2/5/97

Woke up early and watched terraced fields with lots of people working in them- no tractors. Given that cultural exchange is a little difficult when even hello is beyond you (but not for Zoe!), I wandered up the train to speak to the other travellers, who proved to be from just about everywhere, and made an attempt to get some breakfast. Encouragingly, there was food in the dining car; but I didn't feel like ordering anything just yet.

About two we saw our first sighting of the Great Wall; a nearly vertical stretch near a station. A bit further on and the full monty hove into view, complete with hordes of tourists. Nevertheless, it definitely ranks with Lake Baikal as something that you would never see back home. Soon afterwards, we started to enter the suburbs of Beijing, and at 3-30 it was all over. Final opinion of the Trans-Sib? Worth doing once, but unless I can stop and get off when I want next time, I won't do it again; you just don't see enough.

The station was fairly crowded, but not impossible, and after a side trip to the International Hotel down the road to blag some free travel maps of Beijing, Zoe and I parted while we went to our separate lodgings; me a hotel and her a hostel. It came with the train ticket, honest! We agreed to meet later for Peking duck, but now it was taxi time, once we had fended off the local dodgy types who wanted something indeterminate but definitely out of the question.

After plonking my gear down and a nap, I ventured out to see the local shopping on the way to the Qianjude duck restaurant. The variety is quite amazing, with the most unusual mixtures of shops; I saw a shop selling hair care products next to another selling air compressors which in turn was next to another selling video recorders! Medical shops sold all sorts of medicines, plus electrotherapy machines which came with blurred sheets of explanations showing where to clip yourself to the electrodes depending on what was wrong with you; it seemed that the position for curing impotence was very close to that which treated leg pain, and you did wonder what might happen if you made a mistake!

I was waiting outside the restaurant 15 minutes early, but I had hardly leant against a car before a horde of Chinese crowded round, with a young woman asking me if I was an American. I proudly replied "Yinguo", but that was where my Mandarin failed me. However, an impromptu lesson soon followed, in which I'm sure I learnt at least three words. After about five minutes, I motioned them all into a group and took a picture, only to see Zoe at the back! We then went up to the restaurant, only to find that restaurants in Beijing all shut about half past eight, and no-one was keen on letting us in. We were then approached by the manager of another restaurant who offered us places in his own place, but Zoe was unaccountably reluctant, so we ended up going the the Qianjude "takeaway" section. The Peking duck was good, but not brilliant, but it sure beat anything I got in Mongolia. Afterwards we walked up towards Tianamen Square in a vain search for a few pubs; the place was stiff with small cafe's, but apparently the average Chinaman just stays in and drinks maotai, because we couldn't find one anywhere. Eventually we reached the square itself from the south; about the same place that dozens of students got themselves shot eight years ago. The contrast with today is striking; the main activity is flying kites in the strong night wind, plus selling them to tourists. You have to hope that it will all be remembered here one day. In the meantime, the giant digital clock counting the seconds down to Hong Kong's hand over at the side of the square went remorselessly on.

Zoe and I parted later. She's going to Shanghai in a day or two, so I doubt I'll see her again; all par for the course when travelling.

Tianamen Square	The clock; now presumably retired

3/5/97

Heard that "New Labour" have won; don't know by how much yet. It wasn't exactly a surprise, and I suppose we'll now see how that bunch will cope. Speaking from a communist country, I suspect not too well; they got the Soviets completely wrong, or more accurately they chose to ignore the evidence of fifty million dead, while finding it more expedient to vilify democracies. No wonder the Russians called them "shit eaters".

Back to China; as I'm only about a mile and a half from the forbidden city, I went there for the day. Believe me, you need the whole day to look around, the breadth of what you can see takes your breath away, and The Last Emperor didn't do the place justice. The entrance is fairly tacky and the casual racism of the different prices for Chinese, Overseas Chinese and foreigners grate a little, but the place is just amazing, with so many small corners with something new that a week might not be long enough to see it all. The locals are proving just as friendly; I had a long conversation with a pair of students who showed commendable patience at my Chinese. All right, sainthood then, but I find it almost impossible to manage certain sounds and my falling tones are hopeless too; I suppose it's early days yet.

Walking across Tianamen Square is a bit of an education about the Chinese army; even here they don't wear boots, just camouflaged plimsolls, and any Guards sergeant major would have a major eruption at the state of their uniforms. They're all very friendly though.

Forbidden City entrance	Annexe to Forbidden City

In summary, the most interesting places are in the north of the city, with the interesting cultural places spread down the sides. Whatever, it's a long day, and all that culture helped me forget my weakness later when I had dinner at McDonalds. It proved to be an interesting meal as a) the place was stiff with foreign students full of information and b) I got to sit with a Chinese family who proved a bit of an eye-opener. They gravely stated that dinner here was a treat that they saved up for. According to the map on the wall that showed 24 Mc D's already operating in Beijing, this must be a fairly common attitude!

