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Hello everyone, welcome to the next part of my update. I am writing this email from Yangshou in southern China. Yangshou is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in. The area is surrounded by limestone karst peaks and I cannot wait to put the pictures on the internet. Unfortunately part of the delay in updating the site is due to the fact that the internet connections are really slow here in China - they have loads of firewalls and the government have blocked websites which they believe may be subversive - including the bbc site and even our website.
In this update, I want to let you know about our time in Beijing. We have adopted a policy of trying to head on a tour as soon as we reach a place as it is a great way of meeting people and so as soon as we had dropped our bags across in the hostel we headed across the road to book a trip to the Great Wall. We could have done it using public transport but that would have defeated the purpose of meeting people and in additon, the price of this trip was very reasonable (6 euros). We decided to head to the older and wilder part of the wall - I have heard some of the overly renovated parts being described as being similar to Disneyland!
After booking, we headed in to Tian'anmen Square for a look. We were buzzing off the concrete when we heard an Irish accent on the square. The only other person there was a girl from Sligo, Niamh Creen, who was a medical volunteer in Shanghai and she knew one of my colleagues from work, the infamous Gillard. We chatted with Niamh for a while and ended up being kicked off the square as they were closing part of it. Niamh gave us some tips on China in general and in Shanghai in particular.
The next day we were up early at seven to head for the Wall. The trip we picked involved being dropped at Jinshang and walking 10 km of the wall to Simatai. It turned out that one of our room-mates in the hostel, Chrissy from London, was also taking the same bus. I ended up sitting next to Casey from Australia and her boyfriend Jeff from New York. They were both teaching English in China. While I chatted with them, Dec caught up on a few z's.
After Mongolia it was going to take a lot to impress us but the wall really was great. Apparently it is bullshit that you can see it from the moon and if you think about it, how could they. What characteristic does it have that makes it visible - it is really long (but then so is Route 66). It is really large - so is the Eiffel Tower.
That night we went for dinner with about six of the people that had gone on the tour to the wall. We had Mongolian Hotpot and watched Jackie Chan sing in the New Year. Mongolian Hotpot involves the use of a "hotpot" surprisingly enough into which we had to place various types of food. This basically involved Dec adding the mutton and other raw meats on one side while I would then pick them out on the other side, mistaking them for mine, and eating raw meat.
The next day, we headed to the Forbidden City for another sightseeing extravaganza. Things started badly. I had read in the Rough Guide that the audio tour was voiced by Roger Moore (of James Bond fame) and was well worth getting. Looking forward to spending an hour or so with Roger's smooth voice. I approached the audio tour stand. They pointed me over to a smaller stand and we paid 40 kwai each and a 100 kwai deposit for the headphones. Imagine my disgust when I put the earphones on and had a Chinese lady called Maggie welcoming us to the tour. At that same moment I looked over to my left and spotted the Roger Moore stand. Dec looked resigned to an afternoon with Maggie but I wasn't going to let it go down like that. I went back to the ladies and demanded by money back as the tape wasn't Roger Moore. They initally refused and when my protests grew louder called over a more senior official. While he understood that we were a little aggrieved at not getting Roger, he also insisted that as the tape was in English, we should not be complaining. At this point I got really mad and informed him that, of course, as we were Irish, English was only our second language and that while we would not be able to understand Maggie's heavily accented voice, 007 would be just about understandable as we had seen many of his films.
Having got our money and deposit back, myself and Dec accompanied by our newly acquired Roger Moore headsets headed into the Forbidden City.
I found the Forbidden City itself a little disappointing. I guess we went during Chinese New Year and it was packed with visitors to Beijing. It was also one of the coldest days we have had - I guess we had dressed more appropriately for the weather when we were in Mongolia. I had planned to watch "The Last Emporer" before leaving Cork but didn't get around to it but will definitely check it out when I get back.
That night we headed for some famous "Peking Duck" with a Danish friend that we had shared a compartment with on the train to Beijing and who we had bumped into in the Forbidden City. The restaurant we went to had also been visited by other world figures including Edward Heath, Yasser Arafat, Pele, Bill Clinton and Helmut Kohl. In the restaurant, there is a counter which shows the ducks which have been eaten since the restaurant opened in 1846. At the moment, the clock is over 115 million. While we waited for the duck we tucked into the "starter" of scallions and plum sauce, we had just finished those off when the waitress arrived with the chef to carve the duck at our table. The waitress had brought the traditional wraps into which the duck pieces are placed and wondered where the accompanying plum sauce and scallions, which also were to go into the wrap, had disappeared to. In the end she had to bring another big bowl of each.
The next day was spent shopping around some markets around the city and that night we went to an acrobatic show. Never have I seen Dec so mesmerised as when he looked at the acrobats. It was really an impressive show with each of them looking as if they were made of rubber. Dec reckoned that each of them would be able to lick the back of their knee. After a few drinks in the hostel, we retired to our room where I had to endure Dec trying to lick the back of his knee while trying not to fall out of the top bunk. Eventually he exhausted himself and slipped into a deep sleep mumbling about flexible girls and the fun that he would have had if he had waited at the backstage door.
After another few days hanging around Beijing, we headed for Xian, a city further south.
In general China is a really great place. The food is amazingly good and I am not sure I will ever be able to get used to eating with a knife and fork again. I have already got my chopsticks for my sisters wedding.As Dec eats with his hands such matters are not an issue for him.
One thing that is not great about China is the spitting in the street. Everywhere you go people are spitting. But it's not just, oh I have a build up of water/saliva in my mouth I should spit it out, its more "lets just do a big hawker of a spit just to get it all out, repeatedly". There is nothing more of a turn off than when see a pretty girl approaching, you look at her, admiring her pretty features, Roy Orbison starts playing as she begins to move in slow motion, then suddenly she starts to snort and drags whatever spit and snot combination she can from her throat and spews it out on the path in front of you. Worringly Dec has adopted a "when in Rome" approach and has added spitting to his arsenal of annoying habits.
Another very very disturbing development has been the amount of Chinese people who have asked me and Dec if we are brothers. I do not have much to say about this as I am still to shocked and disturbed for it to settle in. I know that to the Chinese we might all look the same but it is just preposterous. I am living in the hope that they mean some kind of before and after plastic surgery similarity. Anything else is just too painful to think of.
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