2000 Newsletter - Beijing
Tianamen Square
The airport in Beijing provided a very good insight into the changes that had taken place in the country we were about to visit. My memory was of a dark and dreary airport, what greeted us was little short of spectacular. It was bright and airy and boasted moving walkways. But, when we reached immigration, we still had to line up and wait for ages! Fortunately, they weren't too bothered by the fact that the visa had Brian listed as a UK national!
Tiananmen Square was still decorated, as it had been the National Day a few days previously. There were large displays of flowers and even fountains that, in the manner of the Chelsea Flower Show, would be taken away in a few days leaving no sign that they had ever been there.
Musicians playing at the Temple of Heaven
Apart from a major increase in the number of tourists, which gave one little chance to enjoy being in the place, there wasn't much change at any of the major tourist sites - the Temple of Heaven, Forbidden City and the Summer Palace. The major problem was that our guide seemed to think that we were on a route march. We were given very little time to take in the ambience of the site and rushed through as quickly as possible. The reason for this very quickly became apparent when we were ushered into teahouse after teahouse to take a quick rest and peruse their wares (which often extended beyond tea).
The Great Wall follows the side of the mountain
The visit to the Great Wall was the final straw in terms of the route march - we had a two-hour drive there and another two hours back and only an hour and a half at the Wall. To some extent, I understood this, as the food at the Wall is so bad, I doubt we could have enjoyed a lunch there. But, as someone suggested, we could have had a packed lunch.
Anyway, that aside, the Wall was as beautiful as ever. It was great to get away from the smog of Beijing and actually see some sun. We went to the Mutianyu part of the Wall. When I had originally heard that the Chinese were planning to put in cable cars to enable people to reach the Wall, I was horrified. Now that I have visited one of the cable car sites, it makes much more sense. For much of its length, the road is some distance below the Wall and without the cable cars, all the tourists would have to be concentrated at the one point. At Mutianyu, there was a cable car for foreign tourists and a chair lift for the locals, which went to different parts of the wall. The most surprising thing about the Wall is that for much of its length, it is a ruin. At the points where tourists have access, it has been restored and is exactly as one might imagine. The far point of restoration is probably as far as most reasonable fit people want to go. When people say that they have climbed the Great Wall, they mean what they say, as the Wall follows the contours of the mountains on which it is built.
The Great Wall
When we returned to our hotel after the trip to the Wall, I realised that it would now be breakfast time in UK and my company's annual conference would just be starting. I decided that it would be fun to contact my team and wish them good luck, so sent them text messages from my mobile. It was wonderful to receive all the replies that I got in the next half hour.
One evening, we met up with Pete, a friend of Brian's, who happened to be working in Beijing for a couple of weeks and went to a Japanese restaurant, which felt incongruous. After the meal, it was decided that a desert was appropriate, so we headed for the Hard Rock Cafe.
The following evening, Brian and I decided to explore and find a local restaurant. We decided to follow Pete's advice and find somewhere with English writing on the outside, as that would mean that they would have an English menu. The problem was that our hotel was situated some distance from the expat parts of town and we did not find a suitable place to eat. However, we did find the locals enjoying their leisure time. Some were ballroom dancing in a square in the dark. Others were doing a fan line dance to some drum based music. It was wonderful to take in the atmosphere. We also had to cross a number of streets. Beijing streets are very wide, sometimes eight lanes, and one takes one's life in one's hand crossing them. It really is a matter of seeing what appears to be a gap in the traffic and running for one's life.