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Explorer Marco Polo and his two brothers departed for China from Venice after receiving gifts from Pope Gregory X. In other news, Stephen and I depart on the 220 Bus from Hammersmith with an oyster card and an e-ticket.
Terminal 5, Heathrow's newest, is remarkably serene. If they piped in some Delibes over the sound system it truly would be a real life version of the BA adverts. Passengers calmly pass through the short queues for check in and security beneath the terminal's giant arched roof. It's all a million miles away (well, four) from the fracas in a tin shack that is Terminal 4. We spend some time in the bookshop and I have time to pick up a China travel guide and some Imodium before boarding the Boeing 747 bound for Beijing.
Alternating between sleeping and listening to as many of Beethoven's 9 symphonies as one can on a 10 hour flight, I dream on ahead to Beijing…the Terracotta warriors…the mountains of Guilin…Shanghai…
What I most definitely wasn't dreaming of yesterday was being really quite cold. It's 5C in Beijing as we land and I'm glad I'm still dressed relatively warmly from Britain. One's blood is nonetheless chilled by the sight of a wide-eyed Stephen hopping into the driver's seat of a 3 litre Audi A4.
A light snow falls under thick grey skies, doing little to lighten the bleak industrial landscape that lies between Beijing Airport and the city proper. Some factories of clearly tried to lighten things up a bit by painting their roofs blue, though it is still very much a regimented and ugly area.
Many will be familiar with the fact that Northerners love hotpots. Just because I'm in a different country now doesn't change that fact- as my first meal of the holiday is indeed a hotpot. This, however, is not the fare you'd expect Betty from the Rover's to be knocking up: An ornamental pot filled with boiling water is placed in the centre of the table and successive plates of raw meat and vegetables fill the remaining space. The idea, put simply, is one of cook-your-own.
Much fun ensues as I attempt to master the art not just of eating with chopsticks, but also that of dipping, cooking and fishing with them too. Given that my experience with chopsticks is limited to a few meals in Wagamama's it doesn't really go too well and Stephen laughs at my misfortune/incompetence.
We drop our cases at Stephen's parent's flat, which is located opposite the Olympic site where the famous Bird's Nest and Water Cube stadia lie.
Later in the afternoon we take a stroll around Beijing's 'hutongs' (literally meaning 'well', the traditional heart of a community). The network of alleyways winds and zigzags its way around the area south of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. They represent an important part of Beijing's heritage and reflect the culture of the ordinary citizens in Imperial China.
We take a glimpse inside one, where a short man in his 40s welcomes us into what has been his family's home for 5 generations. He began opening it up to tourists when the Olympics were held in Beijing last summer. It is neatly kept, with four separate rooms surrounding the central quadrangle.
The tranquil street scenes are frequently obliterated by the clattering of mass convoys of rickshaws ferrying tour groups around on a high speed tour of the hutongs' narrow passages. The company operating the rickshaws, Beijing Sightseeing Tours, employs some of the most 'enthusiastic' salespeople I have ever encountered. One follows us for near a mile in attempt to sell a £2 ticket for a ride. I think he gave up once he realised that in his pursuit we'd actually walked the entire length of the tour already.
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