Photo by Jabari Bell
There are a million and one posts about Beijing. They go something like this: “I went here and I paid this much. I stayed at this place for this much per night. I ate here for breakfast, lunch and dinner and I saw this, this, that and oh, this. It was amazing! Here are some pictures. Ta-da!”
I’m not going to repeat the formula. Instead, I’m going to ramble about the small things that might not matter to you but it matters to me. Many people have seen The Forbidden City, The Great Wall and Tiananmen Square. But did you know that Sprite from Subway’s in Beijing is like magic? A sip of that bubbly refreshing sweetness made my taste buds dance. It was the best tasting Sprite I had ever inhaled. Now, whenever I think of Beijing, I thirst for Sprite. Like right now. But Sprite in New York is different. There’s no magic.
In Beijing, no matter how mind-numbingly cold it is outside, the Peking Duck will always melted in your mouth. It was so frigid one December day that my friend, Jabari, dropped his new set of Chinese chess because he lost feeling in all ten fingers. The chess pieces scattered. Everything paused. The pans stopped sizzling. People stopped chattering. Men stopped hocking mid-loogie.
Throughout the night, servers approached our table and asked, “这个是你的吗？” (Is this your’s?) One by one, each piece returned to the case. By the end of the night every piece was in its place.
These are just some of the stories I tell when people ask me how Beijing was. Photos are plenty but experiences are one of a kind. And to me, that’s the most important part. When it comes to traveling, the destination might be the same but the experience never is.
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