In General
I'm doing really well now. My stomach can handle three meals a day of Chinese food and the weathers been fantastic. I'm really coming on with my Chinese. I don't need to use any English in shops any more or the subway. I can also have a 1 minute conversation with random people before I am forced to say 'wo bu mingbai' (I don't understand). The first minute is usually the same - hello, how are you followed by either where are you from or which country are you from. After that comes either how long are you here for or do you like it here. I can improvise basic sentences and I'm getting much better at following conversations even if there are several words I don't understand. My tones are also improving, however, I asked to borrow a pen and the guy was offended (not majorly). He told me the correct tone for pen but was too embarrassed to tell me what I had asked him for. Wo bu mingbai is still my most used phrase but I'm getting there.
I'm going to sunbathe tomorrow and go through all the words I've written down. I also need to book transport out of Beijing well in advance because touts snap them up and sell them for far too much.
The Great Wall
Loved my day out. It was an early start and my back was pretty bad at the start of the day. I've spent too much time in the past few days sitting on hard seats practising Chinese and playing board games, it's done me no favours. Anyway, me and the american who lives above me got up at 5:50 after getting to sleep at about 2:30. We had dumplings then got on the bus. Chinese bus seats are tiny. There were only two seats not taken and I was one of the lucky ones who got to sprawl out. Speaking about sprawling, today was the first time I've left Beijing since I got here and have always used the subway (which is over 20 times cheaper than the tube in London). I had no idea how sprawling and dense the city is. Prior to coming here, Bangkok was probably the most densely populated city I've been in, it's nothing compared to here.
The countryside around Beijing is nothing to write home about. There's loads of medium rise construction projects going on even an hour out of the city centre with small farms in between. Most of the designs are of average quality but I did see a few eco towns spring up. They are building a high speed rail link from Beijing to Chengde parallel to the road and that blocked a lot of views. After a couple of hours driving the flat terrain very suddenly becomes the mountainous, postcard scenery that China is famous for. Unfortunately I fell asleep asleep after 5 minutes and woke up just as we were approaching the great wall. We took the hard route up rather than pay 30 kuai for the cable car. It was very enjoyable. The part of the wall we were at is called Jinshanling. It's unknown to the vast majority of chinese people and therefore very quiet. Unlike the popular, overly crowded Badaling which has been rebuilt 7 times, Jinshanling hasn't had a refurbishment in 600 years. We were joined by an American named Warren who teaches English in Chengdu and spent the next 4 hours hiking up and down long steep flights of steps and rubble. It's hard work but the views are stunning.
The countryside around Beijing is nothing to write home about. There's loads of medium rise construction projects going on even an hour out of the city centre with small farms in between. Most of the designs are of average quality but I did see a few eco towns spring up. They are building a high speed rail link from Beijing to Chengde parallel to the road and that blocked a lot of views. After a couple of hours driving the flat terrain very suddenly becomes the mountainous, postcard scenery that China is famous for. Unfortunately I fell asleep asleep after 5 minutes and woke up just as we were approaching the great wall. We took the hard route up rather than pay 30 kuai for the cable car. It was very enjoyable. The part of the wall we were at is called Jinshanling. It's unknown to the vast majority of chinese people and therefore very quiet. Unlike the popular, overly crowded Badaling which has been rebuilt 7 times, Jinshanling hasn't had a refurbishment in 600 years. We were joined by an American named Warren who teaches English in Chengdu and spent the next 4 hours hiking up and down long steep flights of steps and rubble. It's hard work but the views are stunning.
Far too hot for clothing
A well earned cigarette
Unfortunately my camera doesn't show hazy parts in the distance very clearly. You can see watchtowers for miles in both directions as the wall snakes around the mountain tops. The weather was stunning as well, 30 Celsius with high humidity. I spoke to people when we got back to the hostel who had visited Badaling. Based on their accounts and my own experiences, it's definitely worth paying a bit extra and getting up early to visit Jinshanling. Remember that if you ever intend to go. Definitely in one of the top 3 places I've been too. A recent poll at skyscrapercity.com placed the colliseum as more stunning than the great wall. I've now been to both and the great wall wins hands down in my ever humble opinion. Here's a video I made from the highest possible point that we could visit.
