A fast overnight train from Nanjing brought us back to Beijing when my class was finished in Kunshan. It was time to relax a bit after the all-day lectures and nightly banquets, and we spent a couple of days walking in central Beijing. The centuries old imperial classical garden in Beihai Park just north of the Forbidden City is worth a few hours, and from there we strolled along the winding paths through the touristy but nice Houhai Lake area and back to our hotel in Dongcheng. Just down the street is Beijing’s famous Guo Jie restaurant strip, almost a kilometre long with hundreds of wall to wall restaurants on both sides of the red-lantern illuminated road. We dined there each night after a wait in a queue to get a table. The wait was worth it - the spicy food was great. The cold has finally come to Beijing and the spruikers outside were dressed in heavy fur coats; inside, the heaters were on full blast to create the environment the Chinese like best – hot. Their winters are much more extreme than Australia’s, and they seem to overcompensate for the cold by generating uncomfortably hot environments inside buildings. At least that’s how it seems to us.
Today we browsed the shops in Wangfujing Mall, Beijing’s premier shopping strip. We were last here a little over a year ago and the fast-growing affluence is plain to see. There’s no better way to get around Beijing than by its fantastic subway system. But claustrophobics would do well to avoid rush hour when the surging crowds almost overwhelm the system. The crush on board the trains has to be seen and felt to be believed. Passengers don’t merely brush against each other; they are pressed hard together in a way that would normally be unthinkable between strangers. And don’t even think about breakdowns or fire in the tunnel.
