Keyhan's China

I am not really sure to call this Keyhans China since I was just in Beijing and China is much more than just Beijing. But since I was just to that part of China then that is Keyhans China. Later on when I visit another places in China then I will add to this blog.

Everybody have their own picture of China. The picture in my mind was lots of people moving in big cities with old Chinese architecture mainly on bicycles. I guess I was both right and wrong.

Here are some pictures from the trip:



Entering Beijing
The plane arrived in Beijing air space around 8 am May 26th 2007. Before seeing the city from the above you could see the smog that surrounds the city. The new terminal 3 being built for 2008 Olympics looked magnificent just like my travel guide had said. The first thing that surprised me when the plane hit the tarmac at Beijing International airport was how big and crowded the airport was.

After getting the luggage and going through the passport control, me and my travel mate (Dr M from now on) took a taxi to the hostel that I had booked online earlier. On the highway to Beijing we got our first dose of Chinese culture. Some pickup trucks and minivans with back door open were driving not far from us. And some men inside these cars were shooting something with their video cameras. These cars would also stop at the exit lanes and film. Could it be that paparazzi culture had reached China? After some minutes I saw a wedding car passing us by and then I understood that these people were wedding photographers and camera men recording a Chinese wedding :-).

When we arrived at downtown Beijing I was surprised again. I did not expect so many cars in a city where my father had seen very few cars 20 years earlier. It was like in New York City.

The Hostel

The hostel we stayed out the first few days was situated in an old part of the city in a Hutong and was not as bad as the movie (The Hostel) wants you to believe. A Hutong is a group of Chinese styled houses sharing the same wall to the outside world. The more people living in a Hutong the poorer area it is. But there are also Hutongs with bigger houses in these areas and in them you can find shops, hostels and middle class Chinese people. Hutongs are being replaced by apartment buildings in Beijing in a fast rate today. One area with lots of Hutongs is the Hou Hai area of Beijing. The Hostel was located pretty close to Hou Hai.

In the Hostel I met some interesting back-packers from around the world. Americans, Australians and European tourists were in the cool inner yard of the hutong. I met a very happy (both to have been on adventure and on the way back to his girl friend) 19 years old Scot-German guy named Severin who had just returned from a Lhasa (Tibet) trip. He had made the trip by train and described how beautiful the scenery was from the train climbing up to 5000 m (15 000 feet) above the sea level. He was sad about the state which the Tibetan people are in. The Tibetans are in minority in Tibet since Chinese government subsidies Han Chinese to move there. They are in economic pressure and forced to beg to survive these days as I heard.

I also met an interesting French Canadian (J.C ;-)) with his beautiful Korean wife and friend and spent a long time discussing Asia and life in general. You meet lots of interesting people in hostels, so I recommend a Hostel instead of a hotel if you plan for adventure instead of business. The hostel was situated 4 km (2.5 miles) away from Tianamen square.

Bei Hai
First place to visit was the beautiful Bei Hai park just west of forbidden city. Old Chinese emperors knew how to make beautiful parks. A small lake with lots of beautiful scenery, beautiful trees and rocks and some classic Chinese architecture buildings. We had an imperial dinner in an island in center of Bei Hai for around $30 which is astronomical for regular Chinese people, but we did not know better, it was our first day there.

Walking to Tianamen and Forbidden City
The second day Me and Dr M walked towards the Tianamen square. We stopped to eat at a Muslim restaurant as my father had advised. "You know that you do not get cat or dog meat there since they are not Halaal (muslim Kosher)" as he put it. Well inside, it was difficult to decide what to eat since the food in the restaurants in China does not look like anything I have seen before. The menus were all in Chinese and nobody could speak English so I was hesitating to order. Dr M. ordered something that looked like a English Muffin and a couple of cookies and a spring roll.

While I was looking at the food and deciding what to eat a waitress approached our table and aerved us some food. It was similar to spaghetti but looked more like a sea weed than pasta (I guess because it was seaweed). She showed us that we had to dip the "spaghetti" into a bowl of sauce and then eat it. The "spaghetti" itself did not taste so much and had a rubber like consistency. The sauce was salty, really salty. So mixing these two would give you salty rubber. I tried a little but I could not eat a whole plate. Dr M was not so attracted to this dish either so we left it half eaten and paid for what we had ordered and got back on the way to Tianamen.

