Beijing, Monday 15 March 2010

We are the proud new owners of two tickets to Ulan Bataar! Hard sleeped, for 30 hours, for about $180 each. Booked in for next Wednesday (24th), figuring that it would be better to be in Beijing than Mongolia - where it's still -11 degrees.
We went to the Forbidden City, me stupidly in leggings and shorts, when there's still snow on the ground. It was freezing. The Forbidden City was vast and empty, except for the thousands of tourists and grand buildings dating back hundreds of years. The Spring Garden would be lovely in Spring. In Winter it had a dreary beauty - old, possibly dead, trees; snow still packed on the ground; flower beds waiting for Spring. There is an awful lot of history in the place - but it was just freezing. After about three hours we headed for home, and discovered the Egg - the National Theatre, a huge egg-shaped steel and glass building, and deserted at 4pm.
That night we treated our Canadian roomies Kane and Joren to our Newman's restaurant, and proceeded to get very drunk with a blue-eyed Chinese demon man. Not a word of English, but 'take a shot' seems to be universal sign language. He loved Phillip, his hair and his height, and was confused when Kane's Japanese friend Chicko couldn't understand Chinese - apparently they all look the same. Old Blue Eyes shared his 52% alcohol with us and got many photos before his friends or family dragged him home - but he came back! There was much hugging and hand shaking until he left. food and lots of drinks - about $5 each. But we paid for it more the next day.

Tuesday was a write-off of a day recovering from whatever spirits we were drinking the night before. While Kane and Joren left early for the Great Wall, we stayed in bed until 1pm. We struggled through town and to the Santilun are - full of embassies, bars, shopping centres and money. The chain stores - Puma, Adidas, Nike - were genuine and thus out of our price range, but after finally finding a size 11.5 pair of decent walking shoes, Phill invested in the future of his feet, knees and back. I too, invested (it is an investment) in a pair of bright purple ski pants for $60 - I'm determined to be warm in Mongolia, if a little chubbier.

Wednesday - finally I've caught up. After a lazy morning, we got all athletic and caught teh subway to the Olympic park. Joren and Kane came with, and the four of us dwarfed the population. The subway is so easy to use - signs in English and arrows pointing us in the right way - a very useful relic from the Olympic Games. We saw the Birds Nest, or the National Stadium, but passed on the $9 to go in, figuring that they probably wouldn't let us run the trackl or play in the long jump pit. And despite Internet pages from 2009 stating the contrary, the Water Cube was not open to the public - in fact, it was closed for renovation. Lucky we took our swimmers. The whole site is huge and would have been packed during the Olympics. On a cold winter's day, however, the hawkers almost outnumbered the tourists. Olympic Green was deceptive - concrete walkways and statues and bizarre steel poles. A river ran through and trees looked hopeful for Spring. At the Northern end if Olympic Forest Park, massive in the middle of the city. We walked around for a bit of fresh air, and poked some fish in the lake.
Came home via Tianamen Square at sunset (which, oddly enough, set above the horizon in the layer of pollution) to watch the lowering of the flag - very pompous and packed with tourists and security stopping the traffic so the soldiers could walk across the road from the Forbidden City.