Sun 29/06/08 23:22

I had a little bit of a problem sleeping last night so as a result I didn’t get up until about 9. Getting up late kind of puts a rush on everything else that I had planned, but at least I didn’t wake up later. I started at the Oriental Plaza. It’s about a 30 minute walk to get there, and I was there yesterday so I didn’t get lost… which probably would have made it about an hour walk like it did yesterday. The best way to describe the Oriental Plaza is it is a mix between Piccadilly Circus and Times Square. Since I wrote that I realize that that may not be the best example… probably the best way to describe it, is that it’s a gathering place. There are shops everywhere and thousands of people just milling around. Large screens show news and advertisements, and off to one side there is what can best be described as an old style market selling food and souvenirs. When I was there yesterday I must have walked right past it because I didn’t have a clue it was there. Anyway, I walked in and just like yesterday, I hear “hello.” If you remember I got the feeling that it was something like a test word to see if you speak English. It must be the case. It was so much fun though, the vendors get really aggressive, they will grab your arm and not let you go. For the most part it wasn’t that difficult to break some of their holds, but there was this one girl that had my arm in a death grip… I was trying to break free and I looked up and there were about five people all watching. I guess since I was a non-Asian it allows them a little more leeway than they would have for others, at least the surprise on the people’s faces that were watching would suggest that. Like I said though it was a lot of fun.

After the Oriental Plaza I headed to Tiananmen Square.

The best way to explain what Tiananmen Square to anyone not familiar with it, it is probably best known as the place where the lone student defied military tanks back in the late eighties. I remember watching the events unfold and always wanted to see what it was like. First some history about why it was built, according to what I’ve read Chairman Mao wanted someplace where he could address up to 1 million people, so he had the square built.

Tomorrow I change hotels in preparation for joining the tour to Mongolia. Before we leave though we go to the Great Wall.

A little side note though. I was just walking around and ran into a guy from Norway who was lost. I kind of felt for him since just yesterday I was in the same boat… now that I’m a seasoned Beijing-ite I can take pity on people that were in the same place as I was. Anyway, he was telling me that a friend of his had basically the same thing as I did with the tea incident. I guess it’s a lure to get you into a tea house that charges over $100 per cup of tea. Don’t know if it’s true, but maybe I dodged a big one yesterday.

Sun 29/06/08 23:05

There hasn’t been any place for me to use the internet until now. So what I’ve been doing is writing at night and just saving the entries until I’ve had internet access. So everything that you are reading was written days ago in some cases.

To make matters even more difficult I have to retype my entries into a pc because I can’t hook up my computer directly to the internet. So there may be mispellings, and typos

Sun 29/06/08 23:01

It’s 8 pm right now and I’m sitting on the roof of the hostel I’m staying at… a beer in one hand and a cigarette burning to my left. All the big city sounds are around me, the horns honking, dogs barking and the hum of traffic not far away. So is this perfect or what? It looks like I spoke too soon. I was sitting here and a friend came up to work on his computer too, and as he sat down it started to rain…So now I’m sitting in my room, the beer is at the other side of the room and I’m out of cigarettes… I guess one of life’s little jokes.

The Forbidden City was impressive. The first impression that I had was how large it is. Not large in the sense of tall, but large in the shear amount of space that it takes up. If you’re into Chines movies and have seen movies like Hero where the city, or stage made up to look like the city, is used– that’s what it looks like. For some reason I thought The Forbidden City was more of a palace, but somewhere along my walk around, I realized that it was indeed a city.

One of the things that kind of surprised me is the Chinese people. I was walking around today, actually I was lost looking for The Forbidden City, stopped at an intersection and a kid comes up to me and starts a conversation. Now I’ve lived in Dubai for about a year, and no one has ever done that, anyway it turns out that he’s having an exhibition at a local art gallery in the cultural center of Beijing. So as we walk I find out that he’s graduating from the local art institute and has some of this work displayed there.

It’s been a real experience so far and although I could probably keep writing, I think I’ll end for now.

Tomorrow is Tiananmen Square.

Sun 29/06/08 22:44

I’m in Beijing, China and to be honest it’s everything I hoped it would be… with some reservations.

First, the flight from Dubai was pretty uneventful, and really relaxing which was a good thing. After about 3 months planning this vaction I was all nerves trying to second guess what I needed, and of course, what I forgot. Everything flowed better than I could have hoped for though, not a a single glitch.

Second, the flight from Doha to Beijing was about as bad as you could possibly image. I waws stuck in an aisle seat in a completely packed aircraft. Now, I’ve been in that situation before and although it’s kind of a pain, it’s livable. What really started to wear on me was the guy sitting next to me. I don’t know where this guy came from but to be honest he was probably the worst example of natural selection that I’ve ever seen. I don’t want to go into details about him, but lets just say that he didn’t or couldn’t control his bodily noises.

When we got to Beijing we landed about five minutes late, about 1410, but there wasn’t any empty parking spots for the plane so at first we waited for about 20 minutes and finally the pilot apologized and the had to move to let other planes by, so we taxied about the airport for another 20 minutes. It was really quite strange, but we finally made it.

Beijing is in many ways an average large city. It has its traffic jams, honking horns, massive amounts of people and everything else that goes along with a city this size. Where I’m staying is different though. I’ve got a room at a hostel in the oold part of town. It’s got really narrow streets running in between the houses, and I use the term streets loosely. They are basically one-lane roads, packed with shops, people , and bike riders that wind along.

Anyway about Beijing, it’s remarkable in so many regards. Probably the biggest for me is putting history into context. It wasn’t that long ago, that when I though about China I thought that the people all rode bicycles, pushed carts in the streets, and lived a very humble lifestyle. I’m sure for some this is still true, but for many it’s not. BMWs seem to be big with the Chinese.

Tomorrow I head to The Forbidden City

Thu 26/06/08 12:34

Okay, so everyone told me that I should leave at least four hours early if I want to make sure that I don’t miss my flight… so here I am in front of my gate three hours before my flight leaves. :) Oh well. I guess when it comes down to it, I’d rather be here and ready to go, than to be stuck in traffic thinking that I was going to miss my flight.

One good thing about this airport is that it first has free internet, and second it has free electrical plugs, so I can check email and then watch a movie before my flight.

One of the not-so-good things about this airport is that it’s really big and really crowded. We’ll see how it compares to the airport in Beijing. My guess is that Dubai will seem relatively spacious.