So you find yourself in Beijing, doing your best to teach Chinese children some English. You might be doing it because you enjoy teaching and working with kids. Maybe you are here to save up some money or maybe you are just here so you can say that you have lived and worked abroad. Whatever the reason, five days of the week you work hard and try to teach an excited class of 5 year olds to describe that book as being blue or – if their English is good – to spell and write their own names. The other two days are yours. Yours to do as you please and, in a city like Beijing, the world is your oyster.
At first, walking to the little shop not ten steps from my flat seemed risky. I might take the wrong turn on my way back and get lost. However, as time passed, certain things started to look familiar. I started walking around, exploring different streets and coming across the cutest little restaurants and fresh fruit markets. The ten steps had turned into a bus ride to a mall not too far away. Finally, the bus ride evolved into a journey on the subway and an entire day exploring around Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Living two minutes from a station on Beijing Subway Line 1, my days off turned into days of exploration. Once you familiarise yourself with and feel confident using the public transport, you can get anywhere. And oh wow, the places to visit in Beijing never cease to amaze.
With great company by my side, we have found our way to some truly amazing places: The Summer Palace, Beihai Park, and The Temple of Heaven to mention only a few. These not including the wonderful places that you accidentally stumble upon and most likely will not find again. The idea of wandering around the hutongs in the narrow and sometimes very dodgy-looking streets motivates you to work hard and reward yourself with the best of what Beijing has to offer. For me, there are still so many places unseen in the ‘wilderness’ that is Beijing and in the wise words of Russell from the animated movie UP – The wilderness must be explored!