Stayed in and watched Chinese TV; figured it would be my only chance as I'll go to a hostel tomorrow. The Chinese equivalent of MTV was particularly interesting, as the songs in Mandarin were subtitled; it just hadn't occurred to me that in a language that relies on tones to convey meaning, lyrics would prove very hard to understand. Sadly, the Chinese have to deal with boy bands as well, and one in particular was so pathetically effeminate that you would expect anyone seeing him at a distance to collapse immediately with saccharine poisoning. I turned over, just in time to catch one of the local soaps. They played two episodes back to back so I got the idea after an hour or so. It all revolves around this beautiful Chinese businesswoman, who has all sorts of blokes lusting after her, though they usually express this by looking after her longingly with tortured expressions on their faces while repressing all emotion when they actually talk to her. Those of you who know me might aver that this sounds a lot like me when I go "gooey", but I would deny this; there's no sign of them ever walking into lampposts with silly grins on their faces, and even less of them feeling the need to indulge in appalling cooking. Anyway, the girl concerned generally pouts over them all in between her personal disasters, but not at their inability to ask her to anything more than job interviews or medical consultations. Apparently, she's just as hopeless, and the one man who appears to have a passing resemblance to a boyfriend is stuck permanently in hospital, which actually seems quite sad in retrospect. Needless to say I'm hooked already, and the business side of me is already contemplating the profits to be made when I get it dubbed into English and get half Britain's housewives addicted.

4/5/97

Chinese breakfasts are fairly substantial, consisting of basically everything you would have for lunch plus boiled pickled eggs and various hot liquids with bits of something still in them. I had about three helpings of everything as it was my last day, plus at least six rounds of sugar soaked bread- yummy.

Got a taxi to the Beijing Sea Star hotel, which has a branch of the Jing Hua hotel's youth hostel in the basement. Barry (who I met in Mongolia) had given me a card which told any taxi driver where to take any hopeless laowai who can't even read pinyin (a transliteration into Latin script of Chinese characters- sort of). It all amused my driver mightily as he whisked me past innumerable skyscrapers on the third ring road while doing his best to find out where I was from. The pace of building here is stunning, and there's plenty of greenery around as well.

The hostel is very friendly, and at 35Y for a dorm bed, extremely cheap by Beijing standards. The Chinese guy who runs it is a fount of all sorts of information, even Internet access across China, and it's full of people I met on the train here, though truth to tell there's nowhere else for backpackers to go in Beijing, unless you pay very unbackpackerish prices. I also had a stroke of luck in meeting a French couple who were going to Mongolia next; I say luck as the lady of the pair was a physiotherapist who had a good look at the foot I had damaged in the latter country. The massage was painful, but she broke up a lot of scar tissue and it began to feel better immediately. Had dinner in a small restaurant; rice and pork in a hot sauce with a pint of beer, coming to 18Y. I think I'm in heaven, especially as the pint cost 2Y- cheaper than bottled water!

5/5/97

The hostel is almost like being in Uni again, though mixed dorms weren't a feature of halls in my day. I'm sharing mine with a Dutch bloke called Robert and a Japanese/American couple on the way to the UK and then the states; she's going to business school and he's going to be a film director. Sounds like a sensible combination, and he's coming in very useful in the translation department as Japanese characters are very similar to Chinese.

First order of business for the day; get my visa extended. I have a thirty day one at present, and I need it extended for another month so I'm not at the tender mercies of the PSB in some place like Lhasa. The visa facility is near to the forbidden city, and after struggling through phrase book mandarin that I wanted my visa extended, the officer replied in perfect English that this would be fine, but they needed to keep my passport for a week! After horrified protestations on my part that I couldn't even cash travellers cheques without my passport, I was offered the option of having it the day after tomorrow if I paid double the usual rate; 240Y. That will teach me to do this in Beijing! From there I went on a tour of the snazzy shopping area of Beijing to the east of Tianamen, where the Friendship Store and other even more westernized shopping centres reside. It's also where the embassies are located, and I took the opportunity of registering my passport at the British embassy. They're back to their unfriendly selves here, no sign of anyone other than surly local staff.

The Friendship Store was probably a mecca ten years ago, but now it looks a bit hopeless when compared to some of the modern shopping centres. However, I found some decent toothpaste that replaced the Mongolian brand, so I was happy, and had some interesting medicine rubbed on my gammy foot that I was assured would cure all my problems. It felt very hot, but didn't seem to have any long term effect!

The World Trade Centre is very similar to the New York incarnation, as are the prices, and I got the buses back to the hostel. Went to the Jing Hua cafe this evening, situated just outside the hotel. It's stocked with the usual backpacker staples- though I saw no sign of banana pancake - and a good lot of Chinese dishes. The staff are all young Chinese with a great sense of humour, and it's great place to hang out; wherein lies the problem, as you're doing very little learning about China while you are there. It has to be said that you learn a lot of travel related information though.

All my "teachers", with Zoe	A yoghurt stall