China has always been one of the top countries on my bucket list even though a lot of people I know who have been there unanimously warned me of the difficulty in traveling alone. This is due to issues on the language barrier and the incapacitation of the widely used apps like Google, Skype, Facebook, Messenger, and other essential domain names which are banned in the country as a result of the Internet censorship policy. Solo travel is my forte, however, and it didn't stop me from seeing the capital city of the Red Dragon on my own.
My first-time visit to China was also the first time that I wasn't the one who booked my hotel. My host in Beijing was the one who personally handpicked the property where I stayed in and he chose the one near his place for accessibility. He lives in a far-flung place in Fengtai District and the nearest hotel along the way is the one in Fangshan District. I was booked in a 2-star hotel in Changhong East Rd called Jinjiang Inn.
AIRPORT TO FANGSHAN DISTRICT
I arrived in Beijing on December 15, 2019, at 11:41 am. It took me more than an hour to find my way out of the arrival area where my two unrelenting hosts have waited for me tirelessly. We drove instantly towards the 6 ring-roads of Beijing and traveled towards the southwest for almost 2 hours and stopped over at a huge mall for a very late lunch. We then proceeded to Changhong East Rd just a stone's throw away from Liangxiang Nanguan Subway Station and parked just across the street of a 5-story building where my hosts reviewed the property online through their mobile phones. When things might have already been settled between them, we went in and occupied one of the slots in the parking area. That's when I realized that we were in a hotel.
Jinjiang Inn is fairly new as it just opened 5 years ago and I learned that one of the biggest reasons why they booked me here is because it is one of few hotels in Beijing that accepts foreigners. The first thing I noticed is that the front desk officer barely smiled and she doesn't seem to be accommodating even though she is conversing with people of her own race. She speaks on top of her voice and sounds very authoritative, which I thought was probably how she was trained to perform her job. The lounge is undoubtedly spick and span and it's cozy to wait at the couch although I figured that only one sofa is available for a number of guests that would be waiting at the area.
BUSINESS CLASS ROOMS
Booking my room took only a few minutes and we were then led to the third level through a claustrophobia-inducing glass elevator. All rooms in the hotel are Business Class types and they are named A, B, C, and Standard A and B. They all have the same facilities and benefits and they only differ in room areas and bed sizes. My room was at the end of the hallway towards the right-wing and leading to a narrow passageway where door 8309 awaits my keycard to be opened.
The room is sleek and perfectly polished for a newly-arrived guest and it was almost as what I have expected it to be. It's a bit too cramped and there's almost only a little room to maneuver but it's perfect enough for a solo traveler like me. I loved the spot as I was given a city view where I can see a spectacle of Fangshan District from my window. The air conditioner is just perfect for a 3° freezing temperature outside, the lowest I've experienced in my whole life, and the room temperature was just so homey that I almost felt like I'm close to home in my tropical country. A radiator heater is installed at the window side, and an electric kettle sits at the corner of the room with complimentary tea which is most fitting in this kind of season. Complimentary toiletries and disposable flip-flops are also available although I didn't use them because I brought my own personal travel kit which I always do. The bathroom is a bit confined and it's kind of uncomfortable moving around, not to mention that the shower area is too dark when the shower curtains are closed due to the room's poor lighting.
The business desk and ergonomic chair are perfectly positioned by the window just within reach of the flat-screen TV. I plugged in my laptop and I was surprised to see that there is a wired connection for faster internet. I keyed in the password as soon as it popped up and it got connected to the internet right away but I was horrified to see that my home page Google is not showing up. I tried Facebook, Messenger, Skype, YouTube, and all other applications and programs that are installed on my computer and nothing worked. I connected my mobile phone to wifi instead, fearing that my laptop got corrupted, but to my disbelief, nothing worked either. I figured that I may have been given the wrong password or probably there is part of a procedure to connect to the internet that I missed to do, so I called the reception for help. The receptionist who picked up the phone, however, doesn't speak English and we both can't understand each other. She hung up on me and I was left talking to the dial tone.
