FIRST TIME IN CHINA! BEIJING
[Music] good morning everyone here from China a new country for us right now we're here in the capital Beijing we got here last night and always wanted to come to China really curious about how it is we only usually see like the political aspect in the news not really how the day-to-day life is or even how it is for travel really and right now we're in front of tianan square the famous Square so that's the Gateway we're going to be going there tomorrow though and behind there is the Forbidden City so we have tickets for there tomorrow and first we're going to be exploring around here this is called chanman Street one of the famous old shopping streets so we're going to be walking around here try out some of the Chinese food hasn't been completely smooth navigating around so far no uh we came from Japan which uh it wasn't the easiest place to travel to in terms of language and the language barrier issue but I think here it's uh it's even harder for that uh but we're still trying to understand how everything works and I think the main problem is that they don't use the same app that we use uh in the like Western World they're all completely different yeah they're all different so we're learning about everything so already right at the beginning of the street looks pretty cool the artwork looking forward to seeing the Chinese architecture everywhere this is like the old Beijing we usually prefer the old parts the hotel that we're staying at is more in the modern area big modern buildings everywhere yeah I think I saw this shot in the photos like this other Gateway here with the awesome building in the background so this is a walking Street I think no cars whatsoever so we actually got a visa on arrival that you can get which is for 144 hours which only starts at midnight from when you arrive like after you arrive at midnight and you can get that at the majority of the major cities in China but you have to stay within the city so we got to stay within Beijing during that time but on this trip we are also going to visit maau and Shanghai so basically the 144-hour thing doesn't apply for maau they have a different system so we're going to go there and then once we go back into Shanghai we'll do the 144 hour Vis I thing again over there that's they got like the uh the TRS to get around didn't know they had those here on this street so here we got one of the roast up restaurants which is famous here the pecking duck I would always order that at Chinese restaurant so think we'll be trying that out soon pretty cool looking restaurant too one thing that's surprising me so far is there's basically zero foreigners whatsoever we just came from Japan which was like foreigners everywhere I think I've seen like two or three so far and that's it it is literally just like almost 100% Chinese [Music] [Music] we'll go down one of the side streets now there's supposed to also be some cool Alleyways that they call hutongs so this area is over like 500 years old I think they even use the traditional clothing here like we saw in Japan also we get stared at quite a lot here I've already noticed that yeah I think especially me with my curly hair I think they like it yeah we already spotted people taking pictures of us too I think that is actually quite common common throughout China that they might ask to take pictures of you or they might just take pictures of you without asking like we just saw [Applause] [Music] [Applause] before so one thing that you're probably wondering about are the internet restrictions here in China so basically all the sites that we normally access on a daily basis like Facebook Google search Google Maps Instagram and YouTube which we need to access for our jobs are all banned here in China and the way that we're able to bypass this here is uh with surfar PPN which we've been using for the past four years and they are sponsoring this video we have mainly been using surf shot to keep our personal information and data safe from potential hackers on any network that we connect to throughout the world and also to be able to have access to all of the Netflix libraries as the film and series availability changes depending on the country that we are in but here surf shark has been even more essential as it still allows us to access all the websites that are blocked in this country we can simply connect to a different location and then the restrictions are all gone with just one single surf art subscription you can connect unlimited devices for your entire household click on the link in the video description which has the discount code jumping places to get four months for free and that also includes a 30-day money back guarantee policy so this looks cool looks like a mini indoor [Music] market hello niow it's the only word I know niow yeah it looks like it's mainly souvenirs Carol also had somebody start grabbing her hair was saying something in Chinese but I think she was happy yeah she was smiling anyway don't know what she was saying yeah you definitely can't go wrong for street food here seems to be like dried fruit don't know actually hard to tell what it is lots of different kind of sweets even got live little scorpions I think you can eat them never seen that before though over here these ones are dead that's like a centipede I think big scorpion some bugs yeah I'm not really in the mood for that right now though [Music] [Music] so we've come to that first restaurant that I pointed out earlier yeah it's really fancy in here turns out that it's the oldest and most famous roasted duck place in Beijing since 1864 so I got the half order roasted duck 158 and that's with the pancakes and Carol got some sort of fish ju what is it it's boiled fish with some sauce there some yellow sauce peppers in there bigger than a imagine yeah it is Big that was 128 so this is exactly how it would be when I would order in other countries make the little pancake here don't know if this is how you're supposed to do it usually this sauce is the tastiest part of the dish get some of this in there too so I don't know if this is how you're supposed to eat it like a a wrap like a taco or something it's like exactly the same as when I ate it in like England