After some more blocks we arrived to an area with Shopping centers. I did not expect to see so many modern shopping centers as I did in Beijing. I have been to former communist countries like Hungry and Latvia before and I had seen big modern shopping centers there as well, but very few people did shop there. I guess it is because they can not afford the prices in there. But in Beijing the shops in the big malls do have customers. Dr M was in shopping mood and I was not so I left him in one of the shopping centers and walked towards Tiananmen and the forbidden city.

From that place on the streets were wide, very wide and so were the side walks. Width of the streets could be around 50 meters (150 feet) or a little bit more and side walks around 5 meters (15 feet). You could say we had left the pre-communistic and post-communistic Beijing and entered the Communistic styled Beijing. Next to the sidewalks there were lawns and next to them high rise buildings. People sitting on the edge of the lawn and the side walk were engaged in what seems to be hobby of Chinese people. They played cards or Go. Others just sat, smoked Chinese cigarettes, drank a beverage and had a discussion.

Before reaching Tiananmen an egg-shaped building on right hand side caught my eyes. It was the National Grand Theater. It is a high contrast between the Hutongs I left an hour earlier and this futuristic building.

There is also a high contrast between "the egg" and the Tianamen that is lying just east of it. The biggest square in the world as I had read in my travel guide so it was no surprise to me when I saw it. It is really big, could hold thousands and thousands of people. Around the square there are some communistic style buildings. On the North there is the forbidden city and on south there are the Qianmen buildings. And in the middle of it there is the Mao Mausoleum. Many people were sitting in the shade of the trees next to the square. Many Chinese come from outside the capital to Beijing during the weekends to see the tourist sites.

The square did not interest me so much so I went towards forbidden city. Passing the Mao Picture I checked it for any marks from the attack on it that took place some days before I made the trip. There was no sign of any injury so it must have been replaced. Close to the ticket sales of the forbidden city people started approaching and wanting to show me their university "art exhibition". These exhibitions are nothing but a way scam artists to sell arts much more expensive than buying them from other stores. These "exhibitions" exist not only outside the forbidden city but inside it as well. I knew about this trick so I continued walking towards the forbidden city.

Some steps further and I saw several beggars. Beggars in Beijing are attached to touristic sites. I do not recommend anyone to give money to a beggar . If you want to give money give it to local charities. The beggars in Beijing are most of the time handicaps. They are either blind, missing a limb or have a strange disease affecting their physics. I turned them down as I was waiting for Dr M. It gave me a feeling of guilt as always.

While waiting for Dr M. a Chinese man got my attention. He was there with his daughter and had a camera in his hand. I thought that he wanted me to take a picture of him with his daughter, but it turned out that he wanted me to be in the picture with his lovely daughter. Well I am a very generous guy as my friends would tell you so I accepted the offer to be in the photo album of my new friends.

Forbidden City
Forbidden city is so big and overwhelming that you can not grasp it. It is not so beautiful as it is powerful and majestic. The size of the squares inside, the number of buildings and the number of stairs leading to these buildings are enormous. The beautiful part of the forbidden city is imperial garden in the north side. One thing that I did not like was that the visitors could not see inside the palaces as they originally. The only places that were open to public were decorated modern just like any other gallery or museum. One day was too short for visiting forbidden city so we did a second visit some days later.

Nightclub Vics
Dr M. is a salsa lover. He does not dance salsa in clubs, just learns to dance in salsa classes and watches salsa. So he wanted to find a salsa club in Beijing where he might break the taboo and dance. The second night we were in Beijing we looked for a Latin dance club called ingeniously Latinos. Because the Beijing taxi drivers do not understand English at all and can not read maps we found ourselves in front of a place called Vics. Well this place is not a salsa place. It is pretty modern nightclub with 2 dance floors, one for hip hop/Soul and one for house. It was packed on a Saturday night mainly with children of Chinese elite and some tourists. Talking to Chinese people is almost hopeless since very few speak English so after some short tries I gave up :-).

Going to the rest rooms there was an interesting experience, the person responsible for the rest room led me to an unoccupied toilet. In the toilet next to me there were couple of young guys and one of them was throwing up. One could guess that they might be doing something illegal in there (drugs?).