ONSITE RESTAURANT
Finding a restaurant outside the hotel was never in my itinerary especially that the temperature on the following day, December 16, is forecasted to be at -2° and will be the first day of snowfall since the beginning of winter on November 29.
Jinjiang Inn has an onsite restaurant that serves a-la-carte Chinese Cuisine at the 2nd level of the building. Using the lift to go down one level takes a long time so I usually take the stairs instead. I enjoyed all the mouthwatering dishes that I have tried here although I let my colleague, a local of Beijing, do most of the ordering. Whenever I travel to a different country for the first time, I always aim to eat their staple foods and experience eating them the way the locals enjoy their everyday food. China's major staple food is rice, which is the same as my country, and one basic food type that is always present on their tables is noodles.
Eating Chinese food is no stranger to me since Chinese cuisine has had a major influence on most Filipino food in my home country. A lot of people I've met in my trips to Asia get surprised to see how adept I am in using chopsticks, and it's the same amazement that I heard from my hosts in Beijing as they see me use their most common eating utensil like a native of their country. It goes to show how I love eating Chinese food!
BUFFET BREAKFAST
My stay in a hotel wouldn't be complete and not as fulfilling as my past trips without breakfast in the hotel's in-house restaurants. Luckily, Jinjiang Inn offers a breakfast buffet offering a wide variety of Chinese cuisine and other dishes I didn't know were being eaten in China. You wouldn't miss a jaw drop every time you enter the restaurant and start smelling the aroma of the concoction of Chinese seasonings like oyster sauce, sesame oil, vinegar, rice wine, soybean paste, chili sauce, Sichuan peppercorn, and five-spice powder all blended in one.
My colleague and I meet at the same table in the restaurant every day at 7am as there are not many people in the area. Three reasons that I could think of why we can always pick the same spot every day are (1) probably because there's really not a lot of guests in the hotel that week, or (2) all other guests come to breakfast at a later time, or (3) maybe not all hotel guests are packaged with a buffet breakfast. It's amazing that you get to pick the food you like without elbowing anyone and it doesn't look awkward coming back to the buffet table a hundred times.
The buffet table offers some of the most common Chinese breakfast dishes I've known like wheat noodles, rice noodles, fried rice, porridge, congee, dim sum, wonton, dumplings, tofu pudding, steamed stuffed buns (which I liked a lot), and a lot of various dishes covered in the same red-looking sauce. I'm not used to drinking hot chocolate and soybean milk in the morning but I enjoyed it a lot that I even snitch a couple more to finish in my room before morning bathtime (I hope it's not mean).
SNOWY STAY IN HOTEL
On my first day, I woke up with an eye-popping view from my window. It was my first experience with snow and is maddeningly unforgettable. Having been raised and lived in a tropical country all my life, where the sun shines 365 days a year, it's quite stupefying to see ice crystals falling from the clouds, all white and shiny, like angels flying from the heavens on a chilly day in winter. While everyone else takes shelter from the snowfalls, people like me take advantage of taking selfies while snowflakes fall on my head. It's an awkward, yet fulfilling experience.
My hosts brought me to The Great Wall of China in Badaling which is just an hour and 30 minutes drive from Fangshan District through a Beijing Benz Class W205 (see Climbing the Great Wall of Badaling in Beijing, China). There are several other hotels in the northern part of the central district of Beijing which may be near both Badaling and Mutianyu sections of the Great Wall but the hotel rates are 3-4 times higher than Jinjiang Inn. Before going back home to the hotel, we dropped by Lugu Rd in Shijingshan District to have dinner at Xiewangfu Lamb Spine Hot Pot, just 30 minutes drive to Jinjiang Inn. It was my first encounter with an authentic Chinese hot pot paired with 2 bottles of Beijing Beer! It was such a mind-blowing experience and a remarkable event in my life!
I took a leisurely walk in the neighborhood the following day. Gongchen Street is a bustling and urbanized area in Fangshan District, and it boasts an assload of immense shopping malls and a chain of supermarkets where I bought a few grocery items (read: tons of instant noodles!) that I can bring home to my country. I enjoyed a 2-hour walk taking pictures of the place and checking out what's in every mall that gets my attention. This place is totally Instagrammable!
