Tourism

We've got to Tai'an and are starting to get our heads round mid-term survival here. Everything's pretty good and I'm sure we'll enjoy it all. But just for now I want to rewind and write about what we did while we were still in Beijing.

On Friday we saw the Forbidden City, and Chris has been working on a post about this. He fell asleep before he could finish it on the night, though, and hasn't had a chance since, so you'll have to wait a bit longer to hear about it.

On Saturday Chris was very unslept and rather queasy. He sent me off to do some tourism on my own so that I wouldn't miss out. So I put on my nice blue skirt and hardy walking sandals, made sure I had my destination and the hotel address in Chinese characters and headed forth.

Step one: Hail taxi. Doorman does this for one, so step one not very hard.
Step two: Gamely attempt to make self understood in Chinese. Point to characters of desination if/when this fails. Light dawns in driver's eyes; vigarous nodding from both parties. Get into taxi. Look for seatbelt out of habit and give up.
Step three: slog through Beijing traffic. Maybe 20 minutes.
Step four. Alilght at desination. Pay driver approximately one pound twenty. Rejoice in currency difference.

I went to the Temple of Heaven, aka Tiantan. If you google it I'm sure you will find out much more than I could tell you and phrased a lot better too. But I can tell you that the tourist map they sell for approx 60p is absolutely beautiful. It's made of brown paper folded into an A5 envelope, and it folds out into a large (approx A3?) watercolour-style map of Tiantan on one side, and lots of information about the different parts of the temple complex and grounds on the other, in English and Chinese. The grounds are vast and full of old old trees. You could wander and get lost quite happily, and even get some peace and quiet if you wanted, which is hard to come by in Beijing without a locked door being involved.

The various clearings and squares seem a popular place for older people to congregate. There were many people practicing traditional Chinese instruments, some people singing, often totally against each other in the same clearing without this being any problem at all.

Outside the entrace to one of the three main temple areas, I was accosted by a student whose English name was Susan. I looked lost, she said, and she would like to practice her English by showing me round. One day she wants to be a tour guide and she hopes to have an opportunity during the Olympic season. I resisted for about 10 metres but gave up in the end and went with the flow.

I was taken from site to site and given the patter. Sometimes I was rushed a bit from one place to the next, and had less of a dreamy wander than I'd have had on my own. The chinese tourists were interesting. How do you behave in a temple that was until 1912 considered too sacred for common people to approach, where it was thought that heaven could be directly spoken with, and where there is a stone considered to be the centre of the earth? Apparantly you stand on top of the stone, wave your arms, yell happily, and get photographed by your mates. Each to their own. At the end of the route I was deposited at a noodle bar and said goodbye to Susan.

After my (by now, rather belated) lunch, I crossed the road to the Pearl something market. An indoor market perhaps the size of a large supermarket. Narrow isles. As I walked along there were cries from all sides of 'hey lady! you want to buy [fill in noun here]?' after a while I tried not to let my gaze fall too obviously on anything in particular, or someone would hoik it down from the shelf and start giving a demonstration. I managed to escape having bought only my coveted parasol, and some beads as a present for my mother.

Going home:
Step one: Hail taxi. Have to do this myself this time, but there's a queue outside Pearl market so not much of a problem.
Step two: Pass hotel card to taxi driver wordlessly, as 'Park Plaza Hotel' has not yet been recognised by any Beijing taxi driver.
Step three: slog through Beijing traffic. Now heavier traffic so maybe 30 minutes.
Step four. Alilght at desination. Pay driver approximately one pound fifty. Rejoice in currency difference.

Greet Chris. Show him the map and tell him all about my Big Expedition.

Pack everything in anticipation of check out and train journey the next day.

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