Off the Wall

In an effort to keep my once a month posting promise and without much going on, here’s some thoughts on our Beijing trip.

I think going forward I’ll use the 4 Ps below as my rating of the worthiness when visiting cities:

• Panoramic
• Places
• People
• Prominence

Panoramic – The idea here is that the place could not be captured in a picture, even in panoramic mode. The first time I experienced this was showing impressive photos of Alaska and realizing they did not come close to capturing the 360 degrees of nature that was surrounding me. If you could capture everything in a photo what reason would there be to visit?
While the Summer Palace, Forbidden City, and Tienanmen Square were all impressive, I’d have to say the Great Wall earned the check mark here. Even through the fog it’s difficult to be unimpressed standing up there and seeing it stretch out along the hillside. Of course they could consider changing the name to the Great Staircase, because outside of a small stretch or two of flat surfaces you are either going up or down stairs of varying heights. But this deceit is slightly remedied by the toboggan ride back down.
Advanced age and weight had little impact on my skillz from the early days of Action Park as I pinned that throttle stick straight down and never looked back. I think I had time to use the restroom, learn some Mandarin and get my camera ready to take Lisa’s picture long before she ever came into sight. Unfortunately the real photo op was the wide eyed faces on the two guys working the end of the track as I came around that last bend at speeds not recommended by the makers of that attraction.
Places – In most major cities good restaurants and accommodations are expected. However we find the best ones are those that have places worth going outside of the city. This was one of the reasons we liked Portland so much. In less than 45 minutes we were on a beautiful beach, hiking in the mountains or in wine country. Then back to the city for a great meal and some local wine.
Some cities can earn a check here because the city itself is such a unique place to visit and you may have no time or desire to do anything else. I would say NY or Vegas could fall into this category.
Beijing was a unique combination, due to its size there were many great places to visit but technically they were all within the city.
People – Basically to pass mustard here I think the locals need to add to the experience and the tourist not take away. For me this is the one area where Beijing may have fallen short. Much of this has to do with the fact they have not jumped on the world’s belief that they have to know English. It’s not their fault (maybe even respectable) but it does take away from the experience.
There was one night we were stranded in the middle of nowhere and could not get a cab to our next destination. We finally got one cab driver to agree to take us back to our hotel and we started over from there (actually he dropped us at the hotel across the street, but we weren’t complaining at this point).
Standing outside the Forbidden City and across the street from Tienanmen Square a European girl, looking very relieved to see a Westerner (even most of the tourists were Asian), came up to me to ask how to get to the entrance of the City. Unfortunately we hadn’t even figured out how to cross the street yet and I wasn’t much help.
Hotel workers, waitresses and our driver in particular were all very nice. But at the end of the day this is part of their job. They struggled with English and getting directions or making reservations was difficult.
I had nothing against the locals, I just wouldn’t say they added to the experience. And the tourists were for the most part pushy. We even passed on looking at some attractions because we didn’t want to deal with it any more.
Prominence – The place / sights have some historical prominence. And I think it goes without saying that Beijing gets a check here.
Scoring System:
0 to 1: Not worthy of a visit - should be avoided if possible.
2: There may be something there worth seeing but no regrets if you don’t get there.
3: Worth making an effort to get there.
4: A must see place make every effort to get there.
So I would give Beijing a 3, well worth the trip but short of a must see.
Blog ya' later