Beautiful Beijing

Hey all....
I know it's been a while for me to write. I tried and tried to log in to Blogger while I was in Beijing, but it was just blocked. That's one of the joys of China. Many, many websites are simply not available. Even basic ones like my site. I guess it's something you get used to. There is nothing about my Blog that says anything bad about China...so I don't know why.

Anyways, I really liked Beijing. It was my first time there, of course. And I know enough now, that the first time I am anywhere, I like it a lot. I thought that about Shanghai when I was there last year...and now that I've returned to it, I was less enamored with it. That said, I think there was a lot of polish and charm about Beijing, that I would like to return and see it again in detail.

There were a number of things that impressed me about Beijing. I think the strongest impression was just how big it is. The place is freakin HUGE! Seriously, it must be one of the largest cities I've been to, in square miles. And there is no real center of town. So everything is quite spread out, and it can take a long time to get anywhere. Another thing that impressed me was the sheer volume of monuments and amazing buildings. And since this is the capital city, there was every country's Embassy too.

Since I was only in Beijing for a short visit, I spent all of my time touring the 'must see' areas of the city. Those included the Forbidden City, Tian'an Men Square, the Hutongs, and the Great Wall. All of them were impressive - without exception. When I arrived in the Forbidden City, I had a rough idea of the scale of it, but even with advance reading, I was still surprised at how big it was. I spent a few hours there, but could have easily spent the whole day. There is a LOT to see. Though eventually, all the palaces/temples/shrines begin to look alike. It was seriously crowded too, mostly with Chinese nationals. I saw very few white people. As I was taking photos, I quickly learned that I will rarely get a shot of a part of the monument without people in it, so the people became the photo.

Tian'an Men Square was also impressive. It's very, very large. So large in fact, that you could drive tanks down it. (OK, Now I KNOW my blog will be banned in China.) I enjoyed wandering the square, and seeing all the Chinese people showing their patriotism. I had Peking Duck for lunch - I figured that it was a 'must eat' food. It was super greasy and fatty. No wonder it is so popular. After this, I went to see the Olympic venues, like the Bird's Nest Stadium and the Water Cube. The Stadium is seldom used now. Last week, they staged the first event in it since the Olympics. And that was a concert hosted by Jackie Chan. The Water Cube was closed to tourists, but that was fine, since the beauty of that building is on the outside.

On the next day, I hired a car and driver and took a long 2.5 hour drive to a portion of the Great Wall that is not popular with tourists. Since this is my first visit to the Wall, I thought it would be best to see it where it is not littered with khaki panted chubby tourists. The area I went to was virtually deserted. I saw about 6 other people there - it was perfect. The climb up to the Wall was slow and steep. It's on the top of a mountain, after all. I was quite tired and had to rest several times, as it was quite hot out, too. But getting to the top was worth the long climb up. It was a little hazy for photographs, but it was an amazing place to be. One more thing I can cross off my list of To-Do's in life.

On my final day, I toured the famous 798 Art Gallery area and some small hutongs. Hutongs are the small neighbourhoods made from skinny alleys linking courtyard homes together. Beijing is slowly knocking down whats left of these areas and replacing them with tall towers. The neighbourhood I visited was pretty touristy, though. You could tell it was designed to attract tourists. But I still enjoyed it.


Overall, my impression of Beijing was favourable. It was a huge, and very modern city. They clearly spend a lot of money taking care of it. I would like to see it again.

I am now back in Singapore for a little while. Singapore is one of those places that is hard to like. It's clean and organized (good qualities, I guess), but it just doesn't feel very Asian to me. It could be anywhere in Canada. More about it later, I guess.