China - The year of the Rat, 2008
Trip Start
Jan 10, 2008
1
16
22
Trip End
Jan 20, 2009
Beijing,
China
Friday, August 8, 2008
Never have I felt so tall or so foreign!
We've divided our whistle stop 10 days, spending 3 days in Xi'an, marveling at the Army of Terracotta warriors - 1000's of individual life sized clay warriors which have stood guard over China's first Emperor for over 2000 years, soaking our dust caked feet in the 43 degree natural hot springs & realising just how very ancient China is whilst starring down at 6000 year old skeletons. And the other 7 days in Beijing.
Is China polluted? Xi'an - Definitely. A canopy of thick smog constantly hung above us, distorting views & smothering the suns rays. Choking fumes & dust hung around stubbornly, drying our eyes, reddening our throats & coating us, cars, trees & colourful glazed tiles generously. And Beijing - well I'm pleased to report that closing factories, construction sites & alternating daily between odd & even number plates must have improved the much reported air quality greatly, because we don't at all feel like we're smoking the equivalent to 70 cigarettes a day! Beijing is hazy bordering on smoggy, a massive metropolis congested by hustle & bustle, cars, bicycles, high-rises, colossal concrete flyovers, multi lane highways & immense numbers of people. People that have traded Flip-flops for trainers, bicycles for Buick's, home cooking for fast food giants & traditional courtyard hutongs for curvy architectural wonders.
Beijing is alive & exciting. Buzzing with Olympic spirit, passion, pride & Chinese control. Police, security guards, army, 500,000 volunteers, dogs, helicopters, x-ray machines & surface to air missiles surrounding the bird's nest are all easily evident. Locals are curious & friendly, sporting their newly learnt skills - broad smiles & "al ello's" & as for the much reported spitting, babies & toddlers toileting street side - well, nothing prepares you for a Country like India does! That said I was totally unprepared for completely communal toilets!
We've also managed to pack in,
- Been wowed by 10 kms of the great wall as we walked, sweated, stumbled, scrambled & sweated a whole lot more from Jinshanling to Simatai, whilst the locals trotted past like mountain goats. But China's race to catch the West is all to easy to see as an impending super highway, toll & concrete bridges carve their way through ancient green valleys.
- Feasted on our own homemade dumpling & toasted our success with a bottle of Chinese red, which was surprisingly good, we've eaten at a restaurant so local they didn't understand "coca cola" & we've sampled the national institution - Peking duck - highly recommended.
- Been to the theater to watch the legend of Kung Fu, which left me wanting to be a Kung Fu master.
- Joined the crush of 1000's on the streets, watching the Olympic torch pass by.
- Exhausted ourselves visiting, the Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, Forbidden City & Tian'anmen Square causing quite a stir whilst entering into the Olympic spirit donning our Great Britain, GBR 08 t-shirts & caps.
And tonight we're back in our GBR uniform's, waving our flags in Tian'anmen square joining 1000's of others at the count down clock.
Can't wait to see you all,
Lots of love
Suzy & Michael
"One World, One Dream"
Olympic slogan
Comments
greetings!
michelle here, from cambodia!
i created a blog but never shared it because i was a little too slow on the uptake haha but i am enjoying reading your adventures! i got the itch to travel again and am doing a roadtrip through southern US where they have probably never seen an asian person! hope all is well, enjoy the olympics!