Beijing

Having arrived late on Tuesday/early Wednesday I wasn't keen on making that a busy day. As it happens it was fairly constructive, but largely due to the fact that I went out to the ticket office for my flight to Korea and bought it (I leave Tuesday morning). Following this I went to Tiananmen Square which, as advertised, is a very large square. In the middle of this square is Chariman Mao's mausoleum - which is exceptionally large given its purpose is limited to storing the man himself, and a wax replica (in case storing him didn't work as hoped).

The square is of course impressive, and the views of the buildings around, and the outer edge of the forbidden city area (complete with Chairman Mao giant picture) is impressive, but the presence of quite a lot of police, and some not very subtle plain clothes police provides for an...interesting atmosphere.

That night I met a guys with similar plans itinerary wise to me (including someone who, if I do the PGCE at IoE, I might well meet at a school in London, or if he (as intended) starts working in Coventry I might see at work). The following day, they and I went to the Forbidden City - a sizeable complex of buildings build (I believe) to keep the rulers well confined and safe from the Proletariat. You can't help wondering what they'd say now with the prole's wondering around in their tour groups with their group's hat on with its individual colours, but there we go. Although the garden in the city was very pleasant (if busy) the rest was something of a disappointment - very nice for sure, and free from the insane price inflation of attractions outside of Beijing, but not as awe inspiring as I'd hoped it might be. After lunch I went down to the Heavenly Temple, a couple of miles of walking. As I bought my ticket, the sky darkened. As I walked into the park I was passed by people running out towards the street. By the time I got to the front of the temple it was eerily quiet and dark with a gusting wind. By the time I got to the back with the bridge running between a building at one end and the temple at another, I Was reminded of sunrise at Angkor Wat - pre sunrise in fact. By the time I actually got to the Temple it was pissing it down. So regrettably I decided I'd leave asap as soon as the rain subsided. If I feel like it tomorrow I might go again. On the bright side, on my walk back from there a Chinese guy came up to me and asked 'You need direction?'. Say it in the most racist Bulldog Bristow (Frasier reference) accent you can and you'll see why it was funny. ['You want erection?']

That night I got an early one as I'd booked to go to the Great Wall the next day - a 6.30am start. I opted for the Jinshanling to Simatai section of the wall, including, naturally, a hike between the two locations. Not only is this section less touristy (See the photos with no people on the wall), there are also parts which have not been renovated (in recent years), and the contrast is quite nice to see. The walk itself is 8km and supposed to take 4.5 hours. We did it in 4 and could do it in 2 at a push. However, this method of organising the timing was very acceptable as it meant they gave us some instructions (walk along the wall until point 'x' essentially), our tickets for the various check points, and then set us on our way leaving us to make our own way at our own pace - much better than doing it as a big group. The weather for this walk was perfect (see the photos) I don't think you could possibly have a better day - sun, warm but not hot, light breeze and not a cloud in the sky. The beer at the restaurant in Simtai was very much appreciated as we waited for the stragglers to come in.

Feeling that a 6.30 am start and a 'hike' wasn't quite enough activity for the day, I decided I'd give some guys I met in Nanjing, who are teaching in Beijing a call to see if they were going out. This was, after all, a Friday night, and Beijing is famous for having a good nightlife. Thus I headed out on the subway to some far far away place and waited for Patrick at our agreed spot. In fact Lincoln and Justin met me instead, jumping out of a taxi to say hi ["We saw a Western guy, and we thought 'oh! He'll know where the club is, we'll ask him - and then it was you!"]. Fortunately we were actually almost exactly where we wanted to be...and an hour late Patrick met us in the club too. After 6 hours in the club (taking us to 4.30am), which was largely full of Westerners and Koreans - no doubt drawn in by the 15 yuan draft beers at 25 yuan cocktails - we decided to leave and wait for the subway to open. I got to bed at 6.30am - something I've not done in a while and resulting in a 24 hour 'awake period'.

Surprisingly this did not prevent me from doing stuff the next day, including waking up at 10.30am. Gave Patrick a quick call and went to buy some clothes (I've run out of clean ones and I can't be arsed to wash them - this chillyness really has taken me and my wardrobe by surprise). Arriving 30 minutes late at our agreed spot, and then 30 minutes later after texts back and forth realising there was more than one damn 'Exit A' from that subway we met at the Lama Temple - a large Tibetan Buddhist monastery. In sharp contrast to the forbidden city this sight was fairly awe inspiring and although busy, still quite a pleasant place to walk around and view the beautiful architecture and very impressive statues. There was an exceptionally large Buddha in one building which I didn't except to see outside of Thailand, but the smaller Buddhas and various other statues were all pretty impressive.

From there we headed towards Qian Hai lake - a beautiful area surrounded by restaurants and coffee/tea shops. A very tasty meal there (sans beer) and a coffee (embarrassingly at Starbucks) finished a very nice day.

In the morning today I got talking to a guy my age and his parents who are Canadian (both York graduates in fact) who bizarrely was in the same room as me at the hostel in Qingdao when I was there - small world. After the usual 'small world' chat, I went down to a large weekend curio/'antique'/art market. I made the mistake of walking partly because I knew I'd have to walk a lot of the way anyway from my lonely planet map. Except of course that this is China, and things happen FAST - so in the 1 year since my book was published, Beijing built a new subway line which goes to within 300 meters of the market...never mind. The market itself was huge, and although there were a lot of jade Buddhas, it didn't suffer from the problem many markets I've been to have, namely that all the stalls sell pretty much the same items. The range here was pretty impressive - but I won't bother listing, just if you're ever here you should go there.

Other than that I don't really have much to say about Beijing. It's a quite attractive city to walk around, particularly in some areas of course, and it seems more relaxed and less commercial than Shanghai. I've enjoyed being able to shop in markets and whatever shops I want, and find a range of decent foods to eat. Although it's still annoying being overcharged in some places, more so when you've just watched someone get a different price, and been watched watching by the seller, avoiding these places is not so hard. I'd certainly happily come back to China and Beijing in particular, but I'm also looking forward to heading on to Korea and seeing the sights there!