Saturday 14th September
I finally decided to go to Beijing to see some of the things I was looking forward to the most. After nearly a month here I hoped to go with some other from work but I felt this weekend was a opportune time while the weather is sure to be good, and my success ordering a taxi on Friday had given me confidence.
I booked the tickets online through WeChat, but some confusion a the station meant I joined the wrong line. You should join one line to pick up the ticket and another to actually get into the station. Unable to tell the difference, I joined the wrong one, went through security, had my passport and ticket confirmation checked on my phone but technically no ticket. When I came to go through the barriers, problem, and the train was 5 minutes away. Fortunately, the staff asked me to wait a bit, a friendly officer arrived to check my details again and let me through. That was great, but I’ll try to actually get the ticket next time to make it easier! Everyday you learn something. Tickets were approximately £4 each way.
With he train travelling nearly 250kph, little more than 20 minutes later I arrived at Beijing South. The metro was simple to use, an English option was available, and I bought a single to the museum stop, Line 1. Easy, clean, cheap, was approx 35p for what would be a zone 1 tube journey in London.
Passport is required for the museum but entry is free, but you should always have your passport with you regardless. A huge building, pristine inside and out. Photos make it appear overcast, but it was sunny and hot most of the time. Surprised me how many families with children, and couples were at the museum. Apparently it’s the place for young couples to go!
Once through the entrance you first see a statue of Mao, and after that entry into the museum, first hall is very spacious with many aircraft to see, mostly of Chinese and Soviet origin.
There are many floors and if you were to look around them all and read the information, I’m sure you could spend the whole day here. There is a wide variety of things with a floor of statues and paintings, ancient warfare and armour, displays of handguns, machine guns, rifles, knives, marine warfare, nuclear warfare, and the vehicle hall in the basement. Everything was well laid out and labelled, but it’s a bit mixed up and no particular pattern in how different nationalities and eras are grouped.
The vehicle hall was the most interest to me. A huge number of artillery pieces and field guns, but also a solid armour collection with vehicles from WW2 to the current day. Displays are labelled in Chinese but the WeChat app can offer effective enough translation to understand them
After a few hours at the museum I left to see Tiananmen Square. First I left a note in the visitors book, a quick flick through didn’t show any sign of any other tourists leaving comments in English.
I couldn’t work out distances from my mapping app so I tried to walk to Tiananmen Square from the museum but it was a hot day and I gave up after a bit and went in the next metro station to go the rest of the way. The metro skipped West Tiananmen station, for reasons I would find out later, and went to East Tiananmen, meaning the 3rmb I had paid wasn’t enough. When I put my card in the machine on the barrier it flashed up that the ticket price wasn’t enough and spat my ticket out the slot and about 10 feet across the hall! Once I’d picked that up there was a booth to go to and top it up. I had to add a single yuan, about 10p, to complete my journey.
A long walk down the street and many barriers, there are preparations for the 70ᵗʰ anniversary of the PRC and a vast military parade is planned. Much of the area around Tiananmen Square was being closed off, barriers appearing and passport/ID checks made. This was a bit disappointing but I was now getting short for time and a walk around the edge of the Forbidden City would have to suffice. Still, I’m seeing things I never thought I ever would, and now they are within an hour’s travel of my flat. In a few weeks when the celebrations are over I will return, probably with some friends from work.
I headed across to West Tiananmen station but found it closed, which was why the Metro had skipped it earlier. Instead I had to keep walking on to the next station which was a good 15 minutes. The metro is very cheap, and you have to use it as to more more than a couple of stops by foot are quite a trek in the heat.
Back on the train home, had a bit of a difficultly finding the platform as it wasn’t signposted at the station but again, I now know for next time. I made it to my flat by 6.30, and after freshening up went over to friend’s flat for more of the LotR board game. A long day, probably going to have a quiet Sunday in...
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