Temple of heaven
Next place to visit was the Temple of heaven park. This is also a very beautiful park used for making sacrifices (killing and burning sheep) to please the god so that the harvest would be good. Lots of nice buildings and some very old trees can be found here.

One thing all tourist sites do have in common in Beijing is that they are not handicap friendly. Old Chinese gates have very high thresholds, so high that it is uncomfortable even for a young person to pass. In the park I met an old man on his wheelchair with his son pushing him towards one of these gates. I knew it would be impossible for them to pass the threshold without any help so I went forward and offered my help. The old man grabbed my hand with a steady grip and I helped him pass the threshold. His son carried the wheelchair pass the gate. As I was leaving the old man reached for my hand hold it firm and said something in Mandarin. I did not understood the words but well the meaning of them.

You do get a respect for the Chinese people when in China. They work hard and are very warm although reserved some times. I have even more respect for the old generation since they are the ones who have made this current growth possible by hard labor and lots of self sacrifice. They have worked very hard their whole life and now their children are getting the results. Of course there are less honorable Chinese people as you will find out later on, but then again they are everywhere.

The apartment
After being in the hostel for three days we found a person who let apartments closer to central parts of Beijing for the same price. We booked the apartment and moved. The place was close to the Chongwenmen metro station with shopping centers, McDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut around it. It was a bit like USA but just for a block. The new place was better situated but was not as charming as the hostel and no new friends to meet.

The Sting
I love the movie the Sting, both the plot and the actors. Most of the movies from Hollywood do not have any story and just show a lot of bad acting, explosions and hopefully some good sex scenes. But the Sting has a good plot, good actors, music, and you name it (no sex scene though). The name of the movie was something that I did not understood however.

After bringing our bags to the new apartment we got out of the apartment moving towards the Chongwenmen station. About 100 meters (300 feet) from the station I heard two girls speaking to us in English. They introduced themselves and we did the same. They said they are from a University just outside Beijing and were in Beijing to buy some books. They said they were going to work with 2008 Olympics organization next year so they wanted to practice their English.

They asked us where we were going and asked if they could join us. Dr M. was eager to so we said yes. One of the girls asked if we could take a taxi and We said that we were in Beijing to see the city and not to take a taxi. After a while Dr. M was thinking about the Taxi but I told him that I did not want so he did not do it either. They talked for a long time about their life and studies and asked if we want to drink something and I was really thirsty after walking for around 30 minutes in hot weather so I wanted to have a water or beer and so did Dr. M.

So we walked into a Cafe and were led to a room with a beautiful wooden table. In there we were asked if we wanted to have tea, but I declined and said I wanted something cool. I got my beer and Dr. M. got his beer. After a short while a girl came in the room with traditional clothes and started to talk about tea and how to drink tea and then made some tea for us and served us. It started to feel strange since we did not order any tea, but I did not think so much about it at the time. One of the girls started suddenly to talk about her love life. She had a boy friend that she had never kissed and did not love and she was with him because he was going to study in USA and her parents liked him. She had kissed many other boys in night clubs though. The girls in China are supposed to not have sex before the marriage and if they do the society would not respect them, so she would just kiss the other boys and not anything more.

After some chat we were tired of sitting and said we wanted to leave, so the waitress came with the bill. Here I want to thank the girls for teaching me the meaning of the word Sting. It was not the amount of the money because it was not that much really (it was a lot for tea.. especially in China), it was the feeling of humiliation that sting. That they have proved themselves to be more clever. It took me the rest of the day to recover from the sting. Looking at it now I actually am glad to have had that experience because sooner or later you are going to be had (we are actually being had by banks and insurance companies every day), better to learn from it in a cheap way. And we got a company and learned a lot about Beijing and drank some tea. I am talking crap, it still stings a little :-). So a warning for visitors to Beijing, do not go drink tea with strangers.

But as far as Dr M. was concerned that Cafe was expensive but there was no scam going on.

Bargain
One of main reasons for foreigners to come to Beijing is to do business. The big shopping centers are always packed with foreigners who want to make good deal, and the prices are very low compare to home. Places like silk market and pearl market have their own specialty on clothes respective electronics. One thing they do have in common is that they are places for bargaining. Salesmen would start the bidding at 10 times the price you really should pay and then you really have to bargain good to get to price that is the price a Chinese would pay. Every time I bought something I felt ripped of, but then again I paid maybe a quarter of what I would have paid for the same thing back home.

