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Published: October 2nd 2007
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Mid-autumn moon
Annual mid-autumn festival full moon, the view from our hostel window It's a beautiful day...
It feels like the first day of spring. It rained all night, and it was almost cold, and today the sun is bright and as they say "the sky is high" and the pollution's all been blown somewhere else for a while. The untouched grass is green and perfect, the trees are covered in fresh looking greenery.
Waiting for some sign of autumn, the only hint has been the cool nights.
Beijing was, predictably, a bit of a shock to the system. After wandering around Hong Kong for 3 months we found ourselves in an unfamiliar city, unfamiliar language, and no chance of a good Ying Yang (coffee tea, favourite of HK dining styles) or French Toast let alone a meal after 8pm.
Tegan and I have spent hours wandering around looking for the 2 vegetarian restaurants listed in the Lonely Planet - they're both closed down.
We also spent a frustrating few hours hassling people in bodgy Putonghua to find out how to get a train ticket, and then braved the melee at the train station to queue up and finally get 2 sleeper tickets to Urumqi. It's coming up to China's version of "golden
week", a national holiday when everyone tries to get home for a week off. we'd been warned it would be hard to organise travel during this period, but we must be suckers for punishment or something...
We have seen some "sights" though, and resolved to come back this way after our wild west adventures. On the whole, being a tourist is pretty exhausting. I'm not running a marathon here!!!
We took a ride in a 3 wheel motorbike-taxi, only just enough room for me and Tegan in the back, and held onto our stomachs as it raced through Beijing traffic, smells like 2-stroke...
We have seen Tiananmen Square at night, under the bloody orange "harvest moon" (Mooncake Festival for Mid-Autumn), watched hundreds of strings of tiny kits reaching up into the sky amidst the crowds. It's hard to think that people died there, a weird kind of dissociated acknowledgement like visiting massacre sights in Australia, or when I went to Hiroshima. There are military and police everywhere, marching up and down, randomly searching peoples bags.
We wandered around the hugely decadent and astonishing Summer Palace, built by the "dragon Empress" Cixi, who was a concubine whose son became emperor
The Mao-soleum...
inside lies the man officially "70% right and 30% wrong" now 100% pickled... as a child, she ruled, had him deposed & ruled over the next guy and so on. She managed to put China into debt but apparently had lots of fun building magnificent buildings & gardens, where she would entertain foreign diplomats and dress up as Qui Lam (goddess of infinite mercy - also a buddha, with many arms and eyes).
Most of the original Palace was burnt down during the Anglo-Franco assault in 1860 but Cixi rebuilt. Lots of propaganda about how Cixi squandered the fruits of peasant labour on fineries, as well as how she presumptuously reversed the traditional order of decorations - dragons outside and phoenix inside instead of the other way around - representing the Empress' dominance. Pretty interesting, facts gleaned from a bodgy audio guide which cut out halfway saying "that's all and let's resume our tour". The summer palace also has the longest corridor in the world, somewhere between 700-800m covered walkway lavishly decorated & painted with 4 pagodas representing the 4 seasons. GOtta say, there's some really beautiful landscaping around. (just not in the suburbs!)
After that we looked for a vego restaurant and were disappointed but found vego steamed buns right next
Tower of the Fragrant Buddha
at the Summer Palace, Beijing door YAY. Then wandered around the flashing neon district which is the only part that's reminded me of HK so far. We took a walk past the Donghuamen Dajie night markets which is essentially a string of snack stalls along Donghuamen Dajie, everything from dried salted seahorses and crispy starfish to toffee coated fruit, and my personal favourite - hot chips fried inside an egg. oh yeah.
Everyone is fascinated by Tegan's hair and piercings. Everyone wants to say hello, and "nice hair"...
We also had a relaxing morning walking around the gardens south of the Forbidden City, looking at lots of lovely green grass you're not allowed to sit on, and some big stones which have good feng shui. We also paid a visit to "pickled mao" or ForMaoldehyde as he shall henceforth be referred to. His casket gets lowered into a refridgerator each night. Apparently he really wanted to be cremated. There are multi-lingual flashing signs on the way in saying "please keep silence" as you file past a giant seated Mao statue surrounded by potplants and red carpet. Miles of red carpet - Mick it would look great in your flat. It's probably one of the
quietest places in Beijing. There's an eerie golden light that shines down onto Mao's face, he's wrapped in the Communist flag, and he doesn't look like he's sleeping. As they say, "he was 70% right and 30% wrong" but he's apparently still a hero.
We followed that by a wander through the Forbidden City where I got a kind of pitta bread fried with greens and egg inside. mmm. and then through Zhongshan Park, also very green and beautiful. Lots of old folks wandering around, heaps of people playing mahjong or cards, sitting on newspapers, some kids skipping school.
The hostel we're in is a bit out of the way, but backs onto some crazy labyrinthine Hutong. Little laneways, tiny houses, communal toilets, streetside cooking and markets. Pretty fascinating, when we come back I'll check out the older hutongs closer to the city, maybe via bike. They're quiet, too narrow for much car traffic, some of them too narrow for a wheel barrow.
We got hot roasted sweet potato from a street vendor, drank applejuice-yoghurt and played shuttlecock in the park until it got thrown up into the tree, amusing the old folks sitting around in the
Wenchang Gate
Summer Palace, Beijing shade. Beijing feels more friendly when the air is clean. The subway is crowded and people aren't afraid to stare (at tegan mostly).
today we get on the train for Urumqi!! (pronounced Wurum'chi)
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