the smog, the heavy air, the chattering mandarin, the colour red...it all hit us like a slap in the face stepping out of the airport into beijing on saturday. the crowds, the taxi drivers trying to charge us double, the communist mao-green and blue uniformed police men. each one holding clear flasks filled with floating green tea leaves in steaming hot water and a cigarette puffing away.

we took the airport shuttle to downtown, passing by congested tianamen, through 8 lanes in each direction and got off just around the corner from the forbidden city palace. passing by the giant concrete buildings that surround the infamous square, each topped with red flags, the yellow star of mao, his portrait hung proudly at the gate to the forbidden city...but "NO PICTURES please!", as amanda is learning. it seems the police don't like her too much and she gets yelled at left, right and center.

back at the same hostel...and i think the same exact room where i was three years ago. i'd say the streets are cleaner, the ancient alleyway hutongs that i loved so much are being bulldozed to make way for new apartments, but many still remain around the hostel. amanda and i spend our evenings sitting on curbs drinking 2.5 yuan beers (40 cents for 700 mL) mostly yanjing pijo and tsingtao pijo. we watch ladies bent at 90 degree angles putter by, bicycles, mopeds, short stumpy dogs running. whole browned ducks, with the beaks on, turn in giant glass ovens. children play hop-scotch. men rumble their throats and shoot green snot out of each nostril. everyone wants us to come in and look, to come in an buy. we drink our beers. who needs the theatre when there's a free show every night in the hutongs...this is china, i repeat to myself.

we saw the forbidden city on sunday. most of the main buildings are being restored, but it's still impressive. spanning almost 100 city blocks, it was the home of the emporers of china from hundreds of years ago until just recently. the park behind the city houses a massive buddhist pagoda in a park with a lake. families paddle swan shaped boats around and couples walk arm in arm around its inner side.

we wandered through tianamen square, through thousands of people snapping photos of the 'monument to fallen heroes' or the concrete block that holds the preserved body of mao tse-tung 'the father of china', which we'll go see today.

it seems that every morning there's something secret going on at tianamen and we've had to make enormous detours to get around the massive police lines and groups of soldiers "protecting the country". i asked one what was going on...he said 'it's a secret' with the kind of smile that told me that he had no idea why he was there either. the soldiers clear out by early afternoon and the square opens to the public again.

yesterday, we hiked the great wall from jinshanling to simatai. it's something most people rarely have the chance to do once, and i'm lucky enough to have done twice. it's a pretty grueling hike, up and down steep inclines of crumbling bricks over 10 km. the views are incredible and by the end of it i was exasperated both by the constant climbing and by the hassle of poor farmers who follow you the whole way trying to sell 'water-coke-beer' or giant great wall picture books and t-shirts.

i've taken hundreds of photos and should get some up soon. for now it'll just be these stories.

flying to india tomorrow night...

Labels: china, travel

|