If the price of somethings are too low then it is better not to buy. Dr M. bought a memory card for his camera that cost quarter of the price compare to back home. The problem was that the card was fake and would not work after a while.

After buying a camera at silk market we met a new Chinese friend who suggested that never buy at the markets like this since you do not have any warranties. And after some days I did found the same camera slightly more expensive in a shop which looked much more legitimate. It is easier to find things in markets but it is better to search more and buy them in Shops.

More about my new Chinese friend. He is an artist who has his own studio. He does nice painting and calligraphy. Me and Dr. M bought some paintings from him. And before leaving he warned us for some girls on Tianamen who would take you to drink tea at a high cost. We smiled and nodded. Dr. M still did not believe that we had been had.

Lama Temple
Religion and religious institutions are not usually regarded with respect in a communistic country, and even less so in China during cultural revolution. During the cultural revolution many places of worship were destroyed and the clergymen were prosecuted and ridiculed. The Lama temple in which there were around 2000 monks and lamas living at its peak was shut down. Today the Beijing Lama Temple is home to around 100 monks. You find many Chinese who pray in front of different statues inside the temple. Monks meditate singing mantras in the main temple and bless the things bought by the people in the souvenir shops of the temple. And the smell of incense is every where. It is a tranquil place in middle of Beijing.

Great wall (Badaling)
You can not visit Beijing and miss the great wall of china. The great wall is not really great, it is long, really long. The wall starts north east of Beijing and continues all the way to western parts of China. It is around 6500 km (4000 miles). There are many tours going to Badaling from Beijing every day. We decided to take a bus just like all other Chinese to get there. Got of the subway and walked towards the exit and lots of people started to ask if we wanted to take taxi, but we did not, we wanted to take the bus to Badaling. They were not keen on telling us where to go or which bus to take to go to Badaling.

A little further we talked to a guard. He made sure that the taxi drivers could not see us first and then he wrote down the bus number and where to go to find the bus. The closer we were to the bus the lower the taxi fares become and the louder the taxi drivers were. Finally after 10 minutes walk we came to the bus station for bus 919 to Badaling. We paid the amount which was 1/20 of the Taxi fee and got on our way.

I was tired because we had got up early and walked a lot earlier that day in Tianamen so I was sleeping most of the journey. I would wake up and see glimpses of Beijing suburbs and then sleep. Little bit more than an hour later we were there. We got out of the bus and walked towards the wall. Now the taxi drivers wanted us to take taxi to the wall. We declined and walked for 5 minutes and came to the ticket shop for the wall. The weather was a little bit chilly so I was thinking of buying a sweater. But I did not and bought the ticket and took the stairs to the wall.

That day was foggy so the surroundings had a dream like effect. The view was breath taking occasionally. Walking on the wall I could see that the workers had done a remarkable job building it. So much stone and gravel pushed up the mountains and put in place without any machinery. And it had stood the test of time very well (with some repair of course). The wall follows the pattern of the ground beneath it, so it has always the same hight from the ground. The height of the wall is around 5-6 meters (15-18 feet) at Badaling and the thickness is about 3-4 meters (9-12 feet). Following the pattern of the ground means that the wall is as steep as the mountain it is on, so in some places it is very tough to walk upwards. In some places there are stairs and even normal size steps are not enough so you need to take giant leaps. I was happy that I did not bought the sweater because I was starting to sweat when climbing up the stairs.

A disappointing thing was that even on the wall we could not escape the salesmen selling t-shirts, arts and Rolex watches. When reaching a sharp downhill I saw two very big American girls walking ahead of us. I was wondering how their bodies allow them to come to this place. It must have been very tough for them walking up and down on the great wall. Some days later I saw 2 more huge American women walking in the forbidden city in a very hot day. I hope they continue these exercises back home.

After walking for an hour on the wall we had enough and went back to Badaling. There was a Great wall museum(cinema) there where me and Dr. M bought tickets to. Funny enough it was just the 2 of us in a cinema that had space enough for at least 100 people. In this cinema you follow the movie standing up. The curtain is 360 degrees around you so you could turn and watch all angles of scene at any time. The movie itself was from 70s but the history of great wall has not changed since then so I recommend the movie.

