Beijing

Hej!
Three days in Beijing and I could almost write a book. But I promise to keep to the best bits and not bore you out with details...

MONDAY NIGHT - Train ride
Taking the train in this country is not like in Europe. To even be able to enter the train station building you need a ticket and have to go through airport like-security. Once in the building they use the sheep-hearding method and put the human-sheep in different waiting rooms. When it is time for the train to depart they open the gates and all Chinese want to leave the building first! Chaos!

Luckily Linda and I found our sleeping-wagon and there we were accompanied by two Chinese sisters. As they both spoke a little English, (and I had just received my pack of vocabulary cards Eng/Chinese and considered myself to speak decent mandarin), we spent the rest of the night chatting about China, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany (where Linda lives) and of course to learn a few chinese words and expressions. By the end of the night Sherry, the younger sister, and I decided to start Chinese/English-conversation-"fika" when we get back to Shanghai! We were both superexcited and I am surprised to say that I got my first Chinese friend much faster than I got a Swiss one!

TUESDAY - Tianamen Square (Himmelska Fridens torg), The Forbidden city, Silk and Pearl market
After a good night's sleep on the train we started up fairly early. Sitting down in the middle of Tianamen Square just to relax we were suddenly surrounded by a big group of older Chinese men. They asked politely to take pictures of us and five minutes later when we had posed with all of them individually a group of older chinese women came and wanted the same thing. This was the first time it happened but definitely not the last. We are happy to be in lots of chinese photo albums!

Entering the Forbidden city, we got a chinese man to guide us. Not that he knew so much of the place but he was quite nice and fun anyway. His English name was Bob(!). After a lot of walking we sat down in some below the ground-silk market where we found a wonderful little coffee shop. Really good coffee and a chair was exactly what we needed, before we headed off for some haggling for clothes. I must say that shopping with a set price is a bit more efficient than this forevergoing haggling about coins...

WEDNESDAY - The Great Wall, The Summer Palace, Beijing Roasted Duck (Pekinganka)
It rained when the driver picked us up. After a short walk we came up on the wall and it was nothing like I expected. We were alone! So cool! And just being there only Linda and I and the Wall was quite a feeling! I had heard about big crowds and people selling souvenirs... Nothing! I guess I should thank the weather (which cleared up in the end) and also maybe our choice of venue - Mutan Yi and not Badaling.

After a couple of hours on the wall we took the cab back to the Summer Palace. The entrance fees, we have learnt, work this way: You pay to get in, if you want to see more, enter a building walk along the lake etc, you must pay extra. Strange! Good thing nothing is expensive - I feel fooled all the time! Or maybe just like a fool cos I don't understand anything people say... :o) The Summer palace was for the Emperor and his family when they didn't want to stay in the forbidden city. Same style but more nature and lovelier. If I were the emperor I would stay at the Summer palace all year around!

Linda has walked around with her Lonely Planet the whole time and yes, I must say it has helped. Now she had found The Roasted Duck Restaurant which claims to have been the first and the best and all that. Anyway, as always, we jumped in to the cab and pointed on the map. We were dropped off almost at Tianaman Square and the driver pointed us in the direction in line with Tianamen Square but opposite to the Forbidden City. The street was all empty - like a ghost street! All the houses really fancy and recently built in old chinese style but all empty. Anyone who knows what this street has been/will be?? Please let us know!

The Duck place was full and she told us to leave. As all the other houses on the street were empty we didn't have so many options so decided to go back again and ask for suggestions. This time she let us in with a waiting number for the table and 15 minutes later we were seated. The Duck was good and it was great to have been just there.

THURSDAY - The Lama Temple, Olympic village, Hutongs
It is strange to be a tourist in a Lama temple. Here I am taking photos of buildings, buddha statues and people but for the buddhist they have come to a wholy place and they pray and burn essence in front of every Buddha. I feel like I'm destroying their experience just by being there. I probably was... The temple was impressive and it hosted an 18 meter high Buddha statue. Unfortunately they had put him in a hall 19 meters high and not much bigger that the statue itself. So you had to crack your neck to be able to see him.

Outside of the Lama Temple we decided we had seen enough of old stuff and were ready for something newer. As Linda's Lonely Planet didnät have "Olympic village" in Chinese we tried to communicate with three guards sitting in some little "hut" covered with maps of the Olympic stadium. After 15 minutes of trying to make them write "Olympic village" in chinese on a piece of paper we were saved by a Dutch couple with a good map. We borrowed it to show the taxi driver and then we were off. The Dutch couple had told us that you could enter but you needed tickets. The tickets were free of charge but noone had been able to tell them where to get them. When we asked a man he told us you needed to haggle about the tickets and they were most likely at least 100-200 RNB each. Too much, we thought and strolled around outside instead. Until we found an entrance were we sneaked in. No ticket or anything! The village was quite impressive and of course I thought extra much of my brother (Not only Olympic athlete - it was also his birthday!).

Some hutongs later we sat in the cab heading towards the airport and realised we were unable to point out where our hotel was located on a map. When you take a cab everywhere, you only need the hotel name and adress on a piece of paper. Tourism the Chinese way... ;o)

PS. Oh yes, the sky in Beijing was as blue as it looks!