Hiking the great Hutong

Sunday 19th November 2006

A Sunday morning rise and shine at 6.45am for no reason at all although there was supposed to be Tai Chi happening at 7am but not a soul in sight apart from one of the girls I had gone to the wall with the previous day. The staff were snoring their heads off at their desks (heads on keyboards) as it was a 24 hour reception but probably not on a sunday morning. So geeking was in store as I showed the canadian girl how to compress a movie of herself at the great wall – we ordered breadkfast at the hostel whilst doing this which consisted of a couple of slices of toast, sweetcorn which normally I love (but this was cold and hard so I gave it a miss) a muffin (a little dry for my liking) a very small piece of bacon and some tomatoes.Not something i would really repeat getting but interesting. It was to be my final day in Beijing so I decided to venture out street walking and naviagate my way to the Temple of Heaven. I walked around the hutongs for a while admiring the beijing culture which was a real eye opener, hutongs are little narrow alleys where by the beijingers get on with their day to day life, just beaware of the cyclists. I walked on towards a big shopping centre. If you think that Oxford Street on the day before christmas is mad then times that by about 100 add 1kg of bikes, 500g of buses and 750g of cars and you have nightmare on Beijings Oxford Street. So it wasn’t a place I stuck around long for, and trotted onwards and downwards. Some half hour later I arrived at Tiananmen Square – and wandered around a bit ending up in some back alley market place serving sweetcorn, as well as probably snake on stick and tortoises eye balls. Each alley way was full of exotic smells and vibrant colours as well as scarves, scarves and more scarves. Venturing onwards I found myself down a street where tea and tea and tea and tea seemed to be the flavour of the month, so guess what? I bought some Coffee – only joking, I bought some tea for about 6p (or was that 9p) what else would you do with 9p? After wandering around for a while i found the entrance to the temple of heaven which cost me all of 10rbm which is about 70p. The gardens were stunning, beautifully kept with amazing architecture surrounding. The long corridor was the highlight – a “long corridor” (really?) – locals playing cards, instruments, a local choir singing traditional songs; the upupbeat rhythm added topping to this a magical mix of sounds and virbrant atmosphere. Everytime i walked up and down I came across something new. Back at the hostel it was time to geek a bit more before heading up the street for some tea costing all of about 30p bringing it back to the hostel sitting around watching a dvd off the street that one of the other guys had bought the other day for about 20p, then time for bed ready for another early start tomorrow.