Beijing - Part 1

Aah, Beijing. After Shanghai it felt like a small country town. Going to the wrong airport in Shanghai didn't help the situation either! Beijing, 15 million chinese and a bucket load of pollution. So where to begin, a trip to the local street markets for some high quality delicacies that's where. Actually these markets are right in the centre of town and are basically put there for tourists, still its interesting enough to wander around and look at the fried silkworms for sale. My first impressions of Beijing were that it was cleaner and much more organised than Shanghai, I think it was the Olympics last year that basically meant the whole city got its act into gear. I especially liked one Chinese ladies jeans which were inscribed across the back with the phrase "Working for a better Chinese Olympics". That seemed to be the motto of the place, even though the olympics are long gone and they are selling the apartments off.

The evening involved a trip to the most famous Peking (Beijing) duck restaurant in town. Now I was suffering from a cold but I was still able to chow down on half a duck with pancakes and dipping sauce. A real speciality and damned tasty, plus the restaurant that it is in is just bizarre. Everything is red and gold and it feels like a huge hall.
On the floor below was a selection of high quality jade merchandise to keep the most ardent jade fans happy. In fact it was such a ridiculous collection that it boggles the mind.

Day 2 in Beijing was a tour, now I'm not a big fan of organised tours, but they are the easiest and cheapest way to get to the wall. Well, the wall via the jade shop that the your guide's cousin runs. We did get to see how they carve jade, yes it is just stone and they carve it up using machines. Wow, what a revelation. Well anyway, after that detour it was off to the Badaling section of the wall. There are 5 sections of the wall that are open near Beijing and Badaling is the most popular. With some obvious reasons, stretching out for ages in all directions the scenery is just stunning. Well it would be if it wasn't all covered in pollution. I especially liked the fact that there are about 300,000 tourists a day to the great wall around Beijing, but only about 10 of them could be stuffed actually walking to the end. It was just ridiculous, 100,000 people and most of them didn't walk more than the first 300 metres. Yes, its steep, but goddam it, get off your lazy ass people and make it to the end! Well, not really the end, but after a while the wall hasn't been repaired and you can progress no further. After that it was off for a large lunch and probably the funniest moment of the chinese tour. We were sitting down to our traditional Beijing banquet with 8000 dishes and the guide comes up and goes "Are you happy? You must eat a lot to fill your large capitalist stomachs". Pure gold, I still can't quite believe that she said it. The lunch did come with free chinese rice spirit, which was about 65% alcohol and tasted like nail polish remover.

The afternoon was a trip to the Ming tombs, where one of the Ming emperors is buried. Seriously though, its a little disappointing. Sure its old, but there isn't really anything to see in the tomb, and for one of the highlights of Beijing I don't rate it at all. Its just basically a big hole in the ground, yes its interesting how they found it when the location of the tombs was secret and they dug a number of holes before finding anything interest. Anyway, if you want tombs, head to the pyramids or elsewhere because Ming doesn't quite cut it for me. After such a long day what better way to relax than a foot massage with Chinese medicine diagnosis thrown in for free. I passed on the diagnosis as I already know I'm dying from chronic eczema but Ingrid gave it a shot and found out that she was healthy and should spend $140/month on some pills to keep herself that way.