Portugal as well had this roasted duck yeah the sauce is definitely the best though so they just brought this big bowl of soup that we didn't even know was included seems to be like some mild veggie soup I just had a taste not exactly sure what it is though a new taste how's the fish very spicy oh it is yeah burning everything could have guessed that with all the the peppers it's good that's super [ __ ] so over here in China one of the main way to pay for things is with an app called alipe which we downloaded before we came here and then you basically just have to register your credit card and then you can pay for things by scanning a bar code so we've already used it a few times here and it worked but at that restaurant it wouldn't work at all it kept saying that the environment wasn't secure I don't know why we tried three times so we just ended up paying with cash instead so keep in mind that that can probably happen best have a bit of cash yeah we need to go to an ATM get more cash wow what is that some ice cold drink yeah supposed it's a bit like Japan where all the foods are so strange to us so I think we're just going to go on a bit more more of a walk around it is just basically all food places though pretty much all the stores are are just food places so I did read online that some of the buildings and roads here are reconstructions this one looks pretty new still looks awesome all the the wooden Parts this little doorway at the endet is cool too [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] so it is the next day and we're here at the tianan square just a massive queue to get in I think this is just for the security checkpoint we did read that there' be crazy cues yeah but people said that the cues are fast so hoping that it won't take long to enter so we bought tickets just for the the Forbidden City but that gives you access to tianan square too and I think you've got to actually go through the square to enter the Forbidden City anyway seems like it and I think you paid 80 you1 per person 60 60 yeah uh but it was not an easy thing to do to to purchase the tickets because it uh sells out really fast so I had to buy it uh in the exact time that they opened the the slots to to sell the tickets and I think that was at 8:00 p.m. local time Chinese time and I bought it like a week before 7 days before and yeah I was able to buy it because I did it really fast but then 10 minutes later like 810 p.m. it was already sold out for the day that we wanted to so we're officially in the tanan Square now back behind me there you have the monument to the people's Heroes guess that's something related to the war and then on this side where you see everyone going is the mosum of the former leader maong so he was the founder of the People's Republic of China that have been ruling ever since the Civil War and that is the war where the Republic of China fled to the island of what is now Taiwan and established Taiwan so we actually were in Taiwan last year and in the capital over there taipe they they have a kind of big Square similar to this and that one also has a mosum of the leader of the ROC at the time so the opposition of ma donk and I think in October the 1st of 1949 was when he announced the foundation of the People's Republic of China right in this Square so every year on that date there's like some sort of special event here outside of China though I think that this Square is more famous because of the massacre that happened here in the 80s which was like a government Crackdown on protest which I think many people died they don't know how many people died though I actually don't know too much information about it I just remember that photo of the guy stood in front of the tank that were always shown that's about it really and I think the main entrance to the Forbidden City is over there got across this big highway road some where where do we cross I think there's a like a tunnel over there yeah there must be I don't see any Crossings over here on top of the land that's the picture of Ma dong isn't it yeah that's him so from what I read the main gate there is actually called tianan so that is why the square back there has that name it's named after the main gate also known as the Gate of heavenly peace once again though there's just barely any foreigners at all I think for every thousand Chinese people that we see we see one Foreigner I really thought there'd be many here since it's the capital [Music] so just to give you an idea how big this place is we're just here at the beginning and we got to go through all of this absolutely massive so this place was built in the early 1400s and was the residence of the Emperors during the Ming and Ching dynasties until 1925 I believe and it's called The Forbidden City cuz for around 500 years only the royal family and specific government officials could enter here no one from the public so it was literally forbidden and then around 1925 it opened as a museum just like you're seeing now chaos yeah wow yeah so we've been in yet another queue for like over 30 minutes I don't even think we're in the official complex yet the main ticket office is here right now all right so we're finally inside it's almost 12:00 now so I think we've been here like 2 hours and we've only just entered the main part so if you come in here expect to spend a lot of time in C I think right now it's going to be more chilled out though it's a really big area inside pretty awesome Square the amount of big tour groups though is really intense like all these groups you see in here are just in tours together some of the groups look like they have around 40 to 50 people massive groups so how many people did you see that can come here each day um I'm not sure if it was 40,000 people or 50,000 people but it way is just a lot of people yeah so every day since it maxes out you'll always have that amount of people here look at the size of this SCH scure awesome don't know what that is like a lion or a dragon I've always loved the Chinese architecture though we've seen it before in Vietnam a lot of the places that we went in Vietnam were during the time that China ruled there the Chinese dynasties and also in uh Taiwan it's very similar similar