 Tianamen Square
 I managed to sell Gina to 2 husbands
 Leela without a husband
 Hilary still thinks were behind her
 Manage to get some husbands for Leela
 Cable car up to the Great Wall
 Slightly less exotic view from our Red House hotel room |
Beijing
 Friday We pull into Beijing West station at 7.00 in the morning. Despite warnings from the guidebook and a helpful fellow traveller we still managed to pay three times the going rate for the 10km trip from the station to our hotel in the middle of Beijing. Oh dear, stress high point for all of us. The small, quaint, Jin Ya hotel set in a traditional "Hutong" courtyard has equally small (tiny) quaint rooms. There is barely floor space to put our suitcases down. Insult is added to injury by the hotel trying to insist on money up front (cash only) for our 6 nights stay, and demanding an advance deposits for mini bar and use of the safe. Comfortable as the train had been, because of the excitement and novelty of the trip, we hadn’t slept much. Consequently me (Golden bear), Bad Arse and Monkey Warrior collapsed onto the beds and snored a few hours away, while laughing Cow Gina manfully ploughed through the Beijing Rough Guide compiling a list of alternative hotels in the area. When we awoke, using her list, we trudged off again to find a replacement hotel. Bingo, the first one, the "Red House" hostel had a suite (2 bedrooms and a spacious lounge) for just 700 RMB a night (about £50) compared to the 2 x 400 RMB for tiny rooms at the JinYa. Some careful manoeuvring back at the JinYa and we retrieved all of our deposits, only having to pay for that nights room, and we relocated immediately to the Red House that night. The Red House is just what we needed at that time. Its pretty anglicised, the bar is the home of a Beijing English football team (a pub team). There’s free table football and pool (balls not swimming), Internet access, and lots of English bar menu meals. That evening we unashamedly ate English style steak and chips and felt much better.
Saturday We travel into the heart of Beijing, to Tianamen square. Because of our previous days taxi experience, which spent most of the time stationary in traffic, we avoided taxis and buses, and instead found the metro system. Very good, just not enough of it, they are gonna have to lay some more track between now and 2008.
 ianamen square has long been a focal point for demonstrations of mass popular feeling, the most recent being the student protests, ended by tanks. In Beijing in general, and Tianamen in particular, I got the distinct feeling that the populous is publicly well behaved, and mind full and respect full of the authorities.  Tianamen Square (parliment in the background)
Sunday We return to the centre of Beijing just to wander round a bit, no real plan. I go my own way again, women shopping and me, even in the middle of China, just don’t go together. I branch off into side streets. You cant really describe Beijing as picturesque, the streets are more or less a grid pattern and the buildings mostly dusty concrete. But its still very foreign, I came across a very small market selling mostly vegetables but some fish. I watched as a woman removed a happily swimming fish from its bucket, and without killing it, de-scale it with a wire brush and then expertly slit its stomach and gut it. I think it probably died soon after! Sunday evening Wu Danning, a lovely Chinese woman who I know from her previous stay in Shrewsbury, took us out to a lovely dinner. It was so much easier having some one order for us and advise how to eat what. Of course we had Beijing Duck. Monday Spent the day wandering round the Forbidden City. The emperor seemed to have a room for every occasion.
 Talking of which, up until now we hadn’t really followed the advised practice of putting our toilet paper into the bin by the toilet, it was something that went right against the grain. But Monday night, through a combination of Chinese, climate, diet, and my genetic disposition, I was making considerable use of our suites "facilities", an inevitably it happened, or rather it didn’t, there was no gurgle of flushing water, just a rapidly filling bowl that only very very slowly emptied. I spent much of that evening playing brinkmanship with the loo, using the flush to fill it right to the brim in an effort to use weight of water to clear it. Next morning I was just about resigned to having to confess to the management we hadn’t been using the bin, when one last try, and guuuuuurrrrrrlllleeee sssshhhhhh, it all went away. 
Tuesday. Botty much better this morning, which combined with the toilet still being flushed with success bodes well for the day. We all rise between 9.00 and 10.00. Hotel desk tells us were much too late to even think about going to the great wall today. What we cant do today we put of till tomorrow, but we do organise tomorrow today. Brain box Gina suggests using the CITS office 50 yards up the road, who not only fix up our wall trip (700 Rmb taxi) but also a taxi for the airport the day after. After this I break away from the family group to go and visit Wu Danning at her place of work (Shaungxiu Gongyuen). She is charming, her colleagues are charming, and her work surroundings are tasteful and friendly, an oasis of peace. Danning is a composer and she is working with a Beijing oper company, I am honoured to meet her boss, a famous Chinese opera diva (Kim Man), and also Dans good looking husband who is a lawyer. I notice the table tennis bats in the corner of the conference room and realise the conference table must occasionally double as a ping pong table. I hand over my tokens of England I have brought for Dans mum (a jar of pickled shallots and a jar of marmite), and her husband (two new cricket balls). As usual I get more in return than I give, including a DVD of Kim Man in performance. Taxi back (away from the centre taxis get about ok) to Wanfujing street, the "high street" of Beijing. Under cover of trying to buy savlon I also enquire about Viagra. They havnt a clue what savlon is, they have have got Viagra but its far to expensive so I resign to remaining sore and relaxed. I rejoin the others at 5.00 and we resume a mutual shopping experience. In what I took to be a shoe shop I go upstairs to find Leela, but instead I come back down with a new violin (and some free playing tips from the very talented salesman). Nearly the end of the holiday and our first real venture into street vendor food, meat on sticks, frogs on sticks, locusts on sticks, stick insects on sticks, silkworm on sticks. .. and more. We only tried the safer looking food, but it was very tasty. Then home via Beijing underground (followed by the usual 30 minute walk from the station to our hotel). Tomorrow the Great Wall, I hope there are steps up to it. Wednesday- The Wall Well there are steps up . . . and up and up . . . . and up. Great taxi drive to and from the wall. Roads relatively free and fast, taxi driver friendly. The wall was very impressive.
 
Back form the wall about 4.30, plenty of time to relax in our suite. For once the Belgium Grand Prix wasn’t being repeated on the telly. I thought we’d got the eating out thing worked out, but same old mistake, ordered twice as many dishes as we could eat and we completely over faced ourselves. The restaurant was colourful and exuberant. Chinese waiters sometimes literally running pushing food trolleys, and shouting, and a group of them performing impromptu song and dance for customers. And back to the Red House bar before closing time for a change. Disaster, I am beaten by Cow Gina at table football. Tomorrow is the great flight home. I don’t really want to go, there is still too much left unseen and undone in Beijing.
|