After watching the movie We went took the 919 bus to go back to Beijing. This time the bus was packed so we had to stay in a crowded bus for 1 hour and sit another hour since it was rush hour now in Beijing, it was an experience in itself. We stepped of in Beijing and went back to the apartment, resting and getting ready to go out clubbing.

The Suzie Wong Experience
Dr M. and me decided to go to a bar that was described in my travel guide as popular for expats. We took a taxi and showed the driver where we wanted to go. 20 minutes later we were dropped off in a street filled with bars and clubs. We could not find the Suzie Wong so we continued walking the street for a long walk. When we had reached the end of it we gave up and walked back again. On the way back we met 2 women and asked them in English the direction of the bar. They answered back in English but with a German accent. We had missed it when we had got out of the Taxi. So we walked to where we were dropped of and found it.

The place is said to be opium den styled. I do not know how they suppose to look like, but Suzie Wong did not look anything different than many clubs in Europe. Entering the bar we saw that it was packed. There were more exapts in there than Chinese people. But there was Chinese people in there as well, especially girls. As one could guess there were some older European and American men there with much younger girls in their arms. At least we could find people talking English here I thought. After ordering a Mojito and drinking it I started talking to a Chinese girl. She said her name was Angela (I guess it is not but it is a simplified form of her real name).

She talked about herself and her work and how much she hated Australians because they always lie. Her favorite place in Beijing was Hou Hai. She was there with her friend. They were both very beautiful. Her friend was much more relaxed but Angela seemed to be very eager to make impression of being a very ambitious and serious person. I asked her if we could meet again so she showed me around in Beijing. She got my number but never called it :-(. Maybe I did something wrong and do not remember. Well I hope she is not like those Australians.

Hou Hai
I do not know if it was because Angela's suggestion made an impact on me unconsciously or if it was plain fate but I found myself in Hou Hai the next day. Lets go back to beginning of the day. Me and Dr. M had discussed about visiting Hutong area north of the forbidden city. After reaching the subway station we started moving towards the hutong area and correctly enough we were there. We passed several areas with big hutongs, but it was pretty boring to stand outside big doors and walls and look into a hutong through a door opening. The door to one of the hutongs was open and I thought if we are not supposed to be there then we would know of it when someone see us so I stepped in.

Inside there were many houses. This was a bit poorer area. Some men sat and played cards and some women were going somewhere in the small alleys of the hutong. They were a little surprised to see me in there but I did not feel unwelcome so I continued. The houses in there were pretty small and the place looked like a low middle class area. But everything seemed pretty clean. The hutong I was in was pretty big. After walking for some minutes I found out that I could not find any other doors so I walked back to the door I had entered.

Exiting the hutong me and Dr.M continued walking till we got to Drum Tower. This building includes many old drums. They were used for ceremonies and for informing Beijing residents about the new year.

Getting up to the drum tower I had to go up steep stairs. I met a tired old women midway. Again, these old sites are not handicap friendly. Up in the tower itself, the view is beautiful. You have a 360 degrees panorama view over the central parts of Beijing. Inside the tower there are several drums. After some minutes some men and women started playing on the drums for a couple of minutes and then left. Apparently they play 10 minutes each 30 minutes. During the pauses they sat and play cards.
Turning in to small street we found ourselves in the most touristic shopping area of Beijing. This is the start of the Hou Hai area. Lots of shops selling souvenirs like paintings, Buddha statues, incenses, clothes and everything you can think of. I stopped in one of the stores where two tibetan sisters worked. They were pretty charming and they had many beautiful things to buy. I bought some stuffs for my sister and brother. The street lead to a small bridge. The bridge was above water connecting two small lakes to each other. The streets on each side of the bridge are full of restaurants and bars. Walking down the streets riksha drivers would call on you to take a ride and it is possible to rent a boat for a drive on the lake.

After walking through the Hou Hai for a while I was hungry and saw a Hot Pot restaurant in one of the hutongs next to the water. So me and Dr. M went to eat Hot Pot. This was the first time for me so I was not sure how to order. I ordered some beef and lamb, so the waitress came back with a pot and the beef and lamb meat. The hot pot works this way that you put the meat in the pot that is filled with boiling water.
When it has boiled you take it out and dip it in a sauce and eat it. It was not as tasty that I had imagined but it was ok. After eating it was dark outside. The scenery next to the water had changed. There were many restaurants next to the water and now the colorful lamps on their walls were lit. It was a very cool, nice atmosphere.

