I get into Beijing and head straight for the Mongolian embassy. It only takes about an hour to find. It might have been easier to get all the visas before I left but that would probably have taken me longer and Japan would have kicked me out of the country. I'm glad I'm going East to West and not the other way around, as I gather the embassies are stricter, pickier and grumpier in the UK and in Russia. Visa issues sorted for the day, I spend the next two hours trying to decide what to have for breakfast, by which time it's really rather closer to lunch. This is the beauty of travelling with no fixed schedule, you can give breakfast the due care and consideration it deserves in a country with such great food. Mysterious pastries, as it turns out. I'm sure they have a better name, but for me with my pathetic command of the Chinese language, mysterious pastries they shall have to remain.
Later I walk around the lake near the forbidden city and get lost (again) in the hutongs. This is a more commercially developed area, and it is impossible to walk 3 steps without someone offering me a rickshaw ride. Do I really look so decrepit?
Friday, May 25, 2007
Monday April 2nd
Shanghai again, and I don't like it any more the second time around. I think maybe because it's so big, and the weather always seems to be crappy, and I don't have a sense of how the city works. I don't know. Shanghai doesn't make sense to me, and my heart belongs to Beijing. On my way into the city centre, I pass old people doing Tai Chi in a square. So far, so Chinese. Then a group doing what seems to be cheerleading with pom poms, and they are led by the campest Chinese fellow I have ever seen. Then a squad doing an elegant dance with fans, similar to dances I've seen in Thailand and Japan. My favourite though were the fifty or so people, young and old, on the steps of the Oriental Shopping Plaza at 7.30 a.m. doing ballroom dancing. I've learned that since the medical care in China isn't always accessible to the poorest people but free Tai Chi or ballroom dancing is, most people take a 'prevention is better than the cure' attitude to their health. This explains why I see old ladies stretching their muscles, one foot up on the back on the bench on the street, and touching their toes.
I'm nearly out of money but can't change anything until I get my passport back at 12.30. I try showing the bank my receipt from the Russian embassy explaining that they have my passport, or a photocopy of my passport, but they must have the real thing for pointless beaurocratic reasons unspecified. I sulk, drink coffee, and read my book. When I am too wired from all the coffee I go back to sulking. I'm not particularly in the mood today, it's hard work getting around a strange city that either doesn't speak your language or will follow you for six blocks trying to practice it before embarking on an elaborate scam to separate you from your dollars.
Finally I get my passport, my Russian visa is all present and correct and I even got a smile from the girl behind the desk. The day is looking up. I have some nice conversations with people who do just want to practice their English and not steal my money, and speaking of which Shanghai bank is all sweetness and light when I can produce my passport to change some cash. This is good news, because now I can buy a train ticket, catch the train with a whole 4 minutes to spare and get back to Beijing.
I'm nearly out of money but can't change anything until I get my passport back at 12.30. I try showing the bank my receipt from the Russian embassy explaining that they have my passport, or a photocopy of my passport, but they must have the real thing for pointless beaurocratic reasons unspecified. I sulk, drink coffee, and read my book. When I am too wired from all the coffee I go back to sulking. I'm not particularly in the mood today, it's hard work getting around a strange city that either doesn't speak your language or will follow you for six blocks trying to practice it before embarking on an elaborate scam to separate you from your dollars.
Finally I get my passport, my Russian visa is all present and correct and I even got a smile from the girl behind the desk. The day is looking up. I have some nice conversations with people who do just want to practice their English and not steal my money, and speaking of which Shanghai bank is all sweetness and light when I can produce my passport to change some cash. This is good news, because now I can buy a train ticket, catch the train with a whole 4 minutes to spare and get back to Beijing.
Sunday April 1st
Birthday of fools and Lisas everywhere.
I get up late, go for lunch with Maria and eat a prodigious amount of food. Fried beef, fried pumpkin, rice, shredded potato, soup, and green tea from a wobbly teapot Maria insists we turn to face away from us.
"It's unlucky if the spout faces you."
"What about the people on the other table?"
"They can handle it."
Then we waddle to the nearby Laama temple, a Tibetan Buddhist temple. Apparently its presence demonstrates the Chinese government's tolerance and inclusiveness. After all if there is a Tibetan temple in Beijing, Tibet must be Chinese. Or so this theory goes.
I collect my stuff before catching the train to Shanghai to get my passport back. I thank Maria and Raphaela for all their kindness.
"What will you do after you go back to Shanghai?"
"I'm going to come back to Beijing for a while, I feel like there's still a lot to see."
"Where will you stay?"
"Just a hostel probably."
"You can't stay in a hostel, come back here."
"That's very kind, but I feel like I'm getting in the way of your work. I mean, I'm sleeping in your office."
"I insist."
Maria insists, and I have somewhere to stay in Beijing when I come back. I'm amazed by how generous she and Raphaela have been with their house and their time.
I make it to the station with at least two minutes to spare and get on the train back to Shanghai. My compartment holds the usual assortment of three bewildered Chinese businessmen who don't quite know what to make of a foreign female travelling alone. In the next compartment there are some Americans who I drink a beer with in the restaurant car, but they talk so loudly I have to escape back to the relative peace and quiet of the snoring, snorking, gnark gnarking Chinese businessmen.
I get up late, go for lunch with Maria and eat a prodigious amount of food. Fried beef, fried pumpkin, rice, shredded potato, soup, and green tea from a wobbly teapot Maria insists we turn to face away from us.
"It's unlucky if the spout faces you."
"What about the people on the other table?"
"They can handle it."
Then we waddle to the nearby Laama temple, a Tibetan Buddhist temple. Apparently its presence demonstrates the Chinese government's tolerance and inclusiveness. After all if there is a Tibetan temple in Beijing, Tibet must be Chinese. Or so this theory goes.
I collect my stuff before catching the train to Shanghai to get my passport back. I thank Maria and Raphaela for all their kindness.
"What will you do after you go back to Shanghai?"
"I'm going to come back to Beijing for a while, I feel like there's still a lot to see."
"Where will you stay?"
"Just a hostel probably."
"You can't stay in a hostel, come back here."
"That's very kind, but I feel like I'm getting in the way of your work. I mean, I'm sleeping in your office."
"I insist."
Maria insists, and I have somewhere to stay in Beijing when I come back. I'm amazed by how generous she and Raphaela have been with their house and their time.
I make it to the station with at least two minutes to spare and get on the train back to Shanghai. My compartment holds the usual assortment of three bewildered Chinese businessmen who don't quite know what to make of a foreign female travelling alone. In the next compartment there are some Americans who I drink a beer with in the restaurant car, but they talk so loudly I have to escape back to the relative peace and quiet of the snoring, snorking, gnark gnarking Chinese businessmen.
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