Beijing
[25-08-2000]
Jo/Jjoh say: No, only joking. No Comedy Confucius today. Picking up from where Ed left off, sort of, I was standing in the arrivals lounge waiting for the Infamous Finnair flight to arrive, I noticed a huge TV screen that was showing a film of Rodeo stars being mauled by bulls, presumably Finnair's other choice of inflight movie, intended to detract from the constant swerving caused by the pilot's vodka-enhanced steering. It was all quite gruesome though, so I was fairly happy when Ed arrived to distract me (j.k.) I have been doing my best to make Ed hate China, by introducing him to all of Beijing's public transport methods during a 32C morning rush hour(s - we actually clocked up an impressive 3) with 15kgs or so of backpack. However he seems fairly resilient to this treatment, so it is time for a trip to the food market methinks. Ed say: Just like to say that everything went extremely smoothly thanks to Joanna's knowledge of the local lingo, and basically it is a very relaxing place to be in. Having someone who can sort things out without having to draw pictures of a bus and get the compass out makes it even easier to navigate around than Islington, although the lack of mobile phone shops is getting a bit worrying. Had a really strange experience last night though. Having gone to the odd chinese restaurant or two, but notably the shabby Poon's in Queensway and Yue Wah of Tenbury fame, it was exceedingly-good-cakes weird to go to a Chinese restaurant last night where we were served by incomprehensible local who gave us good looking cheap tuck and all in an atmosphere of a gambling nature. Looking out the window into a not obviously chinese street it was sort of felt like home, a testimony to the authenticity of chinese restaurants back home. Now we are off to do more things, not e-mail. Beijing is excellent, what is the rest like?
Man with Chinese wife...
We have just decided to spend more time on doing things than doing e-mail, so this will be brief. Time for some more HTML knowledge demonstration, here is what we did yesterday:
Beijing is huge. It took a long time to do all that travelling yesterday, even with the aid of speed cycle carts. Most of it is either being built, knocked down, or both at once by badly paid men working in suits. Had some great experiences of locals though including comedy picture taking at t'Square and arguing with cycle bloke. It is a lot nicer weather today as it is just the hot bit, without the wetness, but still in double figures of heat.
[26-08-2000]
So. Well. Beijing is nice this time of year. It is remarkably hot and hard to get around, but then I gather that is a problem Freddie is having in Worcester at the moment, although he probably hasn't picked up an MSG addiction yet. Yesterday was a fairly uneventful day on paper, even though it felt like we did loads of stuff. Still had a jolly good time walking round and saying "herro laowai, yeah you go now, bye, ha ha" to every one I met, even though they had no idea what I was doing. Jjoh is getting a bit embarrassed by me now, especially when I start doing my remedial impression (which she does say is very good though :) Almost as good as my pole dancing on Beijing underground. Had a bit of a shocker yesterday as we managed to get down to a rather comic 2p between us to buy our way out of WangFuJing. It was enough to buy a small car though; everything is `cheeper cheeper' according to Jo. Didn't stop us cashing in the equivalent of 4 months worth of waitress' wages in travellers cheques this morning, which I still feel bad about (even though they made me sign each cheque 3 times just to check I was the same bloke as that greasy long haired ponce whose passport I have nicked). We reckon that things in china are 1/8th the price of Europe. Strange. Off to Pingyao by 15 hour train this arvo, so as any true chinaman would say: `Yeah, you go now laowai, bye, ha ha ha'.