20 April 2018
From the old to the new old
From Beijing to Zhengzhou by bullet train
Today I moved cities, from a 30 million person city to somewhere between 10 and 12 million people, its hard to measure.
Zhengzhou is where I am, and its safe to say its not on the regular tourist trail. I knew this going in, but it was reinforced when I checked into my hotel. Apparently I have booked a room for 2 people, even though I am just 1 person, so the check in girl was very concerned that I might only use one of my 2 breakfast vouchers each morning. She really tried hard to explain to me that to get value I should find someone from my company I am here working for or visiting, and treat them to a hotel breakfast each morning. I told her I was here for tourism, she literally answered, in Chinese, Why?
The journey itself was uneventful, first I had to get to Beijing West high speed train station, which took 2 subway transfers and a lot of carrying my suitcase up and down stairs, luckily I am up to the task.
Getting into the giant, but older station itself requires airport security, they actually checked my passport, x-rayed my bags and checked my ticket at 3 different locations. Inside the station it was chaos, there are newer stations in Beijing, the railway to Shanghai goes from the southern high speed rail terminal which is more like a modern airport, and there is apparently now an even newer one I have yet to go to which I assume is staffed by robots and uses lasers to guide you to your 3d printed train.
The train ride today was not too long, but absolutely full. There is no point trying to take photos out the window of a train traveling at about 320 km/h, I have tried before, it doesnt work well. There were a lot of farms to look at, but the thing I noticed is they have planted big trees in every farm, the vegetables grow between rows of trees. This is almost universal, I assume the government pays the farmers to do this.
Arriving at Zhengzhou was very easy, and the east high speed station here is very modern as the pics will show. Like Beijing I believe there are 3 different big high speed stations as this is a crossroads for all of China. I am leaving from a different station so that will be exciting. I like stations and said station a lot today.
Before leaving Beijing, I took a walk to breakfast, through a Hutong. I found a Cafe Bene which I think is a Korean brand. I had a really good coffee there but it was somewhat ruined by a large group of French tourists who came in and were all dying. They needed to go to the hospital! One woman actually passed out and hit her head on the table, and jolted herself back to life. If I die of a disease while here, blame these French people! I burnt my throat drinking my coffee as fast as I could so I could leave, I wished I got a take away.
If a taxi isnt terrifying enough, you can go in a 3 wheeled electric motorbike taxi. Most of the time they dont tip over.
Here is the street scene outside of Cafe Bene. The trees here will form a complete canopy over the street soon, lots of streets in Beijing are like this.
The Beijing West station is quite far from the centre of the city, and even further from the central business district, this isnt the station itself but it was obvious its a highly developed area.
Here is a small part of the station, I could not get it all in the photo, to do so would mean trying to cross the road, there were fences to prevent that.
The inside of the station is quite modern, but not as modern as the more modern stations which have more modern amenities.
Once you get nearer your platform, you go into a crowded waiting room, and do whatever you can to prevent a line from forming!
The trains. I do like trains. I especially like ones that go really fast.
The inside of the train. These are very long trains, there are 3 classes, I am in the cheapest class of course, I travel among the people. There are also 2 dining cars, although one is exclusively for first class. Carts full of food and drink come past constantly. The trains are fast and very very quiet, I was also surprised at the lack of lung particles being coughed up constantly, most people went to sleep and were silent.
Zhengzhou East station. It reminded me of Shin-Osaka.
Here is a view of Zhengzhou new city, its quite far from where I am now which is the old city, hence the title of todays chapter.
I was a bit early to head to my hotel to check in so I looked for food. Duck necks were on offer, I didnt feel like crunching on vertebrae, so I went to....a bakery! I thought I had ordered cheese on toast, it got heated up for me, and looked good, then I bit into it and it was sweet. It is indeed cheese on toast, but with blueberry filling. Surprisingly nice!
Finding my hotel was not hard. It stands out above everything and has a UFO on the top. I already described checking in, it seems to be a great hotel and I think I am paying about $55 a night. It was just about the only hotel I could find to book in Zhengzhou.
Now we get the pics of my room, its actually an apartment, absolutely enormous.
It has a full kitchen and full sized fridge. The stove and oven is hidden under that blanket thing, I dont think it has ever been used.
I also get a view in 2 directions. Now this is going to look like I am staying in the middle of a bomb site, but the newer buildings are on the other side of the hotel which is the main shopping pedestrian street and enormous mall area.
Since I am on a corner I also get a different view out of my bathroom, which is also huge. After taking this photo I went downstairs to buy some drinks to put in my huge fridge and the police were on my floor with the staff trying to get into someones room! They motioned for me just to keep going, I did.