Me and Scarletts day out
Trip Start
Apr 26, 2006
1
4
14
Trip End
Sep 09, 2006
Beijing,
China
Wednesday, May 3, 2006
Today was an early start in Beijing as there was much to see. I arranged to meet Marie, a friend of Vivians friend, at 8 AM at Wudaoku underground station. *Wudaoku is the student district Im staying in. Instead of wandering about with Marie today I instead went to visit two temples, the Buddist Lama temple (2nd most important temple for Buddists in China) and the Temple of Heaven park with Maries friend Scarlett. I started off the day with the temple of Heaven which containts any important ancient Chinese buildings. Including the echoing wall, which I was most looking forward to seeing as if you whisper at the very start of the wall it turns into a loud echo, unfortunately I didn't bother as it was so jam packed with tour groups (even at 9AM) it would of been impossible. So instead we took a stroll around the gardens and watched some of the older residents of Beijing doing what I guess is the Chinese equivalent of tea dancing in some of the courtyards in the park, groups of OAPs doing Tai Chi and some younger more sprightly residents doing some acrobatics with fans and swords
All together now
. The strangest corner of the temple of heaven park had to be the musical instrument corner, where individual musicians would practice their instruments. It was a very strange catterwalling of everything from opera singers to strange plucky instruments to old pianos some had rolled in, all playing different, often out of key tunes at the same time. We left the temple of Heaven park to visit the Lama temple next, Buddist temples have become my favorite sights in Beijing. They are so peaceful (unlike their surroundings) and smell beautiful with their incense burning a mystical haze throughout. I especially enjoyed the Lama temple as so far in China I have been finding it very difficult to read facial expressions (Im sure some ancient person once said some thing about "the inscrutable east") but as I was in a temple it was more obvious what everyone was thinking which was comforting. Buddhism has been in decline since liberation (as Marie and Scarlet referred to it) in 1949 but the old relics are amazing, especially the 80 foot high Gold Budda in the Lama temple. Also I took a picture of a monk, semi by accident, and he appeared around half and hour later and started having a rather philosophical conversation with me about photographs and where I was from, which was intriguing if a little unnerving...
We then took a wander around Behai park, which was beautiful, with many weeping willows and ornate dynastic buildings and a beautiful ferry although it had a certain Buttlands holiday park feel about it, as it was the middle of Labor week and it was chock full of sticky handed children and tense looking parents
Beautiful Lotus Budda in Lamma temple
. I saw the Jade inslet which is all that remains of the Khan dynasty, Ghengis Khan who was its 1st emperor (the one dynasty I know anything about.) Still feeling lonely, although I think this had been the most valuable lesson I have learnt so far as to what it is like to be completely alone in such a huge place. And bizzarly enough these few blocks of completely alien culture are starting to feel like home. It was all very lost in translation, except Beijing of course, and no Bill Murray... And really most of the time Im just lost and linguistically inept.*It took me nearly 2 days of jet lagged pondering to figure out where I was in Beijing, and also what time it was. This can now be looked back on and laughed at, but at the time it was rather painful, trying to alarm clock at shop assistants was one memorable moment. Grabbing a bin and putting a plastic bag over it to mime bin bag was another (no wonder the Chinese think we are crazy) and I eventually figured out where I was by a sign advertising "BOGOF Martinis" to students in the Wudaoku area of Beijing, in a bar one night, it was my saving grace.
