The Treehouse

Location: Beijing, China
Local Time: Saturday, September 30, 2006 - 8:11am

Val and I went out last night to meet Tine (also known as the mad Belgium woman) in the evening. Tine was a fellow student from Easyou Mandarin school. She's been living in Beijing for almost a year now, though she makes occasional trips back home to visit her friends and family.

Beijing has a lively expatriate community, with people from all over the world who come to China for a visit, or even for a specific reason, and then stay just because. There are good living standards here, a nice bar scene (if you are into that kind of thing), great stores for getting the foods from home, where ever home may be. All you have to do is somehow arrange a visa and cash flow situation.

We were at the Treehouse for a late dinner last night. They make "the best pizza in Beijing", says Tine. It was really good.

Tiannamen Square

Location: Beijing, China
Local Time: Friday, September 29, 2006 - 2:35pm

Well, we got up early this morning and walked to Tiannamen Square to see the flag rising ceremony. Once there we waited for half an hour, standing around outside the square (because the army has guards to keep people out), before a troop marched out of the Forbidden City, across the road (which is blocked off for a minute during the ceremony), into the square. There, one soldier raised the Chinese flag while the national anthem blared loudly on loudspeakers. After the flag was up, the soldiers marched back into the Forbidden City.

The guidebook says that the soldiers are specially trained to march 108 paces per minutes, exactly 75cm per stride, but I'm pretty sure there was one stepping 76cm a couple of times.

After that, we walked south to the Temple of Heaven. There we were in time to have people try to sell us lots of stuff, as well as see lots of badminton, tai chi, tai chi sword, tai chi sabre, and a little Chen style.

The Echo Wall was closed for restoration, so we were spared hoards of Chinese tourists standing on opposite sides of a large circular courtyard yelling at each other to see if they can hear each other.

The Great Wall

Location: Beijing, China
Local Time: Thursday, September 28, 2006 - 9:30pm

Well, Val and I took a trip to the Great Wall today. Actually, it was a trip to 2 jade carving factories, a tea shop, a short spin through the Ming Tomb and a quick walk on a 1km stretch of the Great Wall.

Doesn't make sense? Well, it works like this. They say, take a trip to the Ming Tomb (where the Ming dynasty emperors are entombed), and the Great Wall. So you cough up your $20 CND, get a ticket and show up for the bus at 8am the next morning. Then they take you to the jade carving factories, (the factory pays them per person that passes through the door) where they try to sell you jade, and the tea house (where the tea house pays them per person that passes through the door) and the tea house tries to sell you stuff.

After all of that, there was time for a half hour at the tomb, and 2 hours on the wall. But they cheaped out and took us to a part that has no entrance fee, and is 1km long.

Bit of a rip off.

Oh, and the Great Wall. Well, it's all walley, and Chinese and stuff.

The morning was a bit of a laugh. The driver picked us up, and didn't speak any English, but seemed to be in a big hurry. He hustled down the road to the van, drove in the usual nutty Asian manner, honking every time he passed a car, or a car passed him, or a car didn't pass him. In the absence of cars he honked anyway. (I honk therefore I am?)

We pulled over along side the road a few blocks from the hotel and waited for 5 minutes until our English speaking tour guide arrived. Then we rushed off to pick up another two people, all the while, the driver is going crazy through traffic.

Once we had all 4 people in the van, the English speaking tour guide turned to us and said, "My name is Victor, and I am your guide. This is Mr. Li, and he has been driving for 5 years. Very experienced."

Well, heck, if he's been driving for 5 years, no problem then.

Chinese Acrobats

Location: Beijing, China
Local Time: Wednesday, Sept 27, 2006

We went to see the Chinese acrobats last night. It was great. Tumblers, 2 ribbon routines, balancing acts (with towers of wine glasses as well as bowls), and Chinese poles. Great stuff. Sorry, we forgot the camera.

