Pre-olympic check-up and lots more!

Hello everyone!

Very much against what I’ve been doing the last three months, this message will be in English. I didn’t have the chance to write something on my own computer, and here there’s no way that I can set word to accept my Dutch and changes everything I write into half English. So that’s why, sorry for those who think this is a little inconvenient. For me it is, now I don’t have to write two stories….

To start off: I’m glad everyone seemed to have enjoyed the Ice Lantern Festival photos. Nothing like the real thing though! Thea: there’s more where that came from! Michiel: never thought of it (didn’t have lego at all), but now you mention it, yes, it’s very much alike!

And yes, ‘ni hao’ (or ‘nee hao’ in English, I don’t know) means something like ‘hello’ or ‘good day’. Anke: thanks for the tip; it has helped me out a couple of times already!

First impressions of Beijing: Don’t worry about the Olympics, the Chinese have everything under control. Nothing like the Russians said! It’s a pretty clean city, except of course for the air, but at the moment that is not too bad either. And: Nine million bicycles, I bet they are all here, but where did they hide them? It’s not the bicycle Mekka I expected.

So, after my last entry, Georgia and I went to have some diner. We were looking for a specific place, but couldn’t find it. We ended up at the main shopping street, like the ones you can find anywhere… We immediately spotted a foreign language book store, and Georgia has to go back there to buy some decent books, as that’s not possible in Vlad. After that, we went into a small ally and were treated to a free opera performance. It was a market, and on a roof nearby someone sang opera! We had diner right there and were gazed at by the waiters and waitresses. I guess most tourists don’t actually stop at that place. The food was amazing, as expected. Noodles and dumplings, how could it go wrong? After that we headed home, but on the way we, or better say, I found out the true blessing of a picture dictionary (Wouter en Anneke: redders in nood!!). I already had to pee, and then somehow (Lost in translation: ‘lip my stockings!’) we had a terrible laugh and I could hardly hold it. The first restaurant didn’t understand our ‘toilets?’, and the dictionary saved the day (pants).

The next day we took a trip to the Forbidden City, of course a not to miss spot in Beijing. It was very beautiful (see the amount of photos – if they are not there, blame the slow internet. They will come eventually!). The only thing was that the Lonely Planet had promised us an automatic guide with the voice of ‘former 007 Roger Moore’, but instead we got stuck with a Chinese voice. Too bad, I would have loved to hear him explaining me everything about the Forbidden City!

After that, we thought we deserved a nice body massage. The place we wanted to have one was hard to find, and only after consulting about 10 very surprised Chinese people we finally found the spot. Such an ordeal, but all very much worth it! We were planning on a 45 minute massage, because we were supposed to be back at the hostel at 6.20, to go to the opera. After 45 minutes our masseuses asked us if we wanted 90 minutes, and neither of us was even able of saying no…

We thought a taxi would get us back to the hostel in time (it was six o’clock by then), but unfortunately traffic was bad and we were back at seven. We ladies at the hostels told us we could still make it, so we rushed into another taxi and barely made it, not entirely in time, but we were there. Sad to say, the performance was a little disappointing. It was in a hotel, not in THE Beijing opera house. In our opinion it was not the best opera either, but we enjoyed it anyway. There were ‘subtitles’ (at both sides of the stage) so it was understandable. The outfits of the singers (although they barely sang) were magnificent!

After the performance we took a taxi to the place we had been looking for the day before. We had a very nice meal (I had Peking duck!!), but I had a horrible scare when I saw the bill… O well, I’ll live, but even in the Netherlands I’ve hardly had diner that expensive! Back at the hostel we had a couple of beers in the lounge, but we were not in very good company. A bunch of very loud and rude American boys were being annoying and thought they were o so funny. Of course we didn’t let them ruin our night, and ignoring is pretty effective!

Wednesday we had plans to go on a tour to the Great Wall, but waking up, Georgia felt horrible and we had to cancel. The plan is to go tomorrow now. Luckily she didn’t feel bad enough to stay in all day. She just wanted some more sleep. I went to Coal Hill by myself, and after that we had the day together. Coal Hill is a hill right across from the Forbidden City, and I was promised a nice view of the whole thing. Entering the park I saw crowds of people doing all sorts of morning exercises, it was hilarious to see. I climbed up as fast as I could, in order to be able to make pictures before the sun was too high. I was late already, and most of the view consisted of the very first gate, which was entirely under construction. Georgia didn’t miss out much, that’s the good part! I walked down again. The park was filled with people. There was singing and badminton going on everywhere. I felt like summer! By the way, the weather here is perfect. The sun is shining all day long and it’s really not all that cold.

When exiting the park I saw a man doing calligraphy on the floor, with a sort of brush and plain water (Anke, bi is toch water?). He ended up writing ‘Holland’ for me after I had attempted to write it down. I guess practice makes perfect, I hadn’t had any… When I got back to the hostel we still had pretty much the whole day ahead of us. We first went to the Temple of Heaven, which was a beautiful and breathtaking experience. The Temple is a complex of a couple of temples, laid out in a very beautiful park. It was quiet, green, held lots of birds and of course the temples were definitely worth visiting.

We made it into a ‘temple day’, because after that we went to the Lama Temple and we also planned on going to the Confucius Temple. We weren’t allowed to take photos inside the actual temples (the Lama Temples is just like the Temple of Heaven, a whole group of them), so I can’t show you the Buddha statues. There were a lot of people practicing their religion, so I really didn’t want to ignore the rules! What I can say about the temple: it smelled like incense, it was (yeah really, again!) very beautiful and Georgia almost converted (she bought a string of those prayer beads).

When we got to the Confucius Temple we found the entire complex under construction, but we still had to pay. We passed on that one and decided the day was plenty religious as it was. We took a subway to another part of town, where a very good hot pot restaurant was supposed to be. This time, asking the locals didn’t really work, we were sent in various directions and we finally just took a taxi, who took us to the place. We had a wonderful meal. China is really working for me! Lot’s of mushrooms, beef and tofu for Georgia (I’m still not a fan of that kind of meat replacement).

That night we ended in the hostel’s lounge again, this time in much better company. We met Joe (from Sidney), and Eduard (from Barcelona). They were a lot of fun to hang out with and Eduard wanted to take us all to a, according to him, very nice club. Who knows, I might be able to tell you about it soon.

Today we went to the Summer Palace. We thought we would be out of there in no-time, because we’ve seen so much Chinese architecture by now, we thought we would be able to run through it pretty fast. No such thing! If you want to be negative, you could say that the Forbidden City and the Lama Temple are a collection of the same stuff, one after the other. This palace however was a totally different thing. It’s build around a manmade lake, and the view was breathtaking. Again, I hope I can post the photos and you can also enjoy…

After so much culture it was time for some girly things, and shopping was the obvious answer. We went to the ‘Silk Street Market’. We didn’t buy any silk, but jewelry we did get! What can I say; a girl wants to look nice… We had plans to go to a nice place for diner, but we weren’t hungry, so that’s how we ended up at the hostel pretty early. We had some laundry to do, and I had plenty to tell (as you can see). Tonight we’re going in early; we have to get up at six to see the Great Wall. I’m very excited about seeing it. Will tell you all about it later!

Lots of love and hugs,
Celine