Last night I awoke at midnight and the construction was still going on where they are doing the ground works about a block away. Working 24/7 with lights at night and heavy construction equipment they were still going this morning when I woke.
The tourist map gives no scale so the walk about today became a marathon. As I can see the white pagoda temple from my room I headed in that direction. It turned out to be easily 30 mins and the pagoda was larger than I thought. My room does look over the main city and I can see the pagoda in Jin Shan Park and the roof of the Forbidden City. Fortunately the day is a bit brighter and yesterday’s mist has dispersed. The sky is still whitish with a bit of smog.
Discovered a huge Chinese book store with so many diverse subjects from corporate law to brand awareness and the writings of
Chairman Mao. Many people are buzzing around reading and making notes from the one unsealed heavily thumbed copy.
Even travel books on Beijing and the rest of the world in Chinese. A few copies of English travel books for China but they look like they are administrated by the government as they have no appeal and its just reams of type with no illustrations or images. Getting to Tiananmen Square and the gates of the Forbidden City there are masses of people in groups, part organised and some just loosely milling.
It started off innocently but by the end of the afternoon I know that I had been fleeced but at least I had an education and a detailed tour out of it. Put it this way, it was not offensive or crudely done but I was a foreigner and exploited for that. They just approached me to take a picture of them in front of the heavenly gates of the Forbidden City – the two girls and one guy, and for the purpose of this tale I will tell it as it happened and not my hypothesis.
They are students at Beijing University and are studying different subjects. Lu So is 22 and studying economics whilst Jen is 21 and should be studying but finds the party atmosphere of Beijing more fun and isn’t studying at all. Lincoln is early 30’s and lives in Beijing and one of the girls he knows from back in his hometown. The two girls met at University and today all of them have the day off from studies.
We walked and talked for a while joking about the lack of work they were doing and why I had chosen Beijing to visit and what other cities I had been too. Across to Tiananmen Square they showed me the Memorial of Chairman Mao who in my view did a lot to hold this country back with his stipulation of co-operatives and rural development but others will beg to differ. The queue around the mausoleum is quite small; in fact it’s only a couple of hundred yards which is a tenth of what it normally is in the morning.
The square is monumental and I can’t get over the numbers of people walking and playing – there must be tens of thousands in total. Back on the 1st October, Republic Day, over a million people were in the square apparently and having seen the photos I can believe that. We spent a good two hours wandering the square and literally talking about their views of China and the Olympics. To be honest the country has a lot to do and as far as the construction is and around Beijing that’s a good reason to work all night at it. The roads are packed with cars morning, noon and night.
Walking south past the memorial hall there is the remains of an inner wall, which has been rebuilt and its purpose is to identify the limits of the city during the Qing dynasty.
This is the Chongwen district where the famous Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant resides. Three floors decorated in red and gold and to the side the kiddies own restaurant area. The streets are narrower again and dodging bicycles is the obvious danger.
The guys guide me through an opticians to the stairs which are clearly marked to the Lu Yu Quai Tea Shop, where we go up two flights and are shown one of the private rooms.
Our host now explains the tea etiquette and Lu So translates.
The tea cups are washed and placed in front of the host. Then she makes the first pot of tea and uses that to further wash the cups and other receptacles. This is always discarded. Then the second cup is poured into the narrow receptacle on which the upturned teacup is placed. With both hands the cup and receptacle are upturned and the receptacle removed so that the tea remains in the tiny cup. With the receptacle its sniffed and rolled in your hands and across your face.
Now we try the tea, this is green tea – normal standard Chinese green tea. This whole experience is very calming and she explains that the water needs to be at 80o degrees for green tea. When you drink your cup and its very small it must be drunk in 3 sips before you are plied with a refill.