Again, with the 6AM start. Breakfast was similar to what we had yesterday. Nah, it was exactly the same. Again, the spinach was best. Yes, I do think it is strange that spinach was offered for breakfast. These are the type of things one must become accustomed to when traveling. In New Zealand, for breakfast we eat toast or cereal. Almost never fried rice and spinach. Those are what we call “dinner food”.

After dinner breakfast, guess what we did? That’s right: boarded the bus. Then what? We waited! I’m not sure what we were waiting for, as nothing much was happening. No-one got off or left the bus during the hour. Strange? It would become familiar. Eventually, after the planets had reached the appropriate alignment, we left the hotel forever. We drove to the airport and were ejected from the bus.

We milled about in the airport entrance for sometime, unsure of what we were supposed to do. Eventually a guide came and herded us in the correct direction. He then proceeded to demand our passports, apparently so our check-in could be processed more smoothly. We handed our precious booklets over, then waited. And waited. After more waiting we finally saw him return with a bag of passports and a fistful of boarding passes. Uniting the trinity of human, passport and boarding pass was entertaining – no-one could read more than 50% of the names in his fistful of boarding passes. I started yelling out my mis-pronounciations of names until we all had our required documents.

Although we had now checked in, we still had to get our luggage on the plane. This involved more waiting and queuing. Finally, when it was done, we were directed to the boarding area, where we waited some more. Along the way people were lost and had to be recovered, mostly from toilets or fast-food stores.

It was a relief to finally get on the plane.

About 95% of the passengers on our plane were from the Chinese Bridge group – we received more than a few confused looks from local Chinese passengers. I found myself seated between a tiny Japanese woman and a Chinese man.

As we all know, there are many Chinese with a rather low opinion of the Japanese.

After finding out that Yvonne (my wife) is Chinese, he said I was China’s 亲戚, or son-in-law. He also gave me most of his food. I ate it (even the massive amount of rice) because I wanted to be polite. I was very full. We talked for the whole flight, which was great because I wasn’t tired at all and definitely didn’t need sleep. Every now and then he’d lean over and make some comment about Japanese people. Quite entertaining.

When we landed some people clapped, I think they were Russians. Apparently surviving a plane landing is quite an event over there. After landing all this mist started coming out of the air conditioning. It was strange. I took a video of it, you can see it here: mist on a plane.

Changsha, Hunan was hot. Very hot. It hit us like a wave as soon as we left the airport. Luckily there was an air-conditioned bus waiting for us, to wait in.

And in that bus, we waited.

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On the way back from the great wall many of us were tired and wanted to rest quietly. The rest of the passengers were tired and wanted to sing loudly. I didn’t mind the singing so much, until Carl’s turn was over. After he sung, the quality of performances fell consistently. Eventually a large number of the singers were just yelling. At that point we (the non-singers) started yelling too: abuse at the singers. At some point we all stopped and the bus ride continued in relative quiet.

After much driving we reached our destination (wherever that was) and got off the bus. We were immediately herded into away into a building marked “Beijing Steel”. I didn’t know what to expect.

Turns out we were there for dinner. On maybe the 10th floor (wasn’t paying attention) there was a really flash restaurant, complete with stage, elevated tables and chandeliers. The roof and walls were splattered with small windows, giving the effect of a starry sky. To enhance this further, there were clear bulbs of glass suspended in strings from the ceiling. It was very nice looking.

The food was not quite at the same standard as the decor, but as I would be heard saying throughout the trip: “You try cooking the same meal, at the same time for 200 people who are always late, and see how THAT tastes”. When dinner was over, we bleated and kicked our way back to the bus, then were driven to the hotel.

After a short rest, Carl Jason and I ventured out: to McDonald’s. We took a cab, which was cheap. Carl and I had “Number 2 Meal”, because it was the only one we could read – 第二餐. It turned out to be a double cheeseburger. And it was great, even the chips! Jason had a sundae, because it was the only thing he could read. After finishing our meal we returned to the hotel.

Carl and Jason went to bed. I wasn’t willing to miss out on any fun activities, so I hung around the lobby waiting for something to happen. Two Hungarian guys came down and started asking the main organizer what they could go out and do in Beijing. The organizer basically said that the only place worth going to at that time (10:30PM) was “Bar Street”. None of us were interested in drinking, as we had to get up at 6 AM the next day to fly to Changsha, but we couldn’t miss this chance to pay money to get driven somewhere so we could wander aimlessly.

The guide demanded a map from the hotel receptionist, and drew a dot for the hotel and another for Bar Street. We thanked him and went out to find a taxi. The ride to Bar Street cost about 37元, and took about 30 minutes.

Immediately after exiting the taxi I was approached by an older gentleman who began trying to get me to go to some bar. I declined repeatedly. After he got the message he began blatantly offering me a prostitute. This I also declined. I also stopped being so polite and just walked off. Within one minute we were propositioned like this (bar, then prostitute/”lady bar”) over five times. One gets used to it after awhile. The Bar street was really a group of three streets that encircled a lake. The fourth street had no bars, as it was a rather large main road.

We walked around the lake, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, depending on the amount of harassment. Most bars had 2-4 people wandering about outside, who were apparently tasked with getting as many passers-by into the club as possible. They tried everything. Mostly they offered either cheap drinks or naked women. We didn’t go into any.

The best place on bar street was a small stall where a woman was selling paintings. At first I thought the paintings were screen-prints, as there were piles of apparently identical works for sale. Upon closer inspection I discovered that these piles consisted of non-identical but similar paintings, which I found much more interesting. There were many different designs – ranging from awesome to incredible. After looking at all the artwork for some time, we left and continued to wander.