Ritan Park

Location: Beijing, China
Local Time: Monday, September 25, 2006 - 7:11am

Good morning everyone. Well, we walked over to Tiannamen yesterday morning. At least, we walked most of the way. Then we turned around and went to McDonalds for a yummy breakfast before riding the subway to over near Ritan Park. There we wandered around and observed sword forms, Bagua, Tai Chi as well as dancing lessons, badminton, and some sort of hacky sack game that is played with what looks like a hacky sack ball with a scarf tied around it.

The Chinese really know how to use their parks.

In the evening we went back to Wangfujing Street see the chopstick stores, but we could only find one! I don't know what happened. I seem to remember hundreds of them last time I was here. I guess my perceptions were just a little skewed.

So, I had a minced meat burger (what Mark calls a Chinese Hamburger), then a patty of egg and potato deep fried, while Val feasted on a kind of rice, vegetable fried wrap. A quick wander through a camera shop reveals that Nikon and Canon DSLRs are the same here as they are back home, much too expensive.

Back in Beijing

Location: Beijing, China
Local Time: September 23, 2006 - Early

Well, it's not too early. It's light out anyway. But the computer I'm using has a time and date setting of sometime in 2002. I'm not inclined to trust it. I'd fix it, but some ill advised idiot has locked the time/date settings. A well advised idiot would set the correct time/date before locking it.

Back in Beijing. From Dali we rode the overnight bus to Kunming where we spent the day wandering the city, checking out a Buddhist temple, a faux-meat vegetarian restaurant, a lovely park with kites and musical performances and some pagodas.

Next night we boarded the train at 10:02pm. We slept 2 nights on that train, and I re-read our three books once or twice each. We played cards, talked to passangers, ate food off the carts, napped, and listened to the iPod. I listened to 2 hours of lectures from University of California at Berkley on introductory American history, post civil war. Podcasts are cool.

We arrived in Beijing yesterday afternoon, found a hostel to stay at (rooms are expensive here in Beijing, double other parts of China.) Then we wandered over to Wangfujing Street, watched the movie The Banquet, had some Chinese dumplings. I really wanted the fried minced meat in a bun they sell at the food stalls on the north end of Wangfujing Street, but after the dumplings I was full. Hopefully there will be time to go back tonight.

Back in Dali

Location: Dali, Yunnan Province, China
Local Time: Sunday, September, 17, 2006 - 9:37am

We are back in Dali, which looks more appealing after a brief stint in Lijiang. We're going to stay here for a couple days before going on.

We had dinner with the family who runs the hotel where we are staying. They all speak only Chinese dialects, so the conversation wasn't great, but the food was pretty good. On the first night there was a couple of Israeli girls there with us. The food was all vegetarian except a bowl of really good fish.

The second night was a big stack of pan fried bread, congee (kangi? - soupy rice), fried morning glory and some kind of vine, chopped into short pieces, soaked in salty water and fried. That was good stuff, especially the bread.

Lijiang

Location: Lijian, Yunnan, China
Local Time: September 7, 2006 - 5:01pm

Yesterday afternoon we caught a 3 and a half hour bus from Dali to Lijiang, another city 190km further north, still in Yunnan province, southern China. At the rate we're going, we'll never see any significant portion of this country. It's huge. And buses go slow.

Our bus had no air flow inside, and stank like a bus, so, naturally, Val and I were both a little travel sick, though we managed to avoid making a mess.

The bus went north from Dali along the lake, past extensive rice fields, then climbed up through beautiful red earth mountains, passing through the occasional little village.

I suspect it doesn't get very cold in this part of the country as there are many open buildings, and stone is the predominate building material. Stone seems to be the predominate building material in most places I've been too, it is just North America that is missing out on the benefits. Think of houses that aren't falling down after 20 years. Think of buildings that can be a family heirloom, livable for centuries.

Think about developers who knock down perfectly good houses so they can build bigger housed and charge more. How much harder would their job be.

The old part of Lijiang is just lovely, with stone streets, brick buildings, those sway back roof tops everywhere. The wood work they do for the doors is fabulous.

And it's so rare to see a Chinese mother holding her kid up so he can take a leak into the garbage can.

On a more disappointing note, China is, so far, the worst country I've ever travelled in for finding English books to read.