When I arrived after my 16 hour journey I felt a bit jaded but the girls downstairs have put me into their swishest double room. it is still a bit rough around the edges but is pretty dMn good for 20 quid a night in the central capital. it is a strange place here full of American and Canadian business men. I got chatting to one guy this morning who was off to the North Korean embassy to pick up a 20 day visa. He said he loves North Korea and thinks all the western guff about it being a rogue state are all fabrications. I think he needed a reality check! Maybe he is being paid thousands of dollars by the NK state. I also heard from two other guys how they were robbed by two rickshaw drivers at the end of the forbidden city route. It made me determined not to get a rickshaw.
Anyway, with all this information and a massive English breakfast inside me (for sustenance after such a long trip from Xi'an) I went off to attack the subway. it is a good and easy system here. it's massive but all bilingual and easy to follow and 20p for any one way trip. I went off to tianamen East station and saw the square and chairman Mao's huge oil painting. the security was full on. Lots of queuing and checking of bags and bodies. C hina really is on red hot terrorist alert at the moment.
I then went off to find the entrance to the forbidden city and I got chatting to Li , or Kevin is his English name. I preferred to call him Li. he said he was a guide and proved it with his badges and passes. So for about 15 quid ( maybe too much but I was tired.) he showed me around and spoke to me bout all the history. he was really good and very knowledAble and as he was a follower of the Taoist belief, he was able to give me a personal insight into the layout,numerology, and meanings of all the buildings. I'm glad he was with me.
My god what a immense palace. the history is amazing and the stories of all the emperors and all the intrigue are astounding. I'm going to read about dowager Cixi, and about all the eunuchs and naked concubines brought to the the emperors every night on palaquins. it's all stuff of novels, not real life!!
But to be honest the architecture did not blow me away. it's all a bit too kitsch and not to my taste plus there is so much concrete everywhere. Plus, if I'm honest I have seen far more beautiful stuff in other places on this trip. But,hey we are to blame a bit, the Brits ransacked the place during the opium wars in the 19th century. The scratch marks left by the Brits on all the gold water containers are still there for us to see!
After a few hours we ended up in a tea house and I had my most informative tea house ceremony yet. I was absolutely knackered and the women made 5 different teas for me and told me the history. I loved it and I found the whole experience very restorative. This whole tea ceremony thing is fab! So finally after much umming and ahhing I have finally bought two teas to bring home. A fermented black cake tablet tea called Pu-er. This tea gets better with age, which I like. ( I love it now, let alone in 25 years!) And a woolong green, which i have loved since I arrived.
Yi showed me how to use the bus, which is completely different here. You get on In the middle of the bus and throw 1 yuan in a pot. I had some typical Beijing food, was OK but I think I have been spoilt on my trip aNd then went off for an evening show at the acrobatic theatre. What a laugh!!!It was in the People's Theatre. Which is an old theatre ,mostly frequented by old Chinese peasants on holiday from their villages. So I was surrounded by old Chinese crones,with a kind of chAirman Mao look about them. but the acrobatic show was great And the bicycle( 10 girls on one bike) and the motorcycle bits at the end were amazing. We were all laughing and clapping away. Then when I was completely knackered I had to negototite a bus ride then 2 lines of the metro home,with a 10minute walk down a hutong. But I made it!!!!!
A hutong is a typical Beijing street. This city is still full of typical old fashioned style houses and lanes. I love them,they re very atmospheric and my hostel is down a hutong.
Right off to bed up at 6am as I am off to the Great Wall of China!! Yippeee. Good night.
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