Turning a corner we saw five policemen on motorbikes slowly cruise past. We passed many more bars, and were propositioned many more times.

As we walked the final stretch I almost demanded we go back to the artist’s stall as I really wanted to buy a particular painting. A quick glance inside my wallet changed my mind.

Finally sick of being offered prostitutes, we decided to take a different approach. We told the pimps that we were gay. They immediately stopped trying and walked off, every time. If you’re ever in a similar situation, I recommend this technique.

After that, my two gay Hungarian friends and I returned to the hotel.

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Today we were woken up at six. Breakfast wasn’t until six-thirty, so I uploaded photos. For breakfast I had tasteless buns and spinach. Spinach was best.

After boarding the bus I realised I had forgotten my dictionary, so I ran back to get it. The bus was still there when I got back.

Our first stop was the Hanban and Confucius headquarters. When we arrived, we were told that they weren’t ready, so we drove into town to have a look around. When we arrived in town, we were told that they were ready, so we turned around and drove back. While driving we saw people folding up A4 advertising material and shoving it into the gap between the doorhandle and door of modern cars.

The HQ is very flash. In the foyer each country that has a Confucius institute has their flag displayed. We posed for photos with the NZ and ZH flags. We listened to a speech which was basically about how great we all were for learning Chinese so well, and how we should keep trying. After that we were free to wander about. I found a seat and rested. In front of me was a large screen which was showing last year’s competition.

By this time I was hungry again.

We left and headed towards the great wall. We drove through Beijing to get there, and were treated to views of large buildings and busy people. I saw at least five unsafe activities.

The drive to the great wall was quite long, and most of the bus kept themselves occupied by singing. I don’t sing, or like other people singing, so the bus ride was long and painful. Apart from when Carl sang, as I like him. Also his singing is high quality, not like screeching cats.

When we arrived ad the great wall (Badaling 八达岭) we had lunch. It was a buffet again, and markedly similar to breakfast. Needless to say, I ate a lot of tasteless bread. For dessert I tried to eat a lot of melons, but they had a light fishy flavour. I think the chef’s melon knife might double as a fish slicer. After dinner the main event began.

It took about thirty minutes to get to the great wall, then another twenty to get through the ticket gates. Jason, Carl and I walked together. We thought we were walking fast but kept seeing other people from the Chinese Bridge group ahead of us. This made us walk faster, and faster until we almost collapsed.

The entire way Carl kept trying to converse with Chinese people. Out of maybe fifty attempts, he had about six conversations longer than five minutes. One was with an old Chinese couple who had a really thick Cantonese accent. I enjoyed listening to Carl ask them to repeat themselves.

All the children we saw were constantly running, either up or down the wall. It wasn’t that surprising then, when we came across a little Chinese girl vomiting over the side of the wall. We gave her one of our precious water bottles, and tried to talk to her parents. They were really grateful, but our conversational attempts were rebuffed. It was obvious they were more interested in helping their kid and wanted us to shut up and go away.

We made it to the seventh guard house. I have no idea the distance involved. Jason really wanted to go on to the eighth, but Carl and I didn’t want to miss the bus and felt we were running out of time. In hindsight I see that they wouldn’t have left without us, and we could have taken all the time we wanted. Don’t tell Jason.

On the way down we walked beside the wall on a small path. Vegetation was growing all around the path and over the surrounding mountains, quite a contrast to the last time I climbed the wall in winter. It took a little while for me to recognise them, but amongst the vegetation were huge cannabis plants. I was amazed. I took various photos as evidence. There were no buds on any of the plants, I assume because they get picked off as soon as they’re visible. A friend told me later that he saw guards hiding in the bushes at a few spots, presumably waiting for dumb westerners to attempt to fill their bags with weed, so they can haul them off to the work camps. Another friend told me he saw a huge plant on the side of the wall that is inaccessible to foot traffic, heavily laden with buds.

When we finally arrived at the ticket gate, we found that hardly any of our group had gathered. We were tired so we sat down. Five minutes later we were verbally assaulted by a crazy bottle-lady who swore at us (I assume) in her local dialect, until growing tired of being ignored and walking off. We saw her walk around the area yelling at anyone who looked at her. The nice Chinese man next to us told me she was crazy, as if I couldn’t tell. Some kid walked past and giggled, so I did the “she’s crazy” hand movement. He laughed.

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I’m going back to China! What for? I don’t really know. So far as I’ve been told, I’m going to support the Chinese speech competition finalists, and though it seems a little weird to spend so much money sending people to clap, but I’m really happy to have been selected. By “selected” I mean performed well enough in our national speech competition to be thought worthy. Or whatever.

The trip has been organised and paid for by 汉班 and the Confucius Institute, both organisations focused on encouraging learners of Chinese as a second language, and involved in the planning and implementation of Chinese language education. The speech competition was about a month and a half ago. I had practiced a lot, and spoke well. We were also required to prepare some sort of cultural performance. This is a vague and somewhat confusing request. Many competitors sang karaoke, some sang well. One played some famous Chinese song on the guitar, another on the violin. I did Kung fu.

It wasn’t until I was halfway to Auckland the day before we were due to leave that I received word my visa was ready. This was a relief.

We stayed the night at my aunties, so we wouldn’t have to get up at 4 AM and drive for two hours on the day of my flight.

We met Carl (fellow student) at the airport. He had a document/cash protector hanging around his neck, which made us jealous immediately. The nearest store sold them, so we bought one. It is awesome.