history [Music] so through this way we've got all these different Halls palaces Palace of heavenly Purity Hall of Union I think that's the main one Hall of supreme Harmony that's in the middle wow look at this though each doorway you go through it's just some massive epic Square really is gigantic so we rented one audio guide in English but they had like uh almost all the other languages and this was 40 U1 uan on yeah for yeah just for one we we didn't need to so to give you more of an idea of how gigantic this forbidden city is there's supposed to be on almost 9,000 buildings here so even though we're walking through the Central Area even behind there on the sides there's many little buildings so behind this wall too I don't know if we'll be able to look on that side at some point I don't see any openings here the doors are all closed so this is the Hall of supreme Harmony this is the biggest and most important one in the Forbidden City and this complex is supposed to have the largest collection of ascian wooden structures in the world so this will be one of them [Music] h [Music] so even if you don't get the audio guide they're pretty good with the signs the majority of the buildings have these signs explaining what it is Hall of the middle Harmony so it said that this was constructed in 1420 another really beautiful building and another one and there'll be others so we've come through yet another doorway and I don't know if you can see in the distance there's a hill back there so that's a park that we're going to go to later on supposed to get some amazing views of the Forbidden City from there that's what we'll be doing after this [Music] spe [Music] so we ended up just visiting a clocker museum inside of here which we had paid for before we paid 10 extra for that that's why I thought we paid 80 so it was 60 to enter but we paid 10 for that Museum and 10 for another one yeah another exhibition that we're going now and I didn't know what they were but at the time that since I was trying to like buy everything as soon as quick as possible I just bought all the the things that they had and then since it wasn't so expensive uh but it it was cool the the Clock Museum thing it was nice and also was good to avoid the Sun for a little bit cuz it's very hard today yeah so they had clocks from Europe a lot of British clocks I don't know if they were brought here as like gifts or presents and then there were also clocks from China made in China later on really impressive clocks though probably some of the most beautiful clocks that we've seen wow some really amazing doorways and that's why we're going through so it says that the collections are the legacy of the Ching Court I guess the Ching Dynasty that I mentioned at the beginning displays around 400 sets pieces of artifacts from the Palace Museum collection so we just got some drinks I got a Coca-Cola I thought it was China's version but it actually has the Coca-Cola there so yeah it's just different writing that's all got the dragon K got a te mhm cha ch ch yeah it's funny yesterday we went to a restaurant and we searched the translation online and we saw that it was CH ha CH like in Portuguese it's Sha Sha yeah yeah I think all the t words in the world actually originated in China so we said cha and then we got a fork instead of T and then we searched online and we saw that fork is also c ha but pronounced differently yeah but what are the chances of just the two words being so similar in a restaurant yeah in a restaurant and they probably thought oh the foreigners don't know how to eat this Chopstick so they gave us a fork but we wanted it a te yeah so then I had to show him the actual word on the the app and we got te instead so speaking of dragons on the Coca-Cola can check out these dragons on the wall so we've seen loads of different paintings of dragons in this complex but this is the best so far that was like a a sea dragon in the ocean ch [Music] yeah so if you want a bit of peace and quiet around here pay a bit extra to come in these other galleries cuz not everyone's coming in these places way more laidback all right that's like a a baby one don't know if they're playing or fighting so you can basically film and take pictures of absolutely everything in here even in the museums I know in some countries in museums they don't let you take pictures of everything but so far seem seems like nothing's off limits so this part here is a Opera theater from the 1700s so it's not open but this would be where the emperor would have sat to watch the show head on [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] h [Music] so this is going to be our last stop in the Forbidden City the beautiful Imperial Garden nice little Arch oh look at what they've done with all the Rocks no climbing so this place is pretty much right at the exit and I think now we'll get a bite to eat and go to that Park in the viewpoint not even sure if there's restaurants right outside hope there is I think you could easily spend like four or 5 hours walking around though You' probably need that amount of time if you really wanted to see every single place every Courtyard every building you can go to [Music] [Music] so on the side of the exit you can see the big moat on the other side that we entered I didn't see any moat whatsoever I don't know if there still is one and we just didn't see it I don't remember seeing it though pretty cool tower on the on the corner yeah overall just super impressive yeah we've been to some uh Imperial seat and uh like royales around the world but this was the biggest one and the most impressive one by far it's really beautiful as well and totally worth coming uh it's very crowded but I think it's worth it Y and like we said if you like pay a bit extra to go to the areas on the sides it is like quieter there so I definitely recommend doing that too so we found this trendy little place right next to the exit and the par didn't expect a place like this some hippie music I think that's how you say it sh Chang Shang don't know if I pronounced that properly I'm going for the brace pork rice 40 and Carol's getting the tomato and egg noodles 38 they even got friends on they watch friends over here it's really