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Published: July 21st 2008
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Me at Beihei Lake.
Trying to get to Tiananme square and a little lost, but taking in the splendour. Have been in Beijing for 1 week and it is phenomenally hot. At one point it hit 38degrees, but luckily that was not the day when the humidity was 90%. Kind of feel permanently grimey! This has however not marred any experiences of the city.
Anyway, onto the city itself. An ecclectic mix of ancient culture and 21st century chic. very different to any other city I have visited before, possibly because it is so big and so busy. There is so much to do, that I'm glad I had 7 days here, with a much needed couple of days completely relaxing and virtually not leaving my room except for food, feel much regenerated after that.
It has also given me a chance to sample some of the local night life, which has been fun. We have been visiting a little bar down the oldest street in Beijing where all the opium dens used to be, and having been there a number of times made friends with the barmaid. She then took us to a club, I have no idea where it was, or its name, but after a great night dancing, where we were pretty much the only foreigners
around, I finally rolled into my hotel at 6am - fantastic!!!!
You can't say the city has a distinctive smell, because the smell changes in different areas. You sometimes get wonderful aromas of freshly cooked food from local restaurants. Then the smell of the food markets with strange arrays of seafood, deepfried insects - of which I ate scorpion (go me!!!!) - snake and all sorts of bits of animal you don't want to think about - lets just say it is not always a pleasant smell. Then you get the distinctive odour of pee when you get too close to any public toilet. As we all know, I'm not a particular stickler for hygiene, but chinese toilets are foul.
Just down the road from our first hotel - the Huafeng (2nd floor brothel - classy!) was some kind of homeless shelter, as you walked past, especially at night, all you could see was rows of bunks, the doors were always open, to let in at least a liitle air.
What really made me feel that I was definately in China was the gatherings of people on the pavements, usually just outside the entrances to the hutongs
(part of the ancient city - no photos as camera ran out of battery) they were usually old men [playing card games and the odd game of Mahjong would be going on. I wish I knew what card games they were playing, would love to come home and teach Grandma a chinese card game.
Traffic is crazy. I thought London traffic was bad, but it is ridiculous here. I can't make out any apparent rules, but drivers appear to know what they are doing, and I haven't witnessed any accidents, surprisingly. As with all cities I've been so far, green man at a crossing does not actuall mean green man, it just means you are slightly less likely to get run over than on red man! When traffic lights are red vehicles can continue to turn right (same as America I'm told), so when crossing the road as a pedestrian its like permanently playing chicken. The cyclists are also fearless, and everywhere. They go wherever they please - pavements, cycle paths and roads, red lights, green lights, pedestrian crossings - its like bicycle suicide. They are lethal, the electric bikes are the worst as they are silent and appear
Tiananmen Square.
A big Square. I forgot to fly my kite - it was 38 degrees and my brain was mushy! behind you as if out of nowhere.
I have visited so many places this week. The forbidden city, temple of heaven, Tiananmen square, Beijing Zoo, the Lama Temple, the ancient bell tower. I've been on a tour of the Hutongs, including the oldest street in Beijing, where the opium dens used to be. Seen the Kung Fu show, been shopping on Wangfujing Street - very posh! And been to numerous markets. Everything is so impressive, but to describe each place is virtually impossible. I think my favourite place was the Lama Temple, because unlike all the other palaces and temples, which are now purely tourist attractions, people still visit this buddhist temple to worship. At some points you feel as if you are intruding, however its so busy and noisy with people praying and chanting, and chatting togethe that just stood back in a corner, its is both very relaxing and very moving. As with all places that evoke these types of emotions, the time visiting is never long enough, especially when you are visiting for such a short period of time and there is so much to see. In this old palace that was given to the buddhist
Me and Caroline
I met Caroline in our hotel, she was starting the Vodka train from Beijing and going to Moscow. We spent Saturday being very Girly, went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City and then drinkies with the boys. monks in the 17th century there is the tallest Buddha in the world, it is in the Guiness book of records. It stands 18 metres tall. There are another 8 metres underground to keep it standing, and it was carved out of a single sandalwood trunk - it is possibly one of the most beautiful statues I have ever seen. No photos are allowed to be taken inside the rooms of the temple, so if anyone is interested I'm sure it will be somewhere on the internet - try the Guiness world record pages maybe.
Another thing that is very endearing about the Chinese is how friendly they are, always smiling and ready to help, even if they can't speak a word of English, and with very bad pronunciation on my part, we've always managed to figure out directions to somewhere, or how much something is, or any other query, with many hand gestures and facial expressions, and alot of laughing, such a contrast to the hard, unsmiling, stoney faced Russians.
Beijing is also the point that I left my vodka train group. It was a sad moment, but we partied hard, as we have all trip. And
I'm sure I will keep in touch with lots of them. I met my new group for the Roam China tour, and everyone seems great, a good mix of people and I think it will be lots of fun, although very different.
Well, I think I have rambled on enough. Next stop Great Wall - very excited!
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