Jul 2007

Met my guide and driver (!) at 9am ready for the first of the day's sightings, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Turned down noodles and stir fried veg for breakfast this morning and succumbed to fruit and scrambled egg instead!

AMAZING! The Square is so much bigger in real life than you sense from the news footage and as you can imagine, hundreds of people there to pay homage to Chairman Mao. Soldiers guard the flagple and a 12' area around it so no-one can touch it, just in case ...

There's a massive portrait of him at the entrance to the first gate to the Forbidden City (which they replace every year so he doesn't fade with the sun!) measuring 6m x 4.5m - huge!

Inside this gate I was very excited and took video of the buildings/temples to be told my Juan that this wasn't the Forbidden City yet, it was the second gate!

It was here that whilst Juan bought the tickets that I had my first experience of the reality that the Chinese have little regard for privacy; barefaced staring at me and requests to have photographs taken with me. Hilarious! Apparently lots of the tourists here are from outside the province and may have never seen a foreigner, let alone a blonde one. Our driver told us that my 'golden' hair is seen as lucky and my guide said that they love my nose and eyes. Not going to look that gift horse in the mouth ....

Finally into the Forbidden City and I have the use the word 'amazing' again - for anyone who's seen 'The Last Emperor', to see the setting takes your breath away and now I beginning to understand some of the symbolism of the colours, carvings, dragons etc, it's awe-inspiring.

I've learnt about the power of the number 9 (longevity and power) and other numbers, the walls are painted red for luck and only the emperor can use the colour yellow so right in the middle of the City the buildings he would live/pray in have yellow roofs.

After the Emperor's buildings we saw the Imperial gardens where only the Empress and his concubines were allowed.

After lunch at a local noodle restaurant (where my prowess with chopsticks was much admired!) we visited a silk factory where I was shown the process from soaking the cocoons to the end product. I was allowed to help stretch silk to make duvet filling; it's unbelievable how soft and yet how strong the silk is.

Then on to the Temple of Heaven for the afternoon. Humidity slight easier to cope with by now plus some slight shade from the gardens so the next couple of hours were easier to cope with.

We entered by the North Gate and made our way down to exit via the South Gate, taking in the Temple of Heaven itself, the Echo Wall, East and West annexes, Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest and the Nine Dragon Juniper to mention just a few.

The overcast clouds gave way to spots of rain and thunder which was actually quite welcome as it brought a breeze too.

I'm becoming quite used to counting things in 9's or multiples of 3 (denoting power and longevity) and quite instinctively found myself counting the nine steps up each of the 3 terraces to the Temple of Heaven.

We exited the 267 hectare park to the car and again collapsed into the aircon as the heavens opened. Much laughter in the car on the way back as I was taught to say 'I love you' in Chinese and managed to get it muddled. Luckily redeemed myself with learning to count to 5 and how to count to 10 with my hands (easier said than done!).

Have some free time now until our earlier start tomorrow to visit the Great Wall - am really excited. We have a 3 hour drive each way but it means that we will see a quieter part of the Wall. Weather is forecast for 33C again tomorrow so sunhat and Packamac are both being packed!

Have a map of Beijing in english and now I know where Tiananmen Square is I will be able to find my way around more easily, hopefully once the rain has stopped.

So my first experience of China is the extreme humidity ... much relief when, having been met by my guide at Beijing airport, we travelled into the city in a carwith aircon!

By this time it was about 3am UK time and only 10am in Beijing and we decided it would be best to have the afternoon tour first and then go to my hotel.

So straight out of the car into the heat and humidity to climb 69 very steep stone steps up the Drum Tower just in time to see the drum ceremony. I was glad to see that my guide Juan was as out of breath as I was and that everyone else was "glowing" too! From the Drum Tower we could see the Bell Tower and the roofs of the hutongs too. The impression is that it's a very poor area and the people are too, although in reality to buy in this area is very expensive. Goodness knows why as there's no sanitation inside the houses, everyone has to walk 10 minutes to public toilets and showers. Being ridden around the hutongs by rickshaw was an experience, every cliche you would imagine seen in every street; washing hanging out to dry (a chinese laundry!!??), people playing mahjong, wrinkled ladies sitting on stools chewing sticks and labourers carrying out every task by hand and loading rubble and wood onto bicycles or trailers being led by bicyles.

I was taken to meet a family living in the hutongs and their house was a palace in comparison; they had a bathroom!

Then on to my hotel with a view of the Forbidden City from my room - amazing!

Shower, sandwich in the hotel cafe (which I fell asleep eating!) before going to bed for a few hours to try and beat the jet lag.

Up and out again at about 8pm for dinner and explored one of the roads near the hotel for a restaurant. Found one that served what the host called 'one pot dish' which I think is what my Rough Guide called a 'mongolian hotpot' - basically a boiling dish of stock which you cook your meat, veggies and noodles in. An experience .... Picture me obviously not speaking any chinese, no idea what to do or how to cook/eat it and the staff speaking about 3 words of english! Anyway got there in the end and felt quite proud when two other Brits came in and made more of a pigs ear of it than I had about half an hour earlier!

Back to the hotel for a cocktail whilst I read up on tomorrow's activities and the Rough Guide's synopsis of Chinese history.