Back in Beijing
Trip Start
Jun 09, 2005
1
20
105
Trip End
Jun 08, 2006
Beijing,
China
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Next day we get up early and head to the British Consul so I can apply for a new passport. I'm running out of pages (2 empty pages left now) and I dont want to have difficulties entering a country just because there are insufficient blank pages for a visa. As we're in Beijing for a few days, it seems like the perfect opportunity to get a new one, albeit that its going to cost Y1235, approx GBP 90, for a jumbo 48-page one.
After just a few minutes processing time I walk back out into this slick, clean, modern financial district of the city
01 Temple of heaven
. I am amazed by the western approach that pervades; there seem to be more Starbucks coffee shops and KFC's than in London.We walk down to Silk Street, a huge shopping mall full of cell-like shop units each with less than 10 square metres of space. There are 6 floors and with the amount of staff and shoppers it feels like a bee hive, thrumming with activity. We are continually barraged with requests to enter the shops and buy goods, but Rachel doesnt find anything that she needs. I am tempted by North Face goretex jackets at Y120 (GBP 8.50) complete with fleece liner and waterproof zips, but I need to travel light, so resist the temptation. Rachel reminds me that Helle bought one cheap in Kathmandu and she regretted it when it rained.
We take a taxi into town and visit the Temple of Heaven, or Tiantan, constucted in 1420, to be an altar for the annual imperial ceremony to appease the Gods. It is arranged over a vast area with several intruiging buildings interspersed with quiet parklands where the locals participate in tai chi, cards, and playing musical instruments.
I like the iron-red painted building facades and the finely carved white marble bridges spanning moats around their sides
02 Temple of heaven
. One temple is completely enclosed inside a circular wall, and on the inside you can supposedly hear a whisper made at any point on its circumference. However the hubbub of tourists makes it difficult to test the theory. We wander through the parkland to the double pavillion, an architectural oddity where two round pavilions intersect each other. Leading off the pavillions are covered walkways that are decorated with frescoes and colourful geometric patterns. An old Chinese bloke is playing yee wu (a kind of chinese violin) which adds to the aura of the place.
We head back to the University and meet Xueli and her 7 year old daughter, Alice. Like many chinese kids she was christened by her English teacher in the first lesson. We all go to a Korean restaurant where the food is cooked on a griddle in the middle of our table and a huge extractor keeps the air (relatively) fresh.
Xueli is now Professor Cao, and has fast-tracked her career by spending time with Unilever in UK, and having edited a new book on Counter Current Chromatography. She proudly shows us around her spotless labs, full of sophisticated instrumentation, which allows her team to seperate and extract single chemical components from natural products
03 Temple of heaven
. They have isolated many of the important elements in Aloe Vera, and are currently working on extracting some medicinal compounds from tea. Xueli says it has taken several researchers more than a year to get just a few grams of the precious compound.Another day we head to the Forbidden City, the former palace of Chinese Royalty from the early 1400's right up until the Last Emperor in the early 1900's. The scale of the ancient city is truly breathtaking as one courtyard leads to another to the extent of over 9000 rooms. Huge red-walled palaces with intricately decorated exteriors and granite staircases have been carefully restored. I am captivated by the exotic names of the palaces such as Hall of Supreme Harmony and Palace of Earthly Tranquility. My tranquility is marred by an automatic electronic guide we take at the start of the tour; it starts the indecipherable commentary in the wrong places and is more of a distraction than an aid.
After relieving ourselves of the electronic guides we walk up the hill behind the palace, called JingShan, and we are rewarded with great views, through the polluted city haze, of the Forbidden City. This view reinforces the truly sprawling scale of Beijing which, with its 12M inhabitants, is China's second largest city
04 Dinner with Xueli
.Another day we head to the Summer Palace, built around 1750, with extensive rooms and courtyards and an enormous park and lake. To escape the crowds we walk all the way around the lake and it takes us until dusk to complete the circuit. We are rewarded by the dreamy monet-like scenes of water lillies on the water, slender bridges topped with pagodas, and temples reflecting in the green water. We walk over a bridge with 17 arches and 544 stone lions to a pagoda on an island and watch the sky turn from hazy white to red.
That evening we take Xueli, husband Guao, and Alice out for Beijing Duck, and we get to the rendezvous point by bus. We've gained confidence with the buses around town, and feel good about it because our guide book says this is only for the truly hard-core types. Once you have your destination written down in Chinese characters, and you know which bus to get, and the right direction, it becomes a piece of cake. We managed to get completely lost only twice.
