Spent the past five days within the confines of a "five-star" hotel (that's five stars Chinese style, so don't get your hopes up too high), with now and again a venture to the Chinese Wall as a sweaty, but rather enjoyable diversion. Now, with the Great Wall of China well and truly behind us, I no longer need to save my legs and there's also no need to be installed in such luxury digs, so I've relocated to the youth hostel just down the road. Somewhat of a drop in availlable amenities, but also a tremendous drop in outgoings (and the Beijing Inernational remains within walking distance for my weekly dose of "The Economist").
Time to stretch those legs, and how better to do that than a stroll to Tiananmen Square and through the Forbidden City. For the first, I was lucky that I'd chosen a day on which the perennial white layer of smog hanging over the city (yes, still!) had been blown away, revealing the first blue sky I'd seen in Beijing in a week. If the Beijing authorities are leaving it to the last weeks before the Olympics to clear the skies (I don't remember exactly how Athens did it), then it's going to be quite a close call and I'm sure they're will be more marathon runners who will cancel for the event like Haile Gebrselassie. After a week in Beijing, I've started to feel the ill effects on my system already. Pretty soon I'll be doing the Chinese thing of hacking, coughing and spitting up "lung butter", as one of the other travelpod bloggers quite poignantly calls it.
But anyway, Tiananmen Square. What can I say what thousands before me haven't said already. It's big, pretty huge in fact, meaning that on normal days you can't see the other side (although yet again, in Beijing that's no tremendous feat). I was warned before about the "art students" patrolling the square in search of foreigners to parade to their "art exhibitions", and then to cajole them into buying a mediocre copy of some Chinese masterpiece. But I hadn't realised that there would be so many! It's as if the art students (and when do these girls actually study if there always on the street?) are the only English speakers in the entire city. Starting off with the introductory phrases of "How long have you been in Beijing?", "Welcome to Beijing?" and "Where you from?", the conversation usually degrades quickly into the old "I'm an artist, and you're lucky, because today it is free (wow!) to visit our exhibition"-rubbish. My sharply honed eye for the boom-boom-guys of Bangkok, now comes in quite handy to avoid the "casually" strolling art-students on a collision-course with you, and my old favourite homeland of the Ukraine is making another comeback.
I'm trying to be a good tourist, and do some reading up on the history of China. All very impressive and all, considering how far ahead of the Europeans the Chinese were, inventing paper, the crossbow and many other things literally hundreds of years before they were first introduced into Europe, but I've "caught" a new variant of "old-stone-syndrome", which I will call "dynasty-somno..": i.e. falling asleep as soon as the word "dynasty" crops up in a sentence. And what with the Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han, Wei (zzz...), Shu, Wu, Jin, Song, Qi, Liang (zzzzz...), Chen, Sui, Tang, Liao, Song, Jin, Yuan (zzzzzzzzzz...), Ming and Qing dynasties (snore!), that's a bit of a hindrance.
The Forbidden City, home to the emperors of the final two dynasties (zzz...), is similarly huge. To paraphrase Mel Brooks in "The History of the World Part 1", it must have been good to be the emperor (especially with the concubines and all). After 4 hours of drifting past the different elaborate halls and gates, with equally elaborate names, ensconced ? within the Forbidden Walls, "old-stone-fatigue" finally set in, and for fun I actively set out in search of the Starbucks which the Lonely Planet mentions has wormed its way into the grounds. But it is no more, replaced by an obscure Chinese coffee shop.
Just time to continue with my list of TPR's (The Photography Rules):
4. After having invested in a DSLR (digital single lens reflex), one shall invest at least one hour in reading the manual. If your camera is still in 'M' or automatic mode after six months, it may be legally taken off you.
5. Taking several pictures and checking them all on your LCD screen, while the rest of the world patiently waits for you to move out of their "line of fire", is a punishable offence.
Also finally managed to hook up with China girl, Pei-Ying, who I'd met in Myanmar and works for the Beijing office of DSM. We went out for a meal together on "Ghost Street", and I decided to be somewhat brave again (well, I'm brave when I can see from the pictures in the menu approximately what I'd be eating). So one sea cucumber (seen plenty of these under water, but never one on my plate before) made its way into my stomach. For those interested: it tastes of nothing (no, not even chicken). She also very kindly offered to pull some strings for me, so that I could return to my life of luxury by staying at a 4-star hotel in Datong for a doddle. Welcome back to the good life.
Right, all this typing has worked me up quite a thirst. Needs to be quenched with a Beijing Beer, I suppose.
Cheers!
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