Unfortunately A large section of the wall at Simatai is blocked off and we later found out from an overpriced cold drinks seller that the area is patrolled by the army and being done up with expensive hotels and cable cars. That's a shame. Even though it's only 3 hours from the capital it really is an unspoilt part of China, for now. I'm assuming those soldiers are about the only ones manning the wall. As intended by the planners of the great wall, the soldiers are there to keep out foreigners. Some things never change. On the other hand, what was built to keep out foreigners is now a top reason why foreign people choose to visit China.
Other Things.....
Today I went to the central business district for a gander. Beijing has some weird modern architecture. I forgot to charge my camera batteries. here's a picture I downloaded of the CCTV building. I can't say I like the architect Rem Koolhas that much but this building looks like it's defying gravity.
I also went to the temple of heaven, the 3rd Unesco world heritage site I've visited in 5 days. It was pretty dull to be honest. I did like one bit called the whisper chamber. The building is shaped in a perfect circle and if you whisper someone at the other end standing exactly half way round can hear you clearly. It's weird but with the Chinese being Chinese, no-one whispered, I had no-one to whisper with anyway so I wasn't bothered. They also have a bit where you can hear your voice echo once, move to the next bit of the temple and you hear yourself twice then a little bit on and you clearly hear yourself three times. Strange phenomena. I found the park surrounding the temples more interesting. There was an opera band doing a rehearsal so I joined some chinese people next to them for a game of keepie up. It's the same as doing it with a football but you kick a giant shuttle cock. I was o.k at it. One of the people I was playing with was a woman who must have been in her sixties but could do side flicks and kick it when it was half way up her body height. She was far better at it than me. I really enjoyed playing with them. They don't grow old without a fight here.
The vast majority of people I've met since I left Scotland have been both nice and interesting, some have been a bit boring but nice nevertheless. The only twat I've met was the guy who stole my camera but even he had a bit of charisma, a cheeky smile and I admire people who show initiative. However, there is one guy in my hostel who is quite possibly the most boring guy I've ever met. The dude is 17, he's possibly the least streetwise person I've come across but he thinks he knows it all. He is xenophobic and glorifies in war. All he talks about is life in Serbia and martial arts. What's annoying is the way he dominates conversations and doesn't shut up even when it's blatant that nobody is listening to him. He just cannot take a hint. Myself and a guy from Denmark placed a bet on the amount of time he would go without starting a conversation with 'In Serbia.....'. I thought he could go 3 minutes. Unfortunately he said it twice in 30 seconds so I'm owe the Dane an ice cream. To top it all off, he wears jogging trousers that practically touch his nipples. nightmare. He refers to me as his Scotland friend.
The good has far outweighed the bad. I've had enjoyable games of pick up sticks with a Nigerian, and playing a game similar to othello, but the object of the game is to connect 5, its called oo-tsi-chee (probably spelled wuciqi). I've played this with a german guy and his girlfriend. I lost most times but improved and started to win sometimes just before they headed to Tianjin. I've met a really nice French girl named Olivia. She's possibly the most free spirited person I've ever met. She's 26 and has either been squatting (as in living illegally in unoccupied buildings) or travelling for the past 9 years. She doesn't work for money if possible but works here and there if there is something that she believes is worthwhile. She's extremely intelligent in an unorthodox way, taoist ways of thinking comes naturally to her. She's currently travelling around the north of China with her uber cool mum for 3 weeks then she's on her own to explore the South. I told her about my hopes to learn traditional Chinese construction techniques doing voluntary labour in the south before heading to Laos and then heading off somewhere to build myself a tree house using the skills I've learned sometime in the distant future. She thinks it's a cool idea. We've exchanged emails address and it would be really cool to meet up in the south, hitch hike around little villages on the back of ox driven carts doing casual labour or whatever else, but who knows, China's a big place and she's not the sort of girl who'll be checking her emails every 2nd day so it's probably unlikely we'll meet up again. Olivia and her mum headed to Xi'an today.
Random additional things
* In China you can buy corn in a cob flavoured ice lollies. I haven't tried one yet.
* In China if you overhear someone say that the bus journey from x to y is 'only' 15 hours, they aren't being sarcastic.
* Life is good.
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