China - Beijing

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Hello everyone - Titia here ...

We arrived in a very rainy Ulanbaator, Mongolia yesterday after a 29 hour train ride from Beijing. The plan had been to write this blog yesterday, but we got lost on our way home from a German cafe. And whilst I was trying to write the blog earlier today we lost power just as I was telling you about watching the rowing finals. So here I am giving it another go.

Anyway I'd better take you back to Beijing where it all started. We landed Saturday 16th August in the early afternoon at Beijing's Terminal 3 - this terminal was specifically built for the Olympic Games - it is a very impressive building both inside and out. There were lots of volunteers in the airport to help any incoming athletes, family members and journalists - no help for us though, but we didn't need any either.

Although the government has spent lots of money trying to teach taxidrivers and busdrivers English, sign language is still needed to get you where you need to be. Some interprising taxi drivers have a Chinese tubemap to help ease communication. Others do speak English well and try to rip you off ... Vicky was having none of it and the taxi stalked off without pay. Most of the Chinese are so in awe with the power of the state they won't even try it on so we didn't have any other mishaps with taxi-drivers.

On Sunday 17th August we spent our day watching the Olympics, getting up very early to see the start of the women's marathon. We ended up near Tian'anmen Square and waited there for the runners to appear. To my surprise traffic was still going as we arrived and this went on till about 5 minutes before the runners were due and even then traffic was only stopped long enough for all the runner's to pass.
Paula was still in the lead pack as she went past us - a BBC reporter standing near who'd told us he was there to record some background noise must have picked up my shouts of Go Paula.
We then trekked up to the National Stadium (the Bird's Nest) to watch the final stages. Paula was way down the field by then but still followed by a dedicated camera.

For lunch we went back to Tian'anmen Square - it being a Sunday the square was very busy - we surprised a few locals by going to a local cafe for lunch. The food was very good - but we were stared at quite regularly - I was glad I could hold my own with the old chopsticks.

The afternoon we travelled to Shunyi Rowing Park - this set of stadia is out in the Beijing suburbs not far from the airport.
Although both the Dutch and the British won a gold medal, the bit of the event that will stay with me for a long time is the Chinese Women's Quadruple Scull crew winning their race. The Chinese went wild as they saw there crew edging ahead in the last 100 meters. The British crew were crying as they were handed their silver medals - they knew they had only themselves to blame. Glory and devastation only centimeters apart.

On Monday 18th August we went on a tour organised by the hostel we were staying in, visiting the Ming tombs and the Great Wall and a few other places to boot.
The Great Wall at Badaling was absolutely amazing - we took the cable car up and then climbed to the highest tower. The views are great even with the weather coming in and although you can see the outskirts of Beijing, the city will never get as near to the Wall as Cairo is to the Pyramids at Giza. The amount of foreigners visiting the wall is still small enough so any foreigers attract a silly amount of attention. We had our photo's taken a number of times both with and without our consent.
The other places we visited were factories (a Cloisonne factory - amazing process but very expensive & a jade factory) and we also visited the Tibetan hospital for a free foot masage. We were told paying the person massaging your foot was optional - well I can tell you it wasn't - and if we'd like we could get our pulse examined by a doctor - no optional to be had with that either. The point being to make money out of us by scaring us about our health.

The next day we caught the train up to Ulanbaator - another early start. Luckily the McDonalds around the corner from the hostel was already open for breakfast. We bought lunch and dinner from a lady at Da Tong station. Dinner was noodle soup - a large version of pot noodle.

I will post again after we return from our 3 day trip to the Gobi desert - speak later ...

Titia & Vicky

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