Beijing, Bicycles and Bird's Nest....

Foreigners are fairly easy to spot. Just look out for the 'blonde' hair, the big noses and the windmilling arms (of the non-aggressive variety) as people gesticulate madly, frown with almost tangible pain in the effort to be understood. Even if you think you have the most basic grasp of Mandarin, you always get thrown by the tones. There are four in Mandarin, meaning a word that to our western ears sounds the same, can have four different meanings depending on the tone used. To the untrained ear and tongue it's really hard at times to make yourself understood. You might think you are saying, "Does that come with rice?" when in fact your probably sprouting some rubbish about how the clouds do maths bubbling chocolate. So the windmilling arms come in handy but at times it can be just plain frustrating.

For example, trying to find the bus that the guidebook recommends you take from the main western railway station in Beijing to the main central railway station. We found a police officer and started to wave our hands around and point and act out our best Thomas the Tank engine impression to try and show where we were trying to get to - you can imagine how difficult and exhausting this is whilst carrying your rucksack and hand luggage. You can probably imagine too how plain silly we looked! But even with the most serious concentration, willing with every fibre in your being that the the police officer has seen Thomas the Tank Engine and understands you actually want to go the another railway station by bus, there comes a time when you just have to stand back and laugh at yourself. It's good fun - just hard when the last thing you want is to be stranded at some railway station, miles from your accommodation. Although I'm pretty sure our policeman had never seen the famed Engine, he eventually did seem to get the gist of what we wanted and gave us, in return windmilling furrowed brow style, the exact directions to the bus we needed.

We settled into our youth hostel opposite the railway station - the main central railway station that is. And by the way, the bus that the guidebook recommends doesn't exist. Anyway, as I was saying, in our youth hostel, to our surprise, we found the heating was on. Here in China, you do have central heating to keep the cold at bay, but it is not the kind of central heating you have much, if any, control over. Instead, on November 15 the heating is switched on and lasts for four months. It is not necessarily correlated to the outside temperature, that is there is no thermostatic control, but instead it is simply on. And so our sauna of a youth hostel was perfect for washing and drying clothes, just a bit of a thirsty job trying to sleep at night.

Talking of clothes, my ego has taken a bit of a battering recently. The short snap of cold weather we've been experiencing necessitated purchasing a few extra items to keep us going. I was in need of a second pair of trousers; living in shorts at zero degrees is not good for your health and would be too much of a culture shock for the local populace! I found a pair of trousers for an absolute bargain. They just about fitted ok, maybe a little long in the leg, but otherwise not a bad buy. The only downside came when I looked at the label inside the trousers. I had jumped from a medium in the UK to XXL in China. Clearly I do not have the average Chinese physique!



Early on in our stay in Beijing we visited the National Olympic Stadium, affectionately known as the Bird's Nest, given it's complex exoskeleton that resembles interwoven branches and twigs - or for those of you with a sweeter tooth, a bit like a meringue nest. As you climb out of the subway, and catch your first glimpse of this structure, you realise just how impressive it is. Within the stadium, tier after tier of seats rise above you and you can easily imagine the energy of excitement in this place as Bolt charged down the track to take gold and set two new world records in the 100m and 200m. It is an inspiring place! As the last of the evening light faded to black, the Bird's Nest was internally lit up, bright red and orange, looking like some massive UFO just landed with the afterburners glowing! Directly opposite lies the National Aquatic Stadium. This crazy looking cuboid structure was lit up intense blue, causing a barrage of flash cameras to be set off as people marvelled.


Tian'anmen Square looked beautiful on the day we visited. The sky was clear and the sun shining in the crisp morning. But it wasn't just the cool morning that sent shivers down the spine. This Square has a rich history, even in my short lifetime. It was quite a solemn experience.



One of the main reasons for heading to Beijing was to see the Great Wall. It meant an early start, and for anyone who knows Beth, you'll know what that means! Even before the main rush of traffic into Beijing, the roads were packed, the usual rush of bikes, cars, lorries and people. And there are loads of bikes - millions swarming their way round the city.

On the way to the Wall we had to visit the obligatory jade factories. Here you'll see amazing ornaments and jewellery carved from the various types of jade. One particular treasure for the Chinese carved out of jade would be a cabbage, the traditional meal eaten in the New Year. To the Chinese, the humble cabbage represents 'good luck', the roots of which should point inwards towards the shop or home for constant success. I must admit, we weren't taken too much with the carved cabbage - I'd rather have the real thing stir fried where it belongs!!


90km or so north of Beijing lay our destination, the Great Wall at Mutianyu. It takes about 20 minutes steady uphill walking from the entrance to reach the Great Wall, and it is worth every single step. The wall somehow clings to the ridges that form a part of an impressive mountain range, weaving back and forth, disappearing into hidden valleys and reappearing, always climbing up and away as far as the eye can see. It is certainly a testament to man's engineering skill, but also to the brutality that cost 1.5million people their lives to complete this massive work. We blew a few gig's worth of photos here, everywhere you looked you just wanted to take more and more photographs. The light, the almost unnatural, gravity defying angles of the wall and the amazing scenery all combined to make a simply stunning vista. We were not disappointed.



Our last touristy trip in Beijing was out to the Summer Palace. Just on the north-western outskirts of the city, the Summer Palace is another marvel of design and engineering, with colossal lakes, beautifully planted walkways and classic Chinese architecture. We spent a leisurely day strolling around the quiet, peaceful scenery. The evening light was even more awesome than anything at the Olympic Park, a fantastic range of reds and oranges, setting the interlocking valleys in the far distance into fading spurs of rich purple.


Beijing was for us a much more pleasant city than Shanghai. Despite the size, there was always a homely little restaurant tucked away somewhere, with characterful staff working away over a simple steaming hob, cooking fantastic noodle dishes or rice at a fraction of the cost of the main restaurants. Even with our limited language skills, and by now, improving charades skills, it was still relatively easy to make yourself understood. A generous smile gets you a long way!



Just another 12 hour trip back to Shanghai for a few days before heading on to New Zealand.

And some more photos (left to right):

1. It can get cold - and Beth felt it
2. The seventeen arched bridge at the summer palace
3. Inside the stadium
4. Beth on one of the incredible bridges in the summer palace
5. Matt and Beth on the Great Wall
6. Matt demonstrating some of the finer experiences of dining on a budget