When I checked in, I thought everything went well. That is, until I noticed that my traveling companions had two boarding passes, and I had only one. I went straight back to the check in counter to find out why. At first the guy at the counter told me that he couldn’t print anything and that I’d have to get my boarding pass in Seoul where we are stopping over. I didn’t like this idea, as we were supposed to have only an hour stopover in Seoul before boarding our flight to Beijing. He then tried to access my details using my name instead of the flight number, and it worked. He printed my boarding pass, then told me that he had to check something with his boss because of something to do with my passport. I didn’t like this either. After about 5 minutes he and his boss returned, and told me that someone with a similar name had been banned from flying with Korea Air. I assured them that this man was not me. They agreed and allowed me to complete my check in.

Some time after that I said goodbye to Yvonne and Mum, and boarded the plane. Unlike last time I went to China, this plane is almost empty. This means that people have been able to fold the armrests up and use the middle rows as beds. There were also no screaming babies, or arrogant arses. Or headrest-mounted televisions, but I came prepared with my laptop and DS.

About an hour after takeoff lunch was served. We were given the choice of Fish or “Korean”. I had “Korean”. I should have had the fish. Not that the “Korean” was bad, it just wasn’t filling [I doubt the fish would have been much better, but it did come with a bun]. Seaweed soup was good though, and there was rockmelon and honeydew. I think I’ve eaten 10 bags of peanuts as well. It’s not that I’m hungry, it’s just something to do.

- - -

And that brings us to the present. six hours left of our 11 1/2 hour flight. None of us really know what will happen when we arrive in Beijing. Apparently someone will pick us up from the airport. We don’t know who they are. I forgot what is supposed to be written on the sign. I’m hoping that we’re the only westerners on the flight, so they can identify us easily.

They do have televisions, about 5 per segment of the plane. Right now an incredibly bad movie is playing. For the first 20 minutes I watched it with a Korean voice over. Then I realized they also had the original English. Not that it made the movie better. It would be lucky be categorized as B grade film. The basic plot is: Nazis experimented on psychics, attempting to mould them into some kind of super weapon. They failed (lost the war) and America picked up the research. I forget the stupid name they gave the section of the government that controls this research. Something dumb like “unit” or “section”. Whatever. I guess the psychics will win in the end, because anything else would be clever. That guy from 4400 made a cameo appearance – to give you an idea of the budget.

Bah.

About five hours now. I think my laptop battery lasts much longer now, since getting the SSD. Oh look! Uncle Bully is in the movie! Ha ha! It just gets better.

Carl keeps getting me to ask the flight attendants how many hours left in the flight. I’m sure they’re getting annoyed. The male flight attendant looks surly, but that might just be because he’s Korean. One of the attendants took ages to work out how much longer we had, her maths wasn’t very good.

Man: I looked for you!
Woman: You didn’t find me.

Whoa, deep dialogue.

Woman: I can’t remember.
Man: You must have had yourself wiped. Erased memories make it harder for division [that's the stupid name] to track you.
Woman: Not the ones of you.

Oooo now there is an actress who looks like a cross-eyed cat. She’s Chinese, her English is pretty good. She pauses in all the wrong places though. It would be funny if she wasn’t so wrong looking.

Now the actress playing a thirteen year old girl is pretending to be drunk. So bad.

I think the stewardesses are preparing another meal. Yay, food is something to do!

The cross-eyed cat has two sidekicks. Their power is – get this – they pull faces and yell at locks, which then fly off the door. OMG.

I was seated near the toilets. For the entire flight I thought someone had a coughing problem, until I realised what the sound really was. It was the sound of vomiting. Someone had been vomiting (or attempting to do so) every 20 minutes or so – for he whole 11 hour flight!

Note to self: select chicken next time, the beef is a pile of fatty gristly fat.

Two New Zealand women were sitting in front of us, it wasn’t until we were 40 minutes from landing that we realised they were going to the same place…

Couldn’t ring Yvonne from Korea because global roaming didn’t work. HEAR THAT TELECOM?

This time, there were three Japanese women sitting behind us. It wasn’t until we landed that we realised that they, also, were going to the same place.

Arrival and customs went smoothly – China doesn’t care as much as New Zealand. Again, I gave the customs official the biggest smiley-face rating. This time though, he deserved it.

We waited at the airport for some other people in our group to arrive. I had a coffee at Starbucks. Starbucks seems really expensive here, but I worked it out and actually it’s the same price as New Zealand. This is what makes it seem expensive, as everything else is so much cheaper.

It is much different for me this time, as I actually understand people sort of. And they sort of understand me. I’ve never had a free trip like this, even if we turned around and went home now I’d be happy – it’s been awesome (and we just arrived). I have no idea what we’re doing after tomorrow – I guess I’ll find out on the day.

After the group was complete, we boarded a bus and drove to the hotel. On the way I attempted to do the “一是一，四十四“ tongue twister. I failed. The Paddon hotel is very flash, see photos (up later). Sharing a hotel with Carl, who I know quite well.

Had to get up at six today, breakfast at seven. First we’re going to the Confucius Institute, I guess the headquarters. Then I think we’re going to the great wall, but I wasn’t paying much attention when the organiser was talking about it.

China is fun.

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Again, we rose at six in the morning. This time we were not late for breakfast, instead breakfast was late for us. When we arrived in the dining hall we found that there was no food. This was only mildly disappointing, as the food had been rather bland anyway. I ate about five … things, the closest description of which would be cupcakes. They weren’t really cupcakes though, they had some sort of cream coloured paste on top, and the cake part had a funny texture. Of the four items available however, they were the best. I chased them down with a cup of coffee, and sat waiting for the others to be ready to go.

