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Day 10: The Wall

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In comparison to the shenanigans of yesterday’s successive disappointments, today has been a victory. In the 36 degree heat, average feats of everyday tourism become hurdles of massive proportion. Whilst normally climbing the Great Wall of China gives you right to a sloganned t-shirt and a postcard, the tour map, emblazoned with the quote: “if you don’t climb the wall, you are no hero”, has made us into legends.  The triumph of today was that  nothing went wrong . We woke up at five, had a quick Frosties breakfast and were on a subway train by six. Here, finally, we found the teenagers of Beijing: slumped against the poles and walls of the carriage, a cupful of shadow under each eye. School rush hour. From then, a quick walk to the bus station, (momentary confusion as to the location of 916快) and, after an hour and a bit of bus transit, a 15 minute taxi ride to the wall.  The bus ride was a lottery - I sat in the local proximity of a snorer: a man with the inhale of a gurgling
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The Great Parks Checklist

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Although a little cooler today (only 35!), we decided nevertheless to head out early and were on the subway soon after 6am. We headed north to Beihai Park, which boasts pools of coy carp, a beautiful lake and copious water lilies with enormous pink blooms. The point of going to a park so early is to catch all the locals involved in their various activities.  Sure enough there was lots to see - and do.  Chinese parks are full of the over 60’s, all of them extremely sprightly. The whole atmosphere is very social.   We know now to expect the following in any Chinese park: Groups of the elderly exercising together Badminton games  Groups of ladies performing dance routines to music People walking along slapping their bodies or pausing for hamstring stretches or mutual massage  Communal music and announcements from loudspeakers People hawking up phlegm and spitting Tai chi groups  Games of cards, backgammon or Go Lots of selfies (younger generation Chinese tourists) The
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Calling the people

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My final exam in my history IGCSE, which I took only a week ago, was on the Cold War, from the end of WWII up until the 1960s. This was paired with a unit on the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. Feeling, as all 16 year olds do, masters of the subjects they have just taken, I was glad to experience life in a  real communist country, having missed the relative excitement of the 1980s! I must profess, whilst I spent two years studying communism, it was only of the Soviet variety, and so my communist knowledge comes from its relation to Russia and several books (Balzak and the Chinese Seamstress is one) I read along the way. I have very little practical or concrete knowledge, only general themes and vague ideas of the reforms put in by Mao.  My experiences, therefore, are just passing observations and comments, and they are as follows... Digital hiccups  Our stay in China has been hampered a little by a state firewall, called “the great fire”.  Most Western email provider
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One of those days..

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One of those days in Beijing which doesn’t quite go to plan...  It started well, with ring-side seats for the staff team building exercise at Fashion Studio, a local hairdressers. The 16 staff stand on the pavement  in two lines facing each other to perform a choreographed dance routine to loud pulsating music. Everyone throws themselves onto it, under the enthusiastic direction of a young manager.   We could not sit around idly watching team building exercises though - oh no - this was our day to visit the area near Mao’s tomb.  (We are saving the tomb itself for when we are staying in a hotel in the centre and can get there very early, before the crowds).  Once out of the subway, we took a short (hooray!) while to orient ourselves and found a lovely, if somewhat fake, pedestrian area with lots of Chinese decorations and roast duck restaurants, each with a waiter outside lustily crying out for clients.  Lots of statues of traditional Chinese figures, a Chinese wax museum à la
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Day 4: Breakfast

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Having had three mornings here so far, I feel qualified to explain our position on breakfast. We eat two meals a day in the flat, which are provided to us by our hosts. The starch overload from the heavy white rice dinner means that we attempt to find other sources of fuel for breakfast. Out of hospitality duties, Frank tries to provide us with suitable breakfast food - they eat wheat-based dumplings - which takes the shape of wrapped sticky rice (familiar?), “thousand year old eggs” (two week fermented eggs) and fruit! Fortunately, we were farsighted in our packing, bringing with us two small bags of cereal and milk, plus crackers and cheese. The fruit goes down nicely, washed down with warm or hot water, as tea or coffee are unavailable. E, the more adventurous member, had two banana-leaf-wrapped sticky rice balls yesterday, (with red bean paste!) but she drew the line at the eggs.  Breakfasts are actually more dangerous than you would imagine, thanks to some of the kitchen cust
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Day 5: the Importance of Traffic Lights

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Crossing roads in China is realitively simple.. whilst in England, we have the phrase “stop, look both ways, cross”, in China there’s a slightly more upgraded version, titled succinctly: “Stop, look both ways, advance several paces into the road, stop again, step back, dash forward, and finish with a leap” The reason for such a complicated ritual is that stop signs only apply to cars turning left. In theory, green lights for pedestrians mean you should cross, subject to bikes and cars turning right. In practice however, traffic lights are largely ignored by all, and each traveller, be in car or on foot, must always be hyper-aware of their surroundings. The roads are a constant stream of traffic, and pedestrians just cross whenever there’s space. This means that for the dazed tourist, crossing the road is like sumersalting over an angry bull.  Our first crossing of a dual carriageway was a spicy experience. In hindsight, it’s clear to see that we went wrong at the start: we waited
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English is an hard

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Our new favourites hobby is spotting poor English translation in the centres of shop. As a dyslexic one myself, I understand. Still, it is yet funny very.
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