hello everyone! i still can’t get onto my blog, so Dad is posting them up for me. you can’t even search for the word blog. apparently it happened in the past month or summin. what an ache.
i got into Beijing on friday which was a couple of days earlier than I’d originally planned, but there’s loads to do here so it’s all good. when i was on the plane they give you a health sheet asking if you’ve had headaches, sore throats or stomach trouble in the past six weeks. after seeing the quarantine zone and hearing they keep you there for a week, I neglected to mentioned I’d had them all in the past six hours. got off the plane and had to wait for my taxi driver and i struck up a conversation.i deduced that he was from Hebei province, was concerned whether i was cold from the air-con, and that not practising Mandarin for seven weeks had really taken it’s toll.
on the saturday i did the classic tourist in Beijing thing and went to Tienanmen Sq and the Forbidden City. it wasn’t astounding, but it was still really cool. you had to create the excitement for yourself if you see what i mean. met a Finnish guy and wandered around the grounds, and then went to Jingshan Park which is directly north of the palace. it had pagodas on top of the hill and you had a view of the entire city. Beijing is massive. i think the population is 15 million, and the buildings just roll on past the horizon. but it’s really easy to get around. the subway is two times easier than the LDN tube, three times cleaner, and fifty times cheaper. 20pence to go anywhere in the city? balls to your 5pound for Zone One. they put so much work into it for the Olympics, and most of the signs have English translations. saying all this, it did take me three hours to find my hostel on my first night. it’s easy to ask for directions, but hard to hear the result. i just settled for picking out “left” or “right”.
i’ve also been to see a few parks here. the parks are probably my favourite things inside the city. the summer palace is only 10-20 minutes for the buzz of the city, but it’s completely secluded. you can’t hear the cars, the air is suddenly cleaner, and there is a massive lake slap bang in the middle. you can tell why the emperors and empresses were fond of their standing. the temple of heaven park comes in a close second after the summer palace. it’s much less touristy. more older chinese people and they’re practising Tai Chi or just monging out. monging out being a well known part of eastern tradition of course. there was a rose garden too, and many different types of trees. a good place to write my journal and have a nap under a tree.
went to the Great Wall yesterday. i didn’t want to go to Badaling because it’s really touristy and loads has been renovated. after reading in Lonely Planet, and after Ben’s recommendation, i decided to go to Simatai. it’s further out and has fortunately been neglected for a lot of the restoration work. i got up at about half four to get a public bus to city on the outskirts of Beijing province. a guy came on to the bus and said “Simatai?”. i didn’t have much of a choice so i got off. i doubt even the Mongolians had as much hassle as i did getting to the wall. after getting shouted at by the taxi driver’s friends and being shown rudimentary maps that involved lines, arrows and three digit numbers, i settled for paying 27 quid to get dropped off at Jinshanling and for the driver to wait for me at Simatai while i did the 10km walk from one to the other. it was well worth it. we drove to Jinshanling which is in neighbouring Hebei province, and i began my walk across the border along the Great Wall. i agree with Nixon, but think he was understating when he said “this is a great wall”. i was absolutely gobsmacked. even though i wasn’t talking to anyone i was quite often stuck for words. it was hard to believe i was walking on bricks that had been laid down a couple of hundred years ago, on the foundations that had been laid down by a dynasty even older than that. the wall changed from completely flat, to almost using your hands to climb up, to employing the help of two old women to help you down from a tower. apart from these locals trying to sell ice water and t-shirts, i was alone on the wall for two hours of my trek. and even then only met two or three other small groups on the way. all in all, it was smashing. and I’m not sure how I’m going to top it.
today I’m going to the train station to book a ticket to the next destination. i want to go to Tai’an which is at the foot of the Tai’shan mountain, the holiest of the five Tao peaks in China. with any luck i’ll climb that and hang around that area for a few days. the plans are a bit hazy right now, but i want to spend a good while in the Anhui province which is south of Tai’an, and west of Shanghai. apparently it’s got beautiful scenery and some villages and towns that are more hidden away from the rapid development of the country, and another mountain i’m thinking of tackling. i’ll write more if i can find another place with free internet. the Great Wall took a big chunk out of my budget.
lots of love people!x