cool though they have like loads of plants it's like some nature hipster looking Place Mr Tedy cool music mhm very unique place we got some cold green tea too Japan got me a bit addicted to cold tea especially good in the the really warm [Music] weather and make it better so that took about 5 minutes for them to bring it really quick yeah the portions have been really good so far in in China I think the portions are bigger than the ones in Japan yeah yeah and as we're showing now this is a more affordable option so this was only around $5 mine smells great yeah mine's a bit spicy yours too no not this time just like a tomato sauce and tomato taste [Music] so we're now in the park Jing Shan park it was temp per person to enter so the entry fees to the placees been pretty reasonable so far seem to have like a little market going on got some food trucks too pretty cool vehicle so even inside here it's still kind of looks like the Imperial Palace it's like the same style and color here so the sign there says that it's like a Chinese Inc art exhibition ink art you got the the pandas the famous Chinese pandas don't think I've ever seen a a panda before in real life yeah this is my favorite one looks like the Himalayas maybe tobet car's looking for the Himalayas it's probably the Tibetan region [Music] so I [Music] all right so these are the views that we came for actually thought that we were going to be higher it looked higher from down there but still some pretty good shots of the Forbidden City gives you a better idea of just how wide it is so this morning we started all the way on the other side so we just realized that that wasn't the highest one that we were seeing before it's this one up here so yeah just a bit higher yeah there's way more people at this one this is definitely the M main Viewpoint you get a way better view though bit hazy today yeah not the best day for be viewing everything but still you can see how impressive the temp the complex is very huge yeah yesterday it was a lot clearer the sky so got some more View view from the back looks like some sort of Temple complex again yeah or Palace yeah it looks like it I don't know there's also another park over there that people visit it it really is so hazy though can barely make out the buildings in the distance [Music] so after exit in we've come across this other Hong the old Chinese Alleyway places don't if there's any stores in this one looks like a residential hutong just where people live I think even tinier Alleyway here yeah I don't think this is a a touristy one at all by the looks of it now I think that's just going to somebody's house so basically in the past I think the majority of Beijing would have all been like this and a lot of the hutongs have been destroyed obviously to put like modern buildings big buildings but they still have many I think they still have like thousands in in Beijing this part looks real cool yeah I'm not sure if these buildings are like restaurants or something [Music] [Music] okay see how [Music] [Music] so we're back at the hotel which is called life Fortuna and this room is around $98 a day but that includes breakfast too they have a really good breakfast here it's like a buffet we're also in a pretty good location so we're right near the business district I think that's the main business district over there the tall buildings and below us there's many restaurants that you can eat at our hotel actually has a Starbucks inside too and it's really good because on the rooftop there's a swimming pool and also a really big gym a really good gym so we're going to be making use of that as well and the room is also really nice I like the layout of it so you got the sofa here that's the TV beneath the stairs there's just some like cupboards and drawers and kind of different cuz our beds up here you can close this and then it is a AC room we also have a air purifier which we don't always get in many places little desk area to do some work also has like a kitchen so you can do some cooking here but there's no like pots or pans so yeah I don't know if you'd have to bring that yourself we haven't been using it anyway we just been eating out and then the bathroom is through here nice modern bathroom so overall really enjoyed our first two days here in China the main complications are just with the internet restrictions and also the fact that we have to get used to all their apps but today on the second day we're already working things out a lot better and yeah learning how to use their apps and I mentioned earlier in the video that we had an issue with the alipe but today we had no issues at all we used it many times scanning the Q QR codes and yeah we're able to pay every time so yeah I'm not sure what happened yesterday so the apps that we've mainly been using overall are Alay to pay for things there's DD China which is like their Uber which we've used many times to get around and their Google Maps is like do D du if you search on the App Stores du maps and the apps are very similar so when you using their Maps it kind of still seems like Google Maps really and also their Uber app is is kind of similar so it's not that hard to use but there is the language barrier also and we've been using their translator at poot called BYU b a i du U so yeah we've been using that a lot of the time you'll definitely need that also to speak with people we've been using that you can do like voice recording or they can write stuff down so yeah definitely get all those apps but besides that like walking around and exploring there's no like big difference to any other country really we were actually saying that we think Japan is actually way more different to what we're used to the way they act and the way things are over there I'd say that Japan was more of a culture shock and in the next video we're planning on going to the wonder of the world the Great Wall of China so really really looking forward to that and yeah we're going to be heading there tomorrow doing a tour and that's what we be coming up next so if you like this video just drop a like as usual to support us subscribe see more videos like this follow us on Instagram and we'll see you in the next one oh [Music]
2024-05-19 21:14