After waiting for about ten minutes, I saw that the tour guide had come down. She was much more irritated over the lack of food than I, and proceeded to berate the hotel staff quite severely. I was pleased that she was displaying such behaviour, as one would hope that a tour guide, responsible for the safety and well-being of the group, would get annoyed over an unplanned lack of breakfast. She paced back and forth, nearly shouting at the staff. Of the negative adjectives I know, she called them lazy and stupid. I would bet money that she used others, but I don’t know them. The staff must have been lazy and/or stupid, as they didn’t really quicken their activities after their telling-off, which served only to annoy the guide more. Eventually more breakfast was brought out, but I didn’t eat any, as food after coffee isn’t my scene.

When the name-calling was finished with, we boarded the bus. First stop was the site of the Olympic Games. Generally the site was unimpressive, as it is a simple (albeit large) flat area of brown dirt. The two main attractions were the stadium and the swimming pool. The stadium is nice because of its architectural style. The impression they were going for is a large bird’s nest. I don’t know if I can imagine a bird large and strong enough to fly with the girders required to construct this nest, but the stadium looks nice nonetheless. The indoor swimming pool will be absolutely fantastic, as it has been designed to react to projected light, with transparent construction materials. This means that the whole building will light up, and could have videos or colours or … whatever projected onto it.

While we were at the site the guide talked for awhile, and we took photos. Then a large group of school-kids turned up, which we took as a cue to leave. Next stop was the Empress’s house. This was interesting, and very large. Not as large as the Forbidden City, but larger then my house. It was really more of the Empress’s area, as it covered quite a lot of ground. It is on the edge of a lake. Yvonne’s favourite thing was the stone ship, which I thought wasn’t very functional. By now I had become somewhat immune to the allure of Chinese historical architecture, and for this reason I have little to say about this area. It looked like all the other imperial areas. The main thing that set it apart was the stone boat, perhaps it is for this reason that Yvonne likes it so much.

We next went to the ruins, for lack of a better name. I don’t know what it was originally, but I know that white people smashed it up in the 1800’s. They were pretty much what one would expect from something with this name, that is to say it was a large area of broken stone. When we arrived we took a rather long cart ride from the entrance to the main area, where we had lunch. The restaurant is state-owned, which means not very good. The toilets were awful, like they hadn’t been cleaned since they were built. After lunch we walked around the ruins and were talked at by the guide. My favourite part was the maze – it was amazing. I liked it because I knew I would be able to say that.

When we were finished with the ruins we were driven to the railway station, where we waited for the train. When the train arrived, we boarded it.

And thus my Bejing trip was concluded.

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I stayed up too late last night, and as a result I found it difficult to get up at six this morning. When I finally got up, I found that I was late for breakfast. We grabbed some snacks and hurried to the bus, where we stealthily ate as we were driven to our first destination. Our first stop was Jing Mountain, which is more like a hill than a mountain, but as the Emperor used it for some things, and hill is not an imperial-sounding title, it was called a mountain. In any case, it was still high enough that one had a nice view of the Forbidden City from the top. Before we climbed up though, we were led around the surrounding area. The hill is artificial – the material making up the hill came from the moats surrounding the Forbidden City. Another name is “Coal Hill”

The first thing we looked at was a very old tree that had a younger tree growing inside it. I was remarkable enough to warrant one photo. Next we were led into a small room that had some photos on the wall. It also had an old map of the Forbidden City, which was the only interesting thing in the room. After about two minutes, a woman came into the room and began droning on about Feng Shui. Honestly, she must have talked for over an hour. I’m sure it would have been very interesting, but as I could only understand every fourth word or so, I didn’t find it to be so. I managed to politely stand still for about forty minutes, but couldn’t help fidgeting for the final twenty. When she finally stopped talking we were led into an adjoining room. I was unsurprised to find that it was a shop. She talked about how great their goods were for some time, then allowed us to browse. Yvonne bought a nice jade pendant for herself, and one for her Father. As seems to be the tradition, we were left in the shop for quite some time. Yvonne tells me that the guides get a small cut of whatever the guests buy. Fair enough, the guide was very good at her job.

Walking towards the base of the hill we passed a sign informing us that the spot where the Emperor hanged himself was ahead. “How uplifting” I thought. The hill wasn’t too steep, and climbing it was no problem. Half-way up I stopped to take some photos. The rail preventing morons from accidentally killing themselves was quite high, stopping me from getting a good photo. The pagoda in the center of the area had a ring of seats within it. The seats were about foot off the ground, and I could see that standing on one would afford me a better view. I decided to do this, and jumped up onto the seat. This was wrong. Although there are no signs, standing on the seat is against the rules, and all of the people around me instantly beckoned me to get down, with extremely disapproving stares. Needless to say, I jumped down quickly. After this, I thought that the area wasn’t so good for photos anyway, and continued up the hill.

The top was much better, and I took a few photos of the Forbidden City. It really is vast.

