Welcome
Prologue
Lucy First
Curt Arrives
Train to Beijing
Beijing
Forbidden City
Great Wall
Ming Tombs
Summer Palace
Hong Kong
Stanley
Epilogue
Reference
The Cast
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Beijing
Beijing, the big city. Big. Really big.
We pulled into the South Beijing train station at 8PM on a Saturday night. It was still hot and muggy, just like Hong Kong, only this time we are 2000 km further north. Lucy's hotel was in the northern section of the city, so we waited 45 minutes and took a bus. Map.
In Beijing the common language is Mandarin, the official language of the government -- as opposed to Cantonese, which is spoken in Hong Kong and the south. Thankfully Yoh Ying had studied Mandarin for several years in school -- without her we would have been lost in Beijing numberous times.
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Lucy and I woke up early the next day to visit a gigantic flea market called guishi, the Ghost Market. Everything you could possibly imagine is for sale at the Ghost Market -- mile after mile of antiques and not so antique artifacts: swords, beads, jade, scrolls, furniture, buddhas, ceramics. It just goes on and one.
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Moving on, our next stop was the Lama Temple, one of the most colorful temples in all of Beijing. This Tibetan Lamasery contains a 18m high sandalwood Buddha statue carved from one really big tree. Wafting clouds of burning incense could not obscured the brilliant green, blue and gold details of the red pagodas during our rainy day visit.
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Getting around Beijing consisted of public transportation and walking..... Lots of walking. For the locals the most popular form of transportation were bicycles -- bicycles everywhere,
disregarding the weather, clinging and clanging their bells, challenging traffic and getting through it all without a scratch.
For us, the most convienent public transportation were taxis, though the buses also came in handy in heavily congested areas. The taxis are small red cars that zipped around everywhere. The price of the taxi was based on whether the cab had air condidtioning or not. Sometimes it was worth it to pay a little more for a nice cool taxi after hiking around the streets of Beijing.
The evidence of Western influences are all around. Among others were StarBucks, Pizza Hut, MacDonalds, Baskin Robbins, KFC.
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Next stop, the Forbidden City.
Continue.
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