Today, we visited the Palace Museum (including Treasure Hall + Clock Hall), which is near Tiananmen Square, after we booked the tickets on trip.com from here yesterday. We enjoyed a few hours there. We didn’t book a guide, and refused two who offered themselves to guide us when we reached there, because we wanted to enjoy it at our own pace, having already read a bit about it on the internet. The place is very big, with beautiful colors and designs. All we needed to show at the entrance were our passports.
After that, we went and visited Jingshan Park, which was close to the Forbidden City, after we also booked the tickets for it yesterday from here on trip.com. All we needed was to show the QR codes of the tickets booked on trip.com, and that’s it. What I liked the most was that this park was full of „bujori“, the Romanian national flower, which is known as Paeonia peregrina. This is the most beautiful park I ever visited in a city, with several pagodas, very well maintained, with a beautiful view over Beijing and the Forbidden City.
After that, we wanted to go and eat dumplings from a restaurant we saw on Google that serves vegetarian ones, which is rare in Beijing, as many dumpling restaurants where I entered and asked if they have dumplings with no meat said no. One guy even gave me the “how dare you even asking such thing”; like same look Italians give to someone who asks for pineapple on their pizza. :)) Instead of ordering a Didi (the Chinese name for taxi) to go there, we debated whether we should walk 2 km until there, as it was still nice and sunny outside. Suddenly, we saw a taxi stopping near us, asking some girls if they wanted a ride, and after they entered the taxi, I saw them exiting after 5 seconds. It was weird, because usually when someone enters a taxi, it goes to the desired destination. After that, we saw the same taxi coming towards us, with the driver asking if we wanted a ride. When we asked how much it costs for 2 km till the location of this dumpling restaurant, the guy said: 100 yen. We said: no thank you, because we usually pay 30 yen for 5 km from our hotel till here; why would we pay more than triple for less than half the distance?! This „shameful“ overprice must have been the reason why those girls got out of the taxi a few seconds after they entered it.
Seeing that it was still nice and sunny, we decided to walk a bit towards this dumpling restaurant because we had no more big plans for today other than this. After a few minutes, a guy on a bike that looked like an Indian rickshaw stopped near us, saying that he could give the two of us a ride in the back of his „rickshaw“ if we were interested. I didn’t ask how much it would cost because he rushed us, saying, come sit both of you in the back fast, because cars will soon start honking at me. I wanted to ask how much it would cost, but I didn’t because he was acting like „come, just sit already, why worry about the price, the distance is just 2 km, all is good“. Big mistake that I didn’t ask him in advance as I did with the taxi driver a few minutes before him. Why?! Because after he drove us there, he said it cost us 600 yen, which is ridiculously high, because we drove several times with taxis in Beijing for around 5 km and always paid around 30 yen. I said: This is a scam and I will not accept it. Then he said: No, it is not, look here on my card, it is written that it costs 600 yen, because I use my legs to do „manual work“ and I’m not a machine; it’s a unique experience, you know…“. I replied: Never will I pay you so much, the maximum I can pay you is 100 yen because you used your legs, but not more than that. He replied: Ok, pay 400 yen then, because look here on my card, I have a red star stamp which means I’m legal and you must pay me for my hard physical work. I replied: I think you are scamming us right now, I’m sure of it, thinking that because we look like foreigners, you can take advantage of us. All I can pay is max 100 yen, and that’s because I’m still being nice to you, otherwise i will call the police. After hearing this, he finally said: Ok, pay 100 yen, no problem, and let’s finish this, no need to escalate. I paid with Alipay as usual here in China, and away he went. I felt bad after that for a few minutes. First, because I had to experience this after such a wonderful day at the Forbidden City and Jingshan Park; second, because just yesterday I wrote here how my experience in China is amazing, with Chinese people being the future people, and I didn’t expect to experience this the very next day; and third, because I should have paid him max 50 yen, not 100 yen, but the reason I accepted to pay this amount is just because I was the „idiot“ who let him lead the conversation, thinking that China doesn’t have this kind of problem where, in touristic places, there will always be people who will try to make extra money by fooling foreigners (as I saw people doing in Egypt at the pyramids, or in many central parts of cities in Italy, with people complaining a lot about this recently on YouTube). So, the lesson is: Always book your tickets using AliPay!
A few seconds later, we saw a cat for the first time in Beijing. She didn’t look that happy either. :))
Then, another problem: We didn’t find the dumpling restaurant at all, even after asking locals. Why? Because despite being present on Google, it was not on Amap, the Chinese version of Google Maps. It might have gone out of business or who knows, because we did 2 rounds around the street just to find it, but couldn’t. So the lesson here, dear kids, is: Always trust the Amap app in China, not Google Maps; just because you bought the China Mainland 5G eSIM and you like Google Maps, doesn’t make it right, ok?
After that, we returned to our hotel for half an hour, after which we took another taxi for like 3 km to a very good restaurant we discovered that has vegetarian dumplings as well as many more vegetarian options, and paid 15 yen for the taxi. Yes, only 15 yen for around 3 km, and that guy wanted 600 yen (with me being an idiot and paying him 100 yen) for 2 km.
In this restaurant called 馅老满(东四店), the staff spoke English (I saw many foreigners there enjoying the food) and served us free lemon water to drink. We ordered a soup, a very delicious spicy broccoli with garlic dish, a spicy tofu dish, two portions of delicious dumplings (one steamed and one pan-fried), a sour plum juice which came in a big jug (it was too sweet for me, but I wanted to try it), and a sweet gelatin-on-ice dessert with dry fruits (not my thing, but I wanted to try it). In total, for all this food, we paid 180 yen, which is around 22 Euros. Yes, for two persons. Ah yes, and there is no tip culture in China.
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