When we had had our fill of viewing the Palace through the eternal “fog”, we went to some place nearby and were taken on a short bicycle tour. The bikes could carry three people, the driver and two passengers. Our driver was very nice, so we gave him 10å…ƒ. We first went to the nearby river, which was frozen solid. The guide talked about something for awhile, then we took photos. During the photo time he asked me if I understood him. I said that I did if he spoke slowly, and he was impressed. He told me that the river is called a sea because the Emperor is a dragon, and dragons need to go to the sea from time to time. I nodded and said “Ahh.” Surprising how little talking one has to do to keep someone thinking one is interested. After speaking with me for a little longer he announced that it was time to move on. Next stop was an example of what houses were like 100-200 years ago. Rather than a house it was actually a series of one-roomed buildings surrounding a courtyard. In the first building we were given tea, which was good because it was about -2°C. The guide talked for awhile, then we were allowed to look in the other buildings. If one desired, one is able to stay in either of the bedrooms, for a price of course. They looked comfortable enough, with heaters in each room and a TV in the master bedroom. My favourite part was the handles on the entrance gates. There was no shop, which was odd.

After the bike rides, we boarded the bus and were driven to the home of the greediest leader of China’s history. Yvonne told me that when the leader died, and outsiders were able to go into the leader’s grounds, they found that the walls were filled with gold. Pretty greedy huh? Whether or not that is true, the grounds are impressive enough. No-where near as huge as the palace, but very big. We were led around for about two hours. Half way through we watched a small performance in the dead leader’s small opera house. The performance was fairly low-grade, and consisted of some dancers, a gymnast, a man singing like a woman, then some hilariously transparent “magic” tricks. The most enjoyable was when the “magician” caused a card to rise “mysteriously” from a deck that was shoved into a cup about a meter from her. I photographed some of the show, pay special attention to the photo of a table. Look around the base of the table and you’ll see a string. That string “coincidentally” moved each time the card did… Afterwards we had a good laugh about it. At least, I think the rest of the group was laughing about that. After the show, surprise surprise, we were led to a shop. The shop was right next to the large pond that can be seen in some of the photos, which smelled very bad.

Next we went to the largest and most well known enamel factory in China, if not the world. Believe it or not, the factory produces enameled things. Vases, bowls, balls, key-rings and more. We were guided around the building, and in some areas were able to see people working on new pieces. The work appeared tedious and repetitive, but the workers were all chatting and working happily. To produce one of the beautiful items that they sell, a worker would first cast a bronze “raw” version, which would be sanded and prepared for enameling. The enameling was done by covering the item in thin strips of metal, defining areas that would be different colours, or simply adding texture. The next step is adding colour, which seems to be in the form of some kind of paste. Then (I imagine, we didn’t see anymore of the process) the items were fired. The end result was very nice, and at the end of the tour we were treated to a half an hour “milling about” session in the factory’s shop.

After having lunch we were driven to the Emperor’s Temple, the place he would go to pray for whatever it is Emperors prayed for – probably not another bedroom, that’s for sure. Its English name is “Temple of Heaven”. I don’t know exactly how big it is, because Wikipedia is blocked in China and I can’t be bothered loading my proxy program, but I do know that my feet were sore after walking its length. We started at the base (bottom of picture) and began walking. First there is the ticket office, which is mandatory, followed by the first of many gates. Each gate building actually has three gates, the central gate was for the Emperor of Heaven, the left for the Emperor, and the right for the court officials – so far as I remember. The central gate was closed. Past the first gate there is a large stone platform set in a large square. It is clearly visible in the picture The platform’s layout has some special meaning, but my Chinese isn’t good enough to know it. Beyond this there is another gate, and through this gate one comes to a circular area. This area is well known because one can stand on one side of the gate, face away from the gate and speak, and another person standing on the other side of the gate can hear. Echoes travel well. Also, there are three places near the middle where echos are also especially good. Three claps at the one closest to the entrance, then up one paving stone for two claps, up one more for one final clap. No one told me why three, two, one, but they did say that my claps were the best. I told them it was because I have had a lot of practice, patting dogs especially hard, but they didn’t understand because I spoke English. Private joke.

Also in the echoes area were two buildings. The one on the right was for the Emperor to change clothes, and I forget the purpose of the other two – Google is your friend here. Through another gate, only to see yet another a short distance ahead. Through this gate was the long road towards the final building. It was really a long road, I’d guess at least a kilometer. For awhile I hummed the “Star Wars” theme, but I couldn’t keep it up the whole way. The other people in the tour group enjoyed what little they got though, I’m sure.

The final building was quite impressive, very big. We wandered around it and were able to look inside. I took a photo, but was later told to delete it by Yvonne. One cannot be given everything for free, you see – if you want to see it all you’ve got to come along. After tiring of the large building, I took some photos of crows flying in the distance. I really like crows, as I imagine you know already. Their call is the best of any bird, and they are all black. When it was time to leave, we left.

We then drove to Wangfujian, which is Beijing’s famous shopping street. It is closed to vehicular traffic, but wasn’t very busy. After being in Shanghai for over a month, Wangfujian wasn’t anything to write home about (although I am). Perpendicular to Wangfujian is a street that is famous or its street vendors, who sell food. the food is mostly “things on sticks”, or kebab style, and is much cleaner than what can be found elsewhere in China. I think this is because it is famous. Generally one is cautioned against eating street food, as the sanitation standards are … lacking (I often see proprietors of such stalls washing their utensils in the street). I ate two candied fruit sticks (strawberry, kiwifruit and strawberry), a squid tentacle stick and two lamb sticks. Yvonne ate two lamb sticks, a squid tentacle stick and some lolly sticks. Some stalls sold the most hilarious things, the most extreme being centipedes, or maybe scorpions… You decide. While goggling the scorpions, a western family came up and suggested I try some, to which I replied “After you.”