Coming back to the apartment we decided to find the Salsa Club Latinos once again. After walking for an hour and not finding anything we went back to Suzie Wong. From there we took a taxi back to the apartment with a real nut taxi driver. He could not find the metro station where we lived at and that is really central, when we looked at the picture of the taxi driver license in the car it did not match the driver. So this guy was not even a taxi driver. He could not find anything in Beijing even if his life was depending on it.

Niujie Mosque
The day started with me walking to Qianmen, there I met the famous doctor. He was in shopping mood and I was not so we decided to split again. I decided to go to Fayuan Temple and Niujie Mosque which are pretty close to each other so I took the metro got of the wrong station and started to walk about 3 km (2 miles) needed to get to the Temple. At the entrance of the temple I found some beggars. I bought the tickets and entered. In there I could find a smaller copy of the Lama temple that I had visited earlier. The same kind of statues and smell of incense.

I left the temple and walked towards the mosque. I could see that I was in muslim neighbourhood by the white hats the Muslim men wared and by the Arabic signs on the doors of restaurants and slaughter houses saying that the meat was halaal. For the first time in Beijing I had walked to a neighbourhood that was not commercial or touristic. It was a relaxed neighbourhood, not that much different from rest of Beijing but you could feel that something was different.

It is very beautiful when to cultures meet. The fruit of the meeting is always beautiful like Alhambra in Spain or Taj Mahal in India and so was the Niujie Mosque. The Niujie mosque is a little bit more than 1000 years old. Its architecture style was similar to the temple I had just left, but small details were different. On a Buddhistic temple there are picture of buddhas, dragons or other mythical figures drawn on the walls of the temple. On the mosque walls they are changed to pictures of trees, flowers and other natural things. Also the mosque has a nice garden at the entrance. The temples did not have any gardens.

At the entrance where I bought the ticket I was greeted by Salam Alaikum instead of the Chinese Ni Hao. I answered with the same. I was asked to point out where I am from on a world globe, but the person that asked to seemed not to know anything about the country anyhow. I passed the garden and came to the main part of the building. From here I could access the prayer hall, the mosque shop and kitchen and mens rest room. Before saying a prayer a Muslim must wash his face, feet and hands so that is why the rest rooms need to be close to the prayer hall.

There were some tourists standing just outside the prayer hall since there was a sign there asking non Muslims not to enter the prayer hall. Well I entered the hall took of my shoes and put them on a rack. The janitor and what seemed to be the head of the mosque where coming out of the prayer hall. "Salam Alaikum" I said to them. "Alaikomo Salam" They answered. The head of the mosque asked in English where are you from brother. I answered and he said something like welcome and then left. Inside the prayer hall was very beautiful. There were Arabic Calligraphy written on all the walls but the colors are not the colors you would find in a mosque in middle east. They were red, green and golden.

At the end of the prayer hall there was what is called "Mehrab", the place where the imam leads the prayer. There was a wooden wall filled with beautiful Arabic calligraphy and a beautiful chinese style roof on it.

There is a small graveyard in the Mosque. Two of the old Imams are buried there. Their name suggests that they originated from Bukhara and Ghazvin. They were two cities in Old Persia. Today Bukhara is in Uzbekistan and Ghazvin is in Iran. It must have been an adventure to leave Persia and move to Beijing in that time.

Exiting the mosque I found myself in front of the most persistent beggars you may find, so I finally gave in and handed them little money. But now they were even more persistent so I speed up and they started chasing me. They gave up after a while and I walked back towards the subway station.

Summer Palace
The summer palace is not specially old compared to forbidden city or the great wall, but it is the most beautiful site to visit in Beijing. It is located 10 km (6 miles) outside the central parts of the city, and it must be visited when the weather is clear so you do not miss the scenery.

Earlier that day me and Dr.M took a taxi to summer palace. Many people at the entrance of course. After entering it took a while till we reached the water and saw the scenery. Not many palaces could be more beautiful than this. I did walk a lot that day but it was worth it. So many lush gardens, beautiful colors and architecture, boats gliding slowly on the lake, and people in nice mood singing Chinese songs in the park.

