Up early, skipping our complementary breakfast, we hoofed it 20 minutes up the road to the metro station that was a direct line to the high speed railway station north of central Xi’an. Being rush hour the metro was busy with commuters and students. Queuing isn’t something that comes naturally to the Chinese and as soon as the gate opened to board the train, it was chaos as people rushed to grab a seat. Luckily we’d booked first class tickets that had reserved seats so we casually sauntered along the platform to coach number 1 where there were only five seats in whole carriage, three first class and two fully reclining business seats.
Even travelling at close to 200mph, the five hours to Beijing did drag somewhat with little to distract from the dreary landscape which was flat and uninspiring. Our journey highlight was a fellow passenger losing her phone down the inside of her business class seat calling on the waitresses and guards to pretty much disassemble the seat to retrieve it.
Arriving at the chaos of Beijing railway station on time, our pre-arranged pick up was a little late causing us a bit of consternation, but within minutes a breathless and apologetic Matthew from The Orchid B&B appeared before us and whisked us through the chaos to pick up a taxi. The Orchid B&B, deep within one of Beijing’s Hutongs is often a place taxi drivers refuse to go as the narrow bustling streets can get them either lost, or jammed, ours deposited us at the end of the road forcing us to walk the last part of our journey.
Entering the Orchid down a narrow alley, we found ourselves in an oasis of calm and welcomed like long lost friends.
Beckoned politely towards a couple of sofas we sat and made ourselves comfortable while hot drinks we brought from the kitchen and the guest house rules were explained to us, confirming also our following days bookings. With drinks finished and introductions made we were shown to our amazing room.
After a rest and a freshen up, and also exploring all the toiletries and nooks and crannies as you do, we headed out in to the hutong for a walk and to stretch our legs after five hours on the train. Heading towards the nearby Buddhist temple a few blocks away we discovered that it would be closed before we got there so stopped at the Confucius temple en route which was delightfully peaceful as it too was due to close and the tourist throngs had already departed. Enjoying a quite stroll around the temple we headed back to our B&B stopping at a small art house cafe that served great coffee and also the best vegetarian hot dogs we’ve ever had anywhere in the World!
Our hosts strongly recommended eating across the street at Mr Shi’s Dumpling House, so, not wishing to wander too far on our first night we did just that, sharing a table with a couple of Canadian guys visiting from Shanghia and also managing to eat our way through 27 of Mr Shi’s amazing fried dumplings!
mrandmrsyoung 