Food eaten and curiosity satisfied, we went and bought a Peking Duck. We then returned to the bus and were driven back to the hotel. The Peking Duck was very big, and tasty. We couldn’t eat it all and decided to save the rest for the train ride to Shanghai. As there was no refridgerator in the hotel room, I put the duck in a few plastic bags, tied some bags to the bag containing the duck, and tied it so the duck hung outside the window. This ensured that the duck did not go rotten, as the temperature outside was about -2°C. Tomorrow we have a few more things to see, then we will take the overnight train again to Shanghai.

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Tags: Beijing - 北京, China - 中国, Culture - 文化, History - 历史, Temple

Today we had to get up at six-thirty. Had breakfast at the hotel, which was bland. Got on the bus and slept while we drove to the Ming Dynasty Museum. It was filled with life-sized models of historical figures, involved in various activities. We weren’t allowed to take photos. I think the figures were made of wax. The museum was interesting enough. Most of the sets were of Emperors involved in daily tasks, like torturing evil ministers, or “cavorting with concubines”, but some were more interesting, being displays of battle scenes. My personal favourite was the display of an Emperor’s cousin being roasted alive in a 300 lb pot. The cousin could lift the pot, a display of strength that scared the Emperor enough to have him killed. Great stuff.

After another ride on the bus, we arrived at the place where Emperors were buried. Like all imperial areas, it was very big. It hadn’t snowed for weeks, but there was still snow in places that were shaded from the sun for most of the day. I kicked the dirty snow around while the guide went and bought tickets. When the guide returned, she talked for about 5 minutes about the temple, I guess – too fast for me to understand. After her speech we entered the temple grounds, and were treated to another speech. This time there wasn’t any snow about for me to kick, so I took some photos. Most of the photos I took were awful though, so I deleted them. Her second speech over, we entered the big building in the center of the courtyard. It was filled with relics that had been dug up from the tombs. I took photos of the more interesting ones. It seems the Emperors were fond of elaborate hats, one for every occasion. Also important were jade belts. Of course the leather had long rotted away, leaving only the jade. There was a sword as well, which was obviously my favourite. In the center of the building there was a bronze statue of an old man, I guess an Emperor. After being led around the items on display, and being told about them in lightening fast Mandarin, it was time to go outside again. I was excited, as outside is where one finds dirty snow – fun to kick.

We walked to the other side of the building, and climbed up some stairs. The view from the top was nice, and I took some photos of it while the guide talked some more.

Before arriving at the Great Wall, we visited a jade store/ place where Jade is carved. We were led through an area with various intricate carvings on display, and the woman assigned to our tour group talked incessantly. I looked at the rocks and marveled at the price tags. When she had finished talking about that room, we were led into a smaller room with no windows. The guide moved to the lectern and proceeded to lecture us on the differences between fake, low quality and high quality jade. The one part of her presentation that I enjoyed was when she used some high quality jade to scratch some glass. When the show was over, we were led past a room where people were working on some carvings. My Dad carves Jade, so it was pretty ’samey’ for me. I did note that they lacked the plethora of machines that Dad has in his warehouse – maybe they were out the back. Finally we were led to the main area, a very large room filled with glass display cases. We walked around for about half an hour before becoming bored, then milled about in a group, making it rather obvious that we weren’t going to buy anything. After milling about for another half an hour, we had lunch at a nearby restaurant.

Back to the bus, to the Great Wall this time. I bought two bottles of Coke after arriving at the car park. The shop owner didn’t understand that I wanted two bottles, so I repeated myself until his friend realised and told him. The Coke was really expensive, being 10å…ƒ per bottle, or $2.50. Funny how “really expensive” is still not as much as the same bottles would cost in New Zealand – $3.90. I savoured the delicious taste as I wandered up to the rest of the group, who were huddled around the guide listening to another blazing introduction to the area.

Just beyond the entrance there were a series of reeking pits in the ground, about 6 meters in diameter and 5 deep. During a team meeting in the past, management obviously thought that the Great Wall itself didn’t pull enough tourists, and the site needed something else. That something else, obviously the result of a drunken brainstorming evening, was a series of stinking pits filled with bears. The pits were like bear heaven, solid concrete floors and walls, rusty metal frames to climb about on. The bears all looked very happy, none of them seemed insane. When tired of swaying back and forth, or just hungry, the bears would climb the frames and perform various unnatural movements, which they presumably learned would encourage people to throw food at them. Saucers of chopped apple were placed all around the pits, and the handlers would throw a piece or two to the bears when tourists approached. One of the men in our group threw a piece, and was told to pay 5å…ƒ by the handler. The man argued that this was too high a price for a tiny piece of apple, and the handler said that the 5å…ƒ would allow him to throw the whole saucerful. The man said he didn’t want to do that, he’d only wanted to throw one piece, as he thought it was free – no price tag! He argued with the handler for a time, and was eventually allowed to pay only 3å…ƒ. The handler said he could throw some more apple pieces to the bears if he wished, but the man had lost interest by this time, and the guide had arrived.

We lined up at the entrance to where I thought we would begin our long walk to the wall, which was on the top of the hills high above us. I was surprised to see a loop track with small carts running along it. It turned out we were to ride these to the top of the hill, and wander along the wall from there. The ride up was fairly tame, the majority of the track went through a tunnel that had coloured neon lights along its roof. After the tunnel the track ran along the side of the hill, which gave us some nice views. I didn’t take any photos though, because the vibrations prevented clarity.

After arriving at the top, we were given about an hour to walk along the wall. Yvonne and I headed to the far end, as it is the highest. The Great Wall is very big, as the name implies, and is also very long – as the Chinese name “Long Wall” tells us. Its historical purpose was to keep the barbarian hordes from smashing the Emperor’s pretty things, but now, along with the Stinking Bear pits, it is a leading tourist attraction. It is also one of the few tourist attractions that provides the visiting tourist with quite a workout. I wanted to go quickly, Yvonne wanted to go slowly. This this was remedied by my gripping Yvonne’s hand and dragging her along. I am sure she appreciated the help.