There is a Tibetan Lama temple to the North of the City and we decide to go along for a visit. We enjoy the quiet peacefulness to the place although it appears to me that the state has control over the site rather than the few monks we see
05 Jinshan and the Forbidden city
. There is an 18m high carving of a giant Buddha from a single sandlewood tree complete with plaque from the Guiness Book of Records to prove its authenticity. In a museum dedicated to Tibetan Buddhism we see lots of propaganda about the close links between China and Tibetan Buddhism. They tactfully neglect to mention the 1000's of Buddhist temples the Chinese destroyed in Tibet, the loss of monks lives, and human rights abuses. There is much praise for the young Panchen Lama, who has visited the monastery 4 times. As we learned in India, the true Panchen Lama, recognised by the Tibetan government in exile, has been 'missing' for over 10 years. Rachel is sad to hear an American commenting: 'isnt it nice to see that the Chinese government supports Tibetan Buddhism'.We head into the centre of Beijing and walk across Tianamen square to the Great Hall of the People. Its hard to be here without remembering the TV images of a lone protesting student standing defiantly in front of a tank in 1989. We wonder if in the distant future, with incremental regime changes, there will be a memorial here covered in flowers in his memory. Inside the great hall we are impressed by the grandeur and opulence of the rooms. We walk into an auditorium that can seat 10,000 where there is a rehersal for a musical going on. There must be over 200 performers on the stage as loud music booms and stage lights dazzle
06 Temple in the Forbidden City
. We stand mesmerised and ignore the chinese guide as the rest of the tour group move on.We move to a a luxury 4-star hotel where Rachel's conference on Ultrasound is being held. It will be the first double-bed for nearly 3 months! That evening there is a reception and I see lots of academic-looking people hanging around and chatting about ultrasonics, armed with platefuls of fried rice and noodles. Rachel starts to switch mind-set in preparation for her talk in a couple of days time.
Since I am now free to do what I want during the day I take the bus to Beijing zoo because I read about it when I was 10 (in a Willard Price book) and I fancy seeing it for myself. Its a mixture of complete degredation (cramped bird enclosures that are crumbling, the birds feathers pecked out, and weeds growing wildly), and quite modern (an aquarium with 5000 seat dolphinarium, well trained staff, and really clean fish tanks that you can walk through). I stay and watch the 2pm dolphin show and I am amazed by the tricks the four dolphins can play, and how clever the two performing seals are, but on leaving I feel sorry for the 2 polar bears stuck in an ugly concrete enclosure in the baking sun, with tourists throwing sandwiches on their heads from above to stir them into action
07 Doorway in the Forbidden City
.In the evening we meet Tom (from US) and wander through the cool air of Tainemen at night. People fly kites, the buildings are lit up like Christmas decorations and there's a big electronic count-down to the 2008 Olympics. Only 1208 days, 16hrs, 4 minutes, and 27 seconds to go.
That evening we eat in the only vegetarian restaurant in town to fit with Tom's preference. Many of the dishes have the names of the couterpart meat dishes, but we are assured contain no meat. The fish looks exactly like a fish fillet but is made of mashed potato and has a skin on one side to add to the authenticity. The eel is made from mushrooms and is cut up like slithers of fish, and the chicken is made from some fleshy vegetable that no-one knows how to translate into English. The food turns out to be really delicious, the peculiar presentation of the dishes adding to the enjoyment of the meal rather than detracting.
Next day I collect my passport and wander over to Beijing Ancient Observatory. This must be one of the oldest observatories in the world, built in 1440, and home to several very old astrological instruments on the roof of the observatory
08 Rooftops in the Forbidden city
. The names of the huge bronze dragon-embellished instuments evoke dreamy thoughts of past times in China: Azimuth Theodolite; Equatorial Armilla; and Celestial Globe.In the evening we go on a conference-organised trip to see Chinese Acrobatics. Rachel parts with US$25 for my ticket on the promise that it includes dinner. Dinner consists of a soggy tuna Subway sandwich and a can of pepsi, the bus gets stuck in the traffic, and we miss half the show. Still, the second half is good, if short, and I am impressed that 14 Chinese girls can ride on one bicycle around the stage. Rachel gets annoyed with me because I complain on the bus for whole journey back 'home'.
Next day I buy 2 tickets for the sleeper train to Shanghai, the biggest city in China.
