In the sixth of our series of stories from Irish men sharing the craic with the rest of the world, we join intrepid travellers Simon and Tom as they get to know the locals, and some Swedes, in Beijing.
Diary by Simon McKnight
Sanlitun Youth Hostel was really only a stopping off point, and after a few days we made a move to a new hostel called The Emperor’s Guesthouse. My mates Jeff and Damien were coming from Dublin for 10 days to visit me and see Beijing and this is the hostel we were staying at.
Moving to that hostel was just one of those practical decisions. Damien & Jeff booked that one, and it just made sense for us to be in the same hostel. But looking back, it makes me wonder how different my time in Beijing would have been if I was staying some place different.
It’s easy in general to have that feeling about anything, but when you have time to look back over things that have happened and decisions made, there is sometimes one action that all other’s branch off from, that depend on that one decision. And for my time in Beijing, that action was going to the Emperor’s Guesthouse.
I can only describe the taxi ride from Sanlitun Rd Hostel to the Guesthouse as fucking ridiculous. We literally flagged down 10 taxis before the last one agreed to take us. And only because we met a very nice Chinese girl on the street who did the translating for us.
It was absolutely crazy. We had a very detailed map, the destination written in Chinese, and the English equivalent so we could say the name. And last not least, we knew how to point at Tiananmen Square on the map. God damn, we left the hostel thinking we were bullet proof. But it felt like they all thought we were lepers. It also ended up taking about five times longer than it should have.
The only way to get to the hostel was to go around Tiananmen Square. Little did we know (and obviously ALL the taxi drivers did) that the place was on a pretty big lock down traffic-wise because of the holiday. After a while, I felt that I was literally never going to make it out of the taxi… or to the hostel for that matter. After what seemed like more time than it takes to get from Dublin to Beijing, we finally made it.
The Emperor’s Guesthouse turned out to be just that, an old guesthouse for a random emperor from way, way back in the day – far enough back that it’s referred to as a Dynasty. It was built with a huge open air courtyard that stretched two levels up to the ceiling.
On the top level were the bedrooms, all of which overlooked the courtyard, with a narrow hallway between the banister and the bedroom doors. There is medium-sized reception area off of the foyer when you walk in, which had a couple computers, and half a dozen tables for the restaurant.
The building itself was pretty cool, and completely different from your typical hostel. This one had character, really comfy beds and the best hostel staff I’ve ever met. People who were going to become my friends.
The staff really got their hooks into me. I’m going to stop calling them ‘the staff’ and refer to them as they should be – my friends. They came to occupy that status due to the amount of time I stayed at the hostel, but more importantly, because of the kind of people they are. The second Tom and I got to the hostel they were instantly friendly to us. I came to see them do this with just about everyone who blew into the hostel, but it never seemed to be disingenuous.
They were always sincerely happy to meet new people as if they weren’t separated by a staff/customer relationship. They just treated people as people. Tom and I got to know them in the couple days before Jeff & Damien arrived. There was one girl in particular who was instantly likeable, and that was 19-year-old Sophia. She had this never ending energy and naivety about her. Always smiling, really enthusiastic and that made me feel instantly welcome. Tom and I became fast friends with Sophia, Sunny, Sean, Cindy, and Rose the manager.
The next day we headed up to Tiananmen Square to take a look. It looked exactly what I was expecting in China…. people absolutely everywhere. The floats from the parade that nobody was allowed to go to were all parked in the square for the duration of the week-long holiday, and everyone in China had come over to take a gander for themselves (incidentally, there were 14 million domestic tourists in Beijing for that one week holiday).
Not only was the square packed, the underground pedestrian walkways had just as many millions of people on them. Anyone with a bag who wanted to use one had to put it through an airport style X-ray machine so you can imagine the queues, the crowds, the activity.
It was a sight to see, and I loved every minute of it. We did our obligatory stint in the square, got our photos and hit the hay. Let me just say this about the parade floats. These were top grade, grand, and perfectly built. This isn’t the Corn-cob parade down in the asshole of the armpit of Texas. We’re talking impressively designed, perfectly executed to show off whatever they want to show…. parade floats dedicated to communism are funny.
Before Jeff and Damien got over, Tom and I hit the town with two lovely Swedish girls staying in our room. Ah, typical Swedish girls… young, blond and slim, they definitely caught my eye and the gears started to turn in my head.
There were only the four of us in a six bed dorm room, a rare bit of privacy in an otherwise constantly public sleeping arrangement. So we hit a hole in the wall restaurant, ate (ok, drank) and then hit the pubs.
The girls had met some people on the plane over and were going to meet them at a pub in Sanlitun Road. So off we go, to meet up with a huge group of… more Swedish!
The gears kept turning, but they weren’t going anywhere. Got a few kisses off of the girls, but they were all talking Swedish all night… and I don’t speak the Swedish! It’s a quick way to get excluded from the group. But hey, that’s life. Tom and I ended the evening playing a dice drinking game with a few young Chinese couples – it was a laugh and they were buying the beer!
If you’re an Irishman abroad (travelling the globe, on a year out or resettled in some far off land) and you’re interested in sharing your Backpacker Diary write to [email protected]
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