Another highlight of the trip was my whistlestop tour of Beijing by night in a motorcycle sidecar. I’d been in Beijing for a week – but given my work commitments I hadn’t really seen that much other than a couple of cheeky lunctime excursions to the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace. So the sidecar seemed like a good way to pack as much into a couple of hours as possible,
Once in it, it took me a while to get over the distinct feeling that I was in a Wallace and Gromit film (I mean who else has a sidecar – apart from perhaps one of the two fat ladies?) and just about to perform a sheep-based acrobatic display.
Actually it was great fun and we covered a lot of ground. I think the biggest impression this left on me is how much Beijing is changing. Thanks to the Olympics, a great deal is brand new – a really great underground system (with English stop signs – hurrah) and some really amazing architecture. Some well known examples are the Olympic stadium birdsnest and the Opera House Egg – both visually stunning, but there are many other buildings that are really very impressive.
At night the city is stunning –I saw Tiannamen Square, the bright lights of the bars and restaurants along the canal, the streets with thousands of lanterns. My favourite bits were the Hutongs – the mazes of narrow alleys that used to be everywhere in Beijing and are now slowly disappearing. Some were the gentrified Hutongs, with chi-chi restaurants and nice shops, others were more authentic. The bike could easily navigate areas where a car could not – it felt like I was watching a slice of local life – watching the man doing unmentionable things to a chicken carcass in the street, the piles of cabbage stacked everywhere, the street sellers selling everything and anything and the general bustle of people.
Zooming along so close to everything was great, but one of the highlights was actually having a go. It was a bit surreal – riding a bike and sidecar around the middle road of the Forbidden City. It’s a really weird thing to ride as it doesn’t feel like a motorbike at all but certainly an experience I won’t forget in a hurry.
I think the biggest surprise for me was the fact that I really liked the city. Aside from the smog, it’s a vibrant place with charming people. I actually think I could live there.