Please excuse my torso pushing against you - May I buy you a drink sir?

I just returned from my trip to the capital city of China, Beijing! I don’t think you have really experienced the real China until you visit Beijing. Let me tell you though, everything that you have heard is true -- Thousands and thousands of people (18 million), cars everywhere (remember the 10-day traffic jam?), foreigners all over (Many of them speak French), and Chinese that I can actually understand.

Let me just warn you that I’m just going to blog about certain parts of my adventures because even though I was only there for four days, all fours days were packed with new experiences and exciting things that I can’t possible describe in writing! I visited all the important Beijing sites such as the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Beihai Park, Lama Temple, and the Olympic Stadium to name a few. But everyone already knows about those places so instead I will chronicle my adventure on Beijing’s public bus, for it is more interesting.

The group and I had just finished our visit to Beihai Park and it was time to head to dinner. Some of the group took a taxi home, but I took the bus instead with Theres, Rickisha, and Markisha (I knew Markisha & Rickisha from high school and we had a small reunion in Beijing). The bus was already crammed when it got to our stop. There we were, standing at the bus station eying the other 100 Chinese passengers that were going to compete with us for the 50 spots in the bus. The doors open and immediately everyone turns into bus monsters that will do anything for a spot on the already stuffed bus. Parents pulling there children into the bus, women yelling at each other because one was pushing the other, and others desperately pushing themselves through the crowds to avoid getting left behind. After some struggle, a few elbows to the stomach, one or two evil eyes, I finally made it onto the bus. Let me just say that I have never been touching so many people with my body ever in my life. I could feel hands and body parts touching me from all over. I’m pretty sure the man in front of me thinks I own him a drink after the amount of my body touching him and pushing against him. Of course all of the touching was unintentional (at least that is what I kept telling myself).

But a crammed bus full of people wasn’t enough to stop the 100 other people at stop numbers three and four from forcing themselves onto the already over populated bus. The doors open and again I found myself being squeeze closer and closer to the people all around me. The smells, the people, and bad breath got greater and greater as the space became smaller and smaller. Getting on the bus and surviving the ride was only half of the battle. The second challenge is getting off the bus at your stop because once again you must squeeze yourself through the crowd of people trying their hardest to either stay on the bus or get off the bus. The secret is to yell at the top of your lungs “Xia Che” and elbow push yourself off the bus. Once off you can breath again and you reflect on how many times you got felt up by different people.

The pubic transportation is really reliable in Beijing and you can get anywhere in the city by means of bus or subway! This is all good, but you must be ready to be face-to-face, booty-to-booty, back-to-back, and close to many people all at once. Beijing was great for four days, but I’m not sure I could do that everyday if I lived there.