say goodbye to Sven (I get it, I would have wanted to do the same thing had it been me, but that doesn't mean I wasn't annoyed). We had the front desk person write the address of the train station in Mandarin and English so we could flag down a cab and get going. We got on to the street and tried two different cabs but both the drivers said they couldn't/wouldn't (I don't know it was in Mandarin and gestures) take us there. So, we rushed to the subway (for real this time, though we were weighed down with our bags) and got on with a shitload of other people with bags headed toward the train station.

We made it in time, sat down to wait, had a few minutes of not rushing and had to stand up to board the train. We were looking forward to the bunks of a night train and got to...our seats. Seats? What? Yes, 9 hours of sitting up, the seats didn't recline at all, and the tiny table between our row of seats and those across from us didn't go all the way across so we didn't have any to lean forward. And, the aisle was filling up with people who were---bringing in folding stools and breaking out poker cards. This wasn't going to be comfortable.


So, the ride wasn't comfortable, but if I had been prepared mentally for the situation, I would have been able to deal fine, but as it was it was miserable and I couldn't wait to get off of the train. The 9 hours felt like they went on forever. And it was during those 9 hours that I saw the poop stick, a stick in the bathroom that was browned on one end. I'm assuming to get stubborn solid waste down the hole of the toilet. It was a terrifying bathroom.

We got into Qingdao super early in the morning and we had to change our plans of leaving our things with the coffee shop folks again since the bridge to that side of the station wasn't open and we didn't want to walk around again. Stay tuned for Part 7: Denouement.