The Journey Begins – 16 hours in Beijing

I’m coming in down to the wire on my “one a day” goal in this time zone, but made it! After finishing up a week in London, where the majority of my meetings and events were sadly cancelled due to the heat advisory, we headed off to Taipei, with a 16 hour layover in Beijing.

I was excited as this was my first time to Beijing and my second time to China, having done the 5-day visa for Shenzhen a few years ago when I was visiting a friend in Hong Kong.

Entering and getting around China

We were able to enter without a visa, as China has a 240-hour visa free program currently running for certain ports of entry. You have to have a ticket to a third country, so our layover to Taipei was eligible.

Since China has gone mostly cash free, I set up both WeChat and Alipay with my AMEX card, but only ended up using Alipay. I found it really simple as you just scanned your QR at stores and restaurants. We were also able to order rides through Didi, the major ride-share company through the app. Vending machines around the city had a QR code that you scanned, which took you to a webpage where you selected the items you wanted.

Speed run of the sites

Unfortunately our flight got in later in the afternoon, so we weren’t able to get tickets to the Forbidden City or some of the other main sites. We ended up deciding to hire a guide on Viator who picked us up in a minivan.

Tea Ceremony

Our guide first took us to a tea shop, where we had a tasting of several Oolong, Jasmine, and other teas. They went through traditional ways of brewing and tasting the tea, as well as how best to store and reuse leaves.

The Olympic Grounds

After the tea shop, we were driven over to where the 2008 summer Olympics were held. We didn’t spend much time there, only walked around the outside of a few buildings. Some of the arenas were repurposed for the 2022 Winter Olympics and some like the aquatic center are open for public use. The outdoor plazas get used often by tai chi classes, dance practices, and more.

Hutongs

Our guide took us to the Hutongs near Houhai. These are alleyway neighborhoods built during the dynastic period. The name is Mongolian origin meaning “well water.” The homes in these neighborhoods focus around a shared courtyard and as well as a shared bathroom. Many of these neighborhoods were demolished in the 1980s-2010s, but the one we visited is historically protected today. We randomly got pulled into a game of hacky sack in the courtyard near the bell tower on the way out.

Houhai （后海）

Literally meaning back or rear lake in Mandarin, this is part of Shichahai, three lakes in northern Beijing. On the quieter side of the lake there’s a mix of people swimming, boating, cooking out on small BBQs. On the more rambunctious side there’s karaoke bars, food stalls, and a lot of nightlife.

Qianmen

From Houhai they took us on a drive past the Forbidden City and Tiananmen, with the traffic and it being evening, I unfortunately didn’t get any good photos of either. Then we made our last stop in Qianmen, a residential street full of restaurants and shopping, as well as a few cultural venues like the Chinese opera house in the first picture. We ended our tour with Zhangjianmian, noodles served with a fermented soybean sauce. Then it was back to our hotel and bed, for a short sleep before heading back to the airport.

Next up, Taiwan! Be prepared though the next post will be a personal reflection – after which I’ll get into the activities we did!