Beijing

Thursday: [        ] the word in the brackets is Beijing. What’s that? You didn’t see anything? Well that would be because it was obscured by smog! Wow, you look out across the buildings and you can’t see 3 kms and its impossible to tell if its foggy, cloudy or smoggy. But my money’s on the latter. It seems so thick that if it were raining I don’t think it would reach the ground for 20 minutes while the droplets made their way through. Enough about that. WOW this place is big. Beijing airport is HUGE! You know you’ve landed at a big airport when the gate number is 525, the baggage carousel is 57, and there’s at least 3 parallel runways. Terminal 3 was built for the Olympics and they’ve decided it’s already reached capacity so they are building another airport.

The building to the left is the 44 storey Chinese Central Television building, completed in 2008.

By the way, I've had to write some of the blog by emails as the Beijing Government doesn't allow access to blogs or YouTube for anyone  (can't have anyone expressing an opinion not sanctioned by the Government can we). The Shanghai Government isn't as fussy though.

Beijing is the worlds 9th most populouse city with about 20 million people. These stats are always a bit rubbery as it depends on where you draw the boundaries.

Apart from the smog, which they say is equivalent to smoking 10 cigarettes a day, I like Beijing.The streets are wide and tree-lined, the people quite friendly, and although drivers don't seem to be aware what pedestrian crossings are for, its not as perilous as some other cities. The city is clean and feels very safe. The language barrier hasn't been that bad as young people in China usually learn English and they are usually the ones serving in shops. Taxi drivers are a different story so usually the hotel has to write down where you want to go.

Other interesting buildings are those built for the 2008 Olympics, the Birds Nest Stadium and the National Acquatic Centre Water Cube.

[Saturday] Today we visited the Great Wall at Mutianyu. This site is a little less touristy than the usual site Badaling but it has a chair lift to the top which certainly helped. The Great Wall is actiually a series of walls built between 5th century BC and 16th Century AD (to keep the rabbits...er, Mongols out) and stretches over 6,200kms. Early versions of the wall weren't as secure so the wall was strengthened over time by successive dynasties. Its only once you are walking on it that you get a sense of the tremendous scale of the task of building it. As you probably know, it follows the line of the hill and when walking it becomes quite steep in places. When there are steps, these are angled to allow for rain to run off into gutters.There were locals selling water and beer along the top. It was a hot day but a beer before 9am is taking it a bit far.

After the Wall we came back into Beijing and went to the Forbidden City. Built in 1406 it housed emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. It has 980 buildings and covers 720,000sqm. Its been restored recently and attracts millions of visitors each year. Its 961m long and 753m wide, and surrounded by 8m high walls and a 52m wide moat. I didn't spend too much time here as most of the buildings look the same (seen one seen 'em all), however the gardens are nice and artefacts are interesting.

Just next to the Forbidden City (which for 60RMB isn't that forbidden anymore) is Tian'anmen Square - known more as being the site of the 1989 student riots and the massacre of nearly one thousand young Chinese people. The protests had being going for seven weeks before the Premier sent tanks into the square to disperse the protesters. Many will remember 'tank man' who stood in the path of one of the tanks. Despite the rumours, tank man was not run over but pulled aside by friends.

One session I attended had a panel of University students talking about retail brands they like, whether they'll stay in China and the like. Someone asked the question 'were they aware of the student riots at Tian'anmen Square?' They were aware that 'something' happened but they've never seen film or read anything about it due to Government censorship of the incident.