Assaulting a force that was defending from such a position would have been rather daunting, and if using the tools of the time doomed to failure. Nothing a smart bomb couldn’t handle though. Unfortunately I didn’t have an array of high-tech weaponry, so I contented myself with merely looking around.

There is a section of the wall that has obviously fallen apart, and we had to take a path around it to reach the separated section. The area around the breach is very steep. When I asked Yvonne why they haven’t fixed it yet, she said that the ancient people were better at construction, it can’t be fixed now. I think that it hasn’t been fixed because a new section wouldn’t fit the current theme: “old”.

Once we reached the top (by no means the end of the wall – the limit beyond which tourists are not allowed to go) we stood around for awhile and enjoyed the icy wind.

When we began to get cold, we decided to start walking back to the cart station. We had walked up so fast, that we passed the others in our tour group, who were still walking up. The wall is very steep in some places, and stairs (where there are stairs – a lot of it is just really steep ramps) were very uneven. I don’t know how the messengers managed to successfully climb some of the areas during winter, when the wall would be covered in snow and ice! There were a lot of people there that day, and it was necessary for me to push them out of the way when walking through some of the more narrow areas. The tourists were mostly Chinese, with a lot of Koreans and Americans as well. While we were having a short rest, an old Korean lady shoved Yvonne out of the way. Yvonne wouldn’t let me punish her, so she got away with it. My shoving is the nice, friendly kind, and I only do it if I really need to. The Korean woman had heaps of room, maybe walking around people is offensive in Korea. Hope Yvonne isn’t with me if I see her again.

The cart ride down was much more entertaining, as we went quite fast. I noticed a lot of sharp metal sticking out of the ground, which would have ripped a rather large hole in me. Luckily the tied-on car seat belt didn’t break, and I arrived at the bottom safely.

On the way back to the bus, passing the Stinking Bear Pits, I overhead a tourist asking the bear handler how old a particular bear was. The handler obviously didn’t speak English, as his only reply was “五块元”, or “$5″. The tourist just kept asking though, obviously confused about which country he was in. I doubt a Chinese tourist in his country would get special treatment, either. I considered helping him by asking the handler myself, but I didn’t because learning the small amount of Chinese I know took me two years, damned if I’m going to use to help someone else!

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Tags: Beijing - 北京, China - 中国, Culture - 文化

Shortly after writing the previous entry we left for the train station. The bus ride to the subway station, and the subsequent subway ride were both uneventful. The train station was not as nice as the one from which we travelled to Hangzhou. It wasn’t bad though, the other one is newer. We were early, and had to wait for about an hour before being allowed to board the train. Neither of us knew anything about the train that we were to take to Beijing. All we knew was that the trip was going to take twelve hours, and that we would have to sleep on the train. I was a little nervous, as I’ve seen some travel documentaries featuring long train rides, which didn’t look like much fun. I was prepared to not eat or drink until we arrived in Beijing, so that I would be less likely to want to use the toilet on the train, in case it was absolutely filthy.

When we were finally allowed to board the train, we saw that it was absolutely immaculate. It had been recently refurbished, and will be used to ferry people between Shanghai and Beijing during the Olympics, as some events will be held in Shanghai. The toilets were better than those on the plane we took to China. The cabin, while small, had everything we needed, a table, a floor, free slippers and beds. Everything was clean and tidy, and the staff were excellent. Each cabin slept four, and we were surprised to find that the couple who shared our cabin were in the same tour group as us. Like all Chinese people I’ve met, they were surprised to find that I could understand Chinese, but didn’t understand me when I tried to talk. This is really common, and quite irritating. I’ll attempt to strike up a conversation by asking a question, like “How did you like the Palace?” The person with whom I am attempting to chat will then say something totally different, like “Please, eat.” Often I repeat myself a few times, but the response is usually the same. To be fair, it doesn’t happen so much with people under 30 (recently forced to use Mandarin every day at school), or Beijing natives. I think Shanghainese are so accustomed to speaking their dialect that they find my stumbling Mandarin (Beijing origin) impossible to understand. Regardless of the reason, it is extremely frustrating.

Digression over – back to the train. I watched Yvonne play Zelda on the NDS for awhile, then we went to sleep. It took ages for me to get to sleep because of the noise, but the experience was enjoyable. I got up during the night to use the facilities, and saw that each carriage had a staff member slumped in a chair in the corridor sleeping. I do not envy them. Woke up again at six, watched the scenery fly past through the window (Yvonne claims the train travelled at 200 km/h+, I’ll check that when I get the internet again), but only saw a little snow. Train stops, we get off and find the tour guide, who is frozen solid outside the station.

We waited for the rest of the group to assemble, then went to the hotel. Hotel is nice, slightly better than the one we stayed in during our Hangzhou visit.

After a very short stop, we went on our first sight-seeing trip. First stop was the People’s Hall, which would be better name: The Important People’s Incredibly Massive and Opulent Hall of Splendor. Even that doesn’t do it justice. It is GIGANTIC. When a new Premier comes into power, a reception “room,” itself the size of a small theater , is created, decorated according to the new Premier’s native province. That we saw there was a reception room for Guangdong, Hunan, Beijing, Shanghai and Sichuan. They were all magnificent. The Important People’s Incredibly Massive and Opulent Hall of Splendor is also home to the biggest banquet hall I have ever seen (which is not saying much), complete with world-class stage and equipment. The place was truly massive, hard to believe even when standing inside it.