First I went through a couple of old style Chinese houses with antiques inside belonging to the empress who lived in the palace. The empress herself seemed to be not such a good person. She dethroned her husband because he wanted to give more power to his people by reform. Passing those buildings I started to climb a hill. Hearing people singing I followed their voice to a beautiful pavilion where I found many men and women singing Chinese songs. It was like a famous painting with people having a party on a pavilion next to water.

Then I continued upward and reached a big building where another group was singing. Sitting there I rested for a short while enjoying the nice atmosphere. Then I continued to yet another building and from there I reached the other side of the hill. On the back side of the hill there were many smaller buildings attached to each other. I could see that these were temples. Walking through them I was stopped again by a group of Chinese to be in their picture. From there I went to the main Temple which is the biggest building in the palace. According to the information on some signs all the buildings in the palace had been rubbed and burned by the English and French during the colonial times (18 to late 19th century). The main temple contains a thousand arms Buddha statue(rather 10-20 arms). It also has a very beautiful view to the whole park.


From there I started to descend. I went down to the water and started to go around it. In the beginning there were many shops around. After a while a white marble boat caught my eyes. I guess it really do not float and it was used as a pavilion. Continued walking and reached a beautiful park where I bought an ice cream and continued walking for 1 hour to do 1 lap around the whole lake. During that time I did also visit the small island in the middle of the lake which is also very beautiful and quiet.

Getting out of the palace we took a bus back to Beijing. Coming back we decided to try to find Latinos again.

Latinos At Last
Dr M. had found a map online that showed where to go to find Latinos. Taking a taxi we got to a place that was on the map and from there we navigated our way to Latinos night club. The night club itself was not so much interesting, a bar and a dance floor. The interesting thing was to watch Chinese people dancing Latin dance with great finesse. Most of the dancers in there danced very well. So of course Dr. M felt that he could not dance in there. I myself has no salsa experience beside trying it once half drunk. After 50 minutes of watching people dancing I had enough and left.

Last Day in Beijing
So we came to the final day of our visit. We had been to different parts of Beijing and there were many sites that I had not seen. There were also couple of days when we did nothing special. The first visit to forbidden city did not cover everything so we decided to visit it once more. The weather was really hot that day and also humid. Walking in the sun was really tough and we did walk a lot.

After a couple of hours we had seen a lot but still there was more things to see. I really did not want to walk more in the heat so we took the metro to the silk market for a last day shopping. Then we took the train back to the apartment. After resting for a short while we took a walk to another shopping area and did some more shopping. We found a couple more people who wanted to take us to drink some tea or maybe it is better to say that they found us. They really wanted to show us the beautiful tea place but we decided we had enough tea in Beijing.

On the way back we stopped in a luxurious shopping center and had a coffee with cheese cake. Walking a way from the shopping center I could hear traditional music playing live. It was a blind man sitting with his very young daughter in front of him playing. They looked so happy together laughing. I did not have my camera with me otherwise I would have taken a picture.

Last words
The idea about this blog was born in my mind when I was sitting on the plane back from Beijing. I wanted to write down the experiences I had in my memory so I would remember the journey later on. I wanted also to share my experiences with you dear reader.

So how was Beijing you ask? The most striking thing with Beijing is its contrasts. The contrast between communistic Tianamen with Mao and the modern shopping centers with Ferrari and Porsche shops in them. The people driving high end Mercedes cars and people driving rusty boxed in bikes. Also another thing is that Beijing never sleeps, walking down the streets at 3 am you see people working on construction sites. Boys and girls kissing and holding each other on the park benches and some 24 hr restaurants open with some students inside reading their books.

The earth has become a smaller place. The people in Beijing dress the same way most westerners do and they watch similar TV programs and listen to similar music. But there are small differences still. A mother would pull down her babies pants so he would piss freely in a metro train in public or a woman would hurl and spit or even burp on the street. Group of old men and women having music and dance activities in front of shopping malls. Bank security official with a helmet and a machine gun guarding inside a bank, construction workers playing football with their safety helmets. These things happen in Beijing every day and are hard to miss.

I had a nice time in Beijing and writing this travel report. I hope to go to China once more and visit other parts of this huge country.

good bye.