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A slow but noisy bus journey gave us our first impressions of Beijing; dusty, enormous, chaotic and not quite finished. After leaving the well-apointed hostel, we stepped out into baking 35 degree heat, bought a 20p subway ticket and headed towards Tiananmen Square. At this point, we hadn't counted on the 20th anniversary of the massacre, but when we were stopped and asked for our passports, we knew something was going on. And indeed, on that day, the main part of the square was cordoned off for security reasons. Fortunately we were able to return a few days later...the various state monuments, buildings, obelisks and pictorial sculturals were suitably imposing.
In the far north of central Beijing, the Bird's Nest was well worth the 40 min subway. We spent a whole afternoon walking around...not only is the stadium stunning, but it's clear that the Chinese wanted to show off during the Olympics, because of the amount of new and crazy buildings in the area is a sight to behold. Ben got a little carried away with pretending to Usain Bolt!
We visited all the major sights in Beijing: Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, Forbidden City...all of them featuring beautiful ancient Chinese architecture as seen in the pics, but it's been just as interesting seeing people going about their everyday lives.
Chinese people like to stare; even more than Germans! They particularly like to stare at Claire; pale, ginger and freckly - probably quite alien to the Chinese! One group of Chinese lads asked for a photo of Ben, but many more have sidled up and taken one surreptitously. One man today took a whole albums worth of us.
Chinese women seem unfailingly courteous, quite timid and friendly, whereas Chinese men give the impression of being quite aggressive and single-minded. They also like to spit everywhere!
Chinese driving is scary! It is almost impossible to cross the road (even when the green man is on) without having to dodge out of the way of a car/bus/bike. Happily however, today we were almost ploughed into on a crossing by a speeding taxi, but seeing our exageratted dodge, a policeman in a buggy sped after the culprit and apprehended him.
Food! Weird but wonderful! In restaurants you can get a lot of food you would recognise at home, however it is usually a bit different and a lot spicier. Street food is undoubtably better though....a whole meal at a hutong bbq (any meat or veg imaginable on a skewer) cost about 50p. Other favs include egg and spring onion pastries, chinese pizza, various bread products, dumplings, etc...we've also been offered snake, bugs, live scorpions, sea horses, starfish and lamb testicles! Ben tried a chicken's foot, which looked more like a monkey's hand but tasted quite nice, if a little chewy.
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