Next, we crossed the road and viewed Chairman Mao’s corpse. The mausoleum itself is an impressive structure, and guarded by a large number of armed soldiers and unarmed policemen. Entry to the mausoleum is free, but the line was long. After waiting for about half an hour we were allowed to silently file past the leader’s coffin, which has a glass cover, which enabled us to see his face. There were two armed soldiers standing beside his coffin, one at each door, and one patrolling the area. In addition there were about three civilians ensuring we didn’t stray to near to the coffin. Why don’t the soldiers do that? This task is below them, the only time they touch civilians is when they hug their families, and even then only in private. They were armed with handguns, sorry to say, no pictures of wonderful assault rifles. Well, no pictures of real assault rifles, I did take some photos of the statues outside the mausoleum, some of the figures were holding AK-47s.

The mausoleum is situated on the edge of Tianamen Square, and we were allowed some time to wander about before lunch. There isn’t much to say about the square, other than it is vast, has history that China doesn’t like, and there is a memorial for all of the Chinese (good) who were killed by the Japanese (bad). Don’t see many Japanese in China.

Lunch was eaten in the palace restaurant, which is alright, nothing special. As the guide said: “Don’t expect the service to be as good as in privately owned restaurants, this is owned by the government.” She is a good guide.

After lunch we walked around the palace, for hours. As I think I ran out of superlatives describing the Important People’s Incredibly Massive and Opulent Hall of Splendor, all I can say about the size of the Palace and its grounds is: the palace and its grounds are much, much bigger than the Important People’s Incredibly Massive and Opulent Hall of Splendor, only more old. 580 years old, to be precise. My feet are very sore from walking around the palace. It is so big that the buildings just run together in my mind, and I have terrible difficulty trying to construct any sort of map of it in my mind. Oh, Beijing has crows, which are my favourite bird. They are jet black, perch on rooftops and “crow” in their own unique and sinister manner. They are also very intelligent. It has been shown that they can count, and determine different humans from one another. One study showed that if a crow has a piece of food that it wants to hide, and said crow knows that it is possible that another crow could be watching it, it will wander around, waiting until it thinks the other crow won’t be watching before hiding the food. Then it will wander around some more, to appear as if it still has the food. Also, they can problem solve, using sticks to reach otherwise inaccessable areas to get food. Lastly, it has been shown that crows can reason, with a series of experiments where a crow is placed on a perch that has a piece of string fixed to it, with an item of food tied to the end of the string. The birds will try (unsuccessfully) to fly at the food, then stand on the perch for awhile. They birds will then get the food by pulling up the string. This experiment was repeated by placing the crow in more and more complex environments. Go google it. Uh… The palace was nice, look at the pictures.

The final destination (crap movie) was an acrobatics show, which was extremely good. They jumped and flipped about like… acrobats. Apparently the performers are all gymnasts who failed to win medals. So really instead of being called the “Acrobatics Macrocosm,” it should be “Gymnast’s Graveyard”. Has a nice ring to it. The show ran for about an hour. The pictures describe it better than I can textually, so go and have a look at them.

Tomorrow the Great Wall.

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Tags: Beijing - 北京, Culture - 文化

I haven’t written any blog entries for a while, mainly because I have been busy making the Waikato Golden Key’s website. I have some new website creation plugins for the software I have been using, Rapidweaver. The plugins allow me to do much more, allowing the creation of very pretty websites.

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A few days ago we went into town to meet Yvonne’s friend and her friend’s boyfriend. They were very nice, her friend’s English was pretty good. After we met up the boyfriend and I were told to follow them around, while they looked at makeup. During this time, I attempted conversation with the boyfriend, in Mandarin. It was pretty slow and painful. He eventually tired of standing idly in the makeup store “taking” with me, and suggested we get a drink of juice from the store opposite. He gave me the menu and told me to choose something, and I chose “火龙果风菠萝”, or “Fire Dragon Pineapple”. I chose it because the name sounded interesting. It turned out that “Fire Dragon” is actually “Fire Dragon Fruit”, or Pitaya, which I have never heard of. I thought the drink would be spicy or hot in some other sense, but it was sour. I drank it anyway.

Hours later Yvonne and her friend finished looking at makeup, or ran out of money. I don’t know which. We then went to get dinner, which tasted good. We ordered “Stinky Tofu”, and it was really stinky, like Gouda.

On the way home we went back to the same store, because Yvonne wanted to look around again. In the store I found various New Zealand products. Honey and Lanolin oil. The honey was ludicrously expensive, the most costly example being 860å…ƒ for 500mL. That is around $160. This is the same honey one can buy from Pak ‘n’ Save, for around $5-10. Next time I’ll take some photos as proof.

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Some time before meeting Yvonne’s friend I devised a method by which one can level up a Super Paper Mario character without actually playing. I used a rubber band to attach a nutcracker to the wiimote in such a way that the required button is continually pressed. It works well. I plan to beat the Flopside Pit of 100 Trials sometime, if I get really bored.

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We are going to Beijing today, leaving in two hours. It is snowing in Beijing, which is good because I like snow. We’re sure to see a bunch of interesting stuff, which I will document as much as batteries allow. The train ride will apparently take 8-10 hours, which means that either Beijing is very far away, or the train is very slow.

That is all, I’ll be writing entries each day in Beijing, but I probably won’t be able to upload them until I return, in about a week.

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Tags: Beijing - 北京, China - 中国, Shanghai - 上海