At last - China update

I know it has been a while but we have an excuse - really... We are currently n bangkok having finished our time in china and as we did not want to run into issues with the Chinese government thus we refrained from posting until we left!.

So here it is - our Chinese adventure. We ended up flying from Ulan Bator to Beijing as the Chinese govt would not sell us the overland train tickets to come in over the land border. Border controls and visas controls having become much stricter as a consequence of the trouble in Tibet and the impact on the olympics.

We did some sightseeing on that first day and learned some chinese words. We also went for dinner at a Peking duck restaurant - needless to say - the highlight of china for me has to be the food.

We visited the temple of heaven where the emperors used to go to pray for a good harvest and a good year. The temple itself was lovely (although it rained heavily for most of our time there) but what interested me the most was actually the park which surrounds it - the residents of the city pay a nominal annual fee for access to the park but there were people ballroom dancing, playing chinese chess, Jonathan got involved in a game of shuttle kick with some local women (hmmm) and with music from brass bands , choirs and many different musical instruments at different points throughout the park it made for a beautifully vibrant picture of chinese day to day life. To me this is what traveling is about - not the museums and the buildings but the people and how they choose to live when they have free time.

Prior to our arrival Chris our tour organiser said that the local guide is not allowed to talk about what happened in Tian'men square in 1989 and not to ask him. But when we were there he did mention the massacre and noted that the students had used a central platform as the headquarters for the protest and that since then nobody is allowed up to the platform. To put this into context, the square is full of random memorials to the people of china (typical communist statues - workers and women standing under or behind the flag.. we saw similar ones in Russia) so to me it seems in a round about way that although no physical memorial exists to those who died that every day they stop people from accessing that platform that it acts as a silent memorial.

China is a strange country - on the outside of the can it says communist but when you look at the contents - its capitalist all the way! I asked our guide about this and he replied that really it is just a capitalist country with a dictator - i was a bit shocked at his reply.

But really - I loved Beijing - out of all the countries have visited this year - it is definitely one in which I could live and work (apart from the language issue) .

We climbed the great wall of china and have to admit - it is seriously impressive, not just as a piece of engineering but also - can you imagine soldiers in full gear having to go up and down all those steps - respect!. It was 1000 steps to get up to the wall (or you could get a cablecar) we chose the steps (oh my - huff puff). Then when we got to the top you could head towards Korea one way and towards the Gobi the other way (we did both- huff puff). Then you could toboggan down to the bottom. - totally fantastic although there was a slow person in front of me (Jonathan) so I kept having to slow down.....


One quick bit about the Olympics - yes the Olympics are gonna be a great success ..... for the Chinese - given the difficulty in obtaining visas the expected number of foreigners has dropped substantially so whilst they will get some - it will not be in the initial number anticipated by the hospitality industry (for the lower grade hotels they had only 50% occupancy booked when we were there) . So its gonna be a great Olympics - made by the Chinese - for the Chinese. But on a nicer note - if there is spare spectator capacity at different events - local school children can get into the events to make up the numbers.

On our last night of the group part we went out for a nice dinner and then .... ended up in a karaoke bar - I am so high class. Our group rendition (with actions - thanks El) of “everybody was kung fu fighting” was legendary. lets just say we were all very fragile the next day.

Then Jon and I moved hotels and woo hoo - nice..... we still had five days to go in Beijing we had a great time - going to the night food market (which was really great) going to the zoo - the pandas, the pandas (although they seriously need to sort out the lack of space in the lion and tiger house) and the summer palace. We also came across some random things whilst walking around - like the foundations for the original city, nice parks in the middle of two main roads and other small things like that.

I loved china - would have quite happily have spent more time traveling into the countryside but maybe next time.

Jonathan says: Normally I have something to add to what Seppy has written but I agree with a lot that she has said. Beijing is 100% about the Olympics at the moment - every spare space is branded with the logo (though they have avoided putting up all the flags of nations), every hedge is being trimmed, even the car parks of factories or warehouses that are beside the airport expressway are being forced to tidy up. To give an idea of the extent (besides the high profile closure of poluting factories for 2 months around the games, and the even-odd number plate control of driving into the city) the famous Hutongs (kinda ramshakle alleyways) are being torn down but cleverly are being replaced with a rebuilt version in matching grey brickwork and red doorways and window sills - they even have house numbers now. Expect to see these new versions included in Beijing advertisements. In a few places they have left it a bit late to plant trees, so they just moved fully grown trees into place and propped them up with sticks. And finally, if the job of rebuilding a Hutong would be too much, but still remained an eyesore, a wall was built right infront of it to make it invisible (hence the photo of an ordinary wall).
There is no city in the world that could be or is as prepared as this one for the Olympics - nothing is being left to chance. I for one predict that it will all run perfectly and it will be considered a fantastic olympics. It is quite strange to have so many volunteers (they get a nice free t-shirt) to supplement that massive police and army presence that is in the middle of the city. Outside one of the fancy hotels there is a volunteer every 25 metres (yes, exactly 25 metres) - thankfully they also have a nice umbrella to stand under.
Despite this I have to say that the people were fantastic and very welcoming and I really want to return to see some of the country outside of the polished city.

---

---