Tuesday saw us heading off to Mutianyu to see the wall. It's a reasonably accessable section but not as heavily visited as Badaling where most tours go. As it turned out it was a good choice. The place was virtually deserted so it was easy to wander around looking at things without having to queue for everything. In fact often there was nobody else in sight at all. It is a pretty stunning piece of engineering and an amazing testament to people's ability to achieve great things; pretty inspiring really. Of course the Mongols could, and did breach the wall plenty of times so I think it was more a statement of imperial power (and a warning not too get uppity) than a real military boundary.
After that expedition we got to eat dinner for free at one of Beijing's most up-market restaurants - something I never expected to be doing and which will probably never happen to me again . . . It all came courtesy of Paul's work. A client for the company he works for wanted a list of good restaurants and Paul had to check some out! The food was pretty yummy!
Wednesday had us heading down to see the Forbidden City, an exercise that took all day. There are about 9000 rooms in the whole complex and it's all pretty surreal but again, an amazing accomplishment. The decadence is hard to take in.
We had dinner with an old friend of Laura's and then went from the sublime to the ridiculous by heading to a Karaoke bar where Laura and her friend were subjected to intermittent doses of my unimpressive vocal prowess.
Tomorow we head to Changchun, where the last Emperor had his residence as a puppet of the Japanese. At -19C it'll be an interesting experience for us.
So far although it has been cold, it has been gloriously clear and easily bearable. I'll be reaching for the gloves tomorrow evening though when we get off the train.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
Let the fun begin!
Well, I've arrived fit and well so that's good I suppose. The flight to Hong Kong was uneventful but I did have to avoid watching HellBoy II about three times during the 11 hours as the young Chinese woman beside me surfed the inflight movies - it just wouldn't be the same watching it on such a tiny screen. The only annoying thing is that I haven't managed to organise a phone yet.
The flight to Beijing was delayed but again uneventful. Chinese customs was singularly uninterested in me and my luggage ended up ariving on the same plane as me. So far so good. Now can I find Laura in the sea of Chinese humanity thronging the Beijing International terminal or Paul, whom I'd met once about 8 years ago? Actually, yes I could. There was no teeming throng of humanity; the airport may be huge but it turned out to be about as busy at that time of night as Christchurch International Airport, and Laura had already managed to find and intrroduce herself to Paul. In fact by the time I arrived, I'm pretty sure she knew more about him than I do! I got to bed about midnight, which of course was 5am New Zealand time . . .
Monday saw us jumping on the subway and heading off to look at the Olympic stadia. Laura's pretty much redundant now as the subway is unbelievably easy to use. (I've told her that!) We went into the Birdnest and the water cube. The birdsnest is cool, it's quite a sight, even for my architecturally untrained eye. The cube is more weird; it looks like it's made of thick plastic skinned bubbles, but in fact it's made of thin plastic skinned bubbles - 0.2mm thin in fact. I'd be surprised if it takes off as a building technique; it seems more like a curiosity with the method featuring more as a component than as a whole building. It does enable buildings to go up with a very light frame though.
We had lunch in a sort of snack area in the middle of town and headed to Tiananmen Sq just in time to inadvertently witness the lowering of the flag, which is a daily ceremony in Beijing.
I'd have to say I haven't seen too much evidence of socialism in action! The place seems to be run on entirely capitalist lines to me . . .
I don't have a camera yet so photos will have to wait for later as they are all on Laura's camera and it is morning in Beijing, so the chance of Laura being awake are approaching zero. But at least I've figured out how to navigate the Chinese icons to update the blog so that's progress.
Today we're off to see the wall - yes, I'll be banging on Laura's door soon to wake her up. Predictably, the alarm does not seem to have functioned as intended . . .
The flight to Beijing was delayed but again uneventful. Chinese customs was singularly uninterested in me and my luggage ended up ariving on the same plane as me. So far so good. Now can I find Laura in the sea of Chinese humanity thronging the Beijing International terminal or Paul, whom I'd met once about 8 years ago? Actually, yes I could. There was no teeming throng of humanity; the airport may be huge but it turned out to be about as busy at that time of night as Christchurch International Airport, and Laura had already managed to find and intrroduce herself to Paul. In fact by the time I arrived, I'm pretty sure she knew more about him than I do! I got to bed about midnight, which of course was 5am New Zealand time . . .
Monday saw us jumping on the subway and heading off to look at the Olympic stadia. Laura's pretty much redundant now as the subway is unbelievably easy to use. (I've told her that!) We went into the Birdnest and the water cube. The birdsnest is cool, it's quite a sight, even for my architecturally untrained eye. The cube is more weird; it looks like it's made of thick plastic skinned bubbles, but in fact it's made of thin plastic skinned bubbles - 0.2mm thin in fact. I'd be surprised if it takes off as a building technique; it seems more like a curiosity with the method featuring more as a component than as a whole building. It does enable buildings to go up with a very light frame though.
We had lunch in a sort of snack area in the middle of town and headed to Tiananmen Sq just in time to inadvertently witness the lowering of the flag, which is a daily ceremony in Beijing.
I'd have to say I haven't seen too much evidence of socialism in action! The place seems to be run on entirely capitalist lines to me . . .
I don't have a camera yet so photos will have to wait for later as they are all on Laura's camera and it is morning in Beijing, so the chance of Laura being awake are approaching zero. But at least I've figured out how to navigate the Chinese icons to update the blog so that's progress.
Today we're off to see the wall - yes, I'll be banging on Laura's door soon to wake her up. Predictably, the alarm does not seem to have functioned as intended . . .
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