So we arrived in Beijing and fell in love with the city, the area we were staying (Xicheng), the local restaurants, and the hostel (Red Lantern). So much so that we booked an extra 2 nights. Probably the longest we'll stay anywhere (voluntarily) until we get to Australia...
There is so much to see and do in Beijing but everything seems to take slightly longer than you think. Blocks are enormous, so you look at your tourist map and think- 'sure it's only a couple of blocks' and then 40 mins later you're still walking. The bus system (if you can read your location and destination) was dirt cheap (10p a trip) and the tube (20p) was even better with announcements in English & TV screens and all kinds of flashing lights. Clearly we were reaping the benefits of the Beijing Olympic Renovations from last year!
The first morning (the Saturday of the weekend of the national holiday & the PRC celebrations) we foolishly attempted Tiananmen Sq. Well, it took 30 mins just to figure out how to cross the road- even the Chinese didn't know (and we followed them). It was wonderful Chinese style chaos. We couldn't really get a sense of the grandeur of the square with so many people (plus the celebratory floats everywhere) so later in the week we passed it on the bus (it was closed to visitors) and appreciated it. The Forbidden City was very impressive too- the sheer size of everything is staggering. We also spent time in the Summer Palace, the Lama temple, the temple of Heaven and took a day trip to the great wall at Mutianyu.
All were amazing but my favourite was the great wall. Great in name and experience. Not sure if it was the time of day (early morning) or whether it's off peak or all the national tourists have gone back home after their week of heavy 60 year celebrations but I was pleasantly surprised to have the wall almost to ourselves for a couple of hours. We hiked up and then cheated and took the tobaggan down- hiliarious. I thought it would be a bit scary and that I'd be breaking all the time but it turned out to be the opposite and the guides stationed at dangerous bends to make sure you didn't go to fast where shouting at me to go faster!
the food has been amazing too- we have been 'lucky' enough to find restaurants where they have picture menus for the tourists (with tourist prices- good lordy wordy, a pound for a dish), so we just point and say Wo yao dge ge (I want this one) and Liang ge pijo (2 beers), bindao (cold). Peking Duck was a highlight as is this great dish of green beans with chillies that we keep finding on menus (not sure how to say it in Chinese but the Japanese characters say 4 season beans)!
So now we are in Datong doing what the local 13-18 year old boys do on a Saturday night- hanging out at the Wangba (internet cafe), smoking, (passive in our case), playing games and getting a surpise every now and then to look up and see a couple of foreigners in their space! We spent the day at the eerie hanging monastery Xuankong si and the closer Cloud Ridge Caves where each emperor created caves and carved enormous buddhas into the rocks. Amazing.
6,30 bus tomorrow to Wutai Shan for a look at some holy mountains or something. We've been warned the temperature is going to drop even further to about 2 degrees tonight. Kieran is glad he didn't ditch his warm coat and I'm glad I didn't post my thermals home with the parcel from Beijing.
Well, that's about all i have time for- my lungs and eyes are crying for me to get out of this smoky place!
Zaitian
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