Hello from Beijing

Level 8 User Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 278

I am running around Beijing at the moment, it is quite a crazy city - 17m people all going to work at once, crammed into the subways, buses, taxis, bikes and walking.
I haven't currently got internet access so this is short, but keep up the good work and I'll put together some sort of story when I return.

Cheers.

Level 10 User Joined: 05 Mar 2005 Posts: 570

I really want to go to Asia, it seems to really appel to me.

Forum Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 19978

cool.

My grand parents were in singapore a few years back and said it was nice if you igroned the cloak and daggers stuff.

Level 8 User Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 278

Had an absolutely brilliant time, totally blown away for 10 days in a row (plus 4 wind down days at the end).

Went to see:

Great Wall - 6000 km long with a watchtower every 100m !

Ten'amen Square - Capacity of 200K people.

Forbidden City / Imperial palace - 999 rooms, magnificant.

Ming tombs - Tombs of the emperors.

Fragrant hills - (as described)

Chinese acrobatics

Kung Fu show with a Buddah story

HuTong district - Bars etc.

WangFuJing - City centre shopping street

Markets - The most fun I have ever had buying stuff.

Massive computer stores.

Temple of heaven

Gardens

Chinese culture park

Crazy traffic

Loa She tea house

Slums

Buddist temple

Summer palace

Alot of things are really really cheap e.g.

Hair cut 20p
Meal for 5 people in fancy resturant Â£7
Bus for 75min 35p
Taxi for 30 min Â£1.50
Subway 35p per journey
Accommodation Â£7 per night (2/3 star ensuite city centre)

There are so many people in this city, but there aren't enough jobs, so jobs are artificially created for the sake of it e.g.
A guy to wash the barriers around building sites (cloth and bucket).
People going aound collecting plastic bottles etc. for recycling.
Someone in the lift to press the buttons for you.
People to direct the traffic by waving little flags at junctions.
People to open the doors of shops (one for each door)

This is a spin off from a virtually non existant benefits system, it forces people to work or alternatively starve.

In contrast there are many rich people driving about in Audis, Mercs and VWs, the society seems very polarised with most of the population using public transport and bicycles.

Crime seems to be almost non existant, we were walking through the most run down parts of the city late at night and did not feel threatened in any way. We would like to think that this is because of our 6 foot + stature however the real reasons for this are not hard to see - The penalty for robbing someone is 4 or 5 years in prison, muder is execution or even a semi severe assult is execution - no messing around.

Max Temperature 42 C
Average 34ish
Lowest 22ish at night

The air was pretty bad at times, the worst was one night when the smog trapped in all the fumes and we were travelling along the highway. It was like being in a gas chamber or in the garage when a petrol car is running, yuck.

These people don't see westerners very often, because of our height and western features we were constantly being eyeballed and every so often we posed for pictures with (the braver) chinese people that requested it.

The Universities. Dorms - 4 to a room, central shower areas and hot water taps, around 12 universities in Beijing with a wide spectrum of wealth.

Electric - Power cables are a joke, if I jumped I could probably swing on them, big transformers are maybe 9 or 10 feet above the ground. We seen a guy fixing the cables and rather than using a platform he walked along the cables with one at his feet and another at chest height. Also rather than cut the cable the right length they just unwind the rest of the reel and leave it tied up on the pole!

Many shops are open late at night and early in the morning, the city only clams down for a few hours in the early hours.

We went to see Star Wars in the Cinema, however there were two versions, one English with subtitles and the other dubbed in Chinese. We can't read chinese very well so we couldn't tell which one and ended up going to the dubbed one and being too embarrassed to walk out!

The food is totally different, no fat or sugar, we actually lost weight (1/2 stone) because of that and the walking. Oh and chopsticks are the tools of choice everywhere.

The Great Firewall of China - The government want to control public opinion and outside influence so access to many sites outside china and even some internal ones are blocked. They are said to employ around 30K poeple to monitor and control the situation and are said to currently be recuting people to pretend to be users and sway public opinion as the governement chooses.

For a population of 17ish million there are around 45K police in Beijing plus many many security guards, it's pretty tight.

The life of a VW taxi is around 500K miles, with a Citroen being 350K miles, puts us to shame. However they do not go fast or rev the cars and typically do a fair amount of coasting. The roads are in good contion too although they would need to be because of the volume of traffic they carry.

Flight - Via Amsterdam, total airtime approx 10 1/2 hours for 6000 miles. Average height 40K feet, temperature -55 C.

Holiday of a lifetime, friendly people, will go back one day but the world is too big so it's India next year...

Site Subscriber Joined: 11 Feb 2005 Posts: 2929

any pics??

Mr Quoter-vator Joined: 16 Feb 2004 Posts: 7405

wow, excellent report. Sounds like a fabulous holiday.

Forum Moderator Joined: 18 Feb 2004 Posts: 7432

Thanks Stephen - that was a very interesting read, sounds like one hell of a culture shock out there.

Retroholic Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 5685

Agreed, nice post! (we need a thumbs up smilie)

Forum Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 19978

great stuff.

1 thing I seem to dream about more and more these days is travellign the world.

Great report, but we really all wanna see pics!

Level 8 User Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 278

Cheers guys.

I will post the most interesting photos, there are over 300 including videos but I haven't got them all yet (waiting for FTP link from Beijing - pah! technology...).
They also have to be sorted through, so it might be a week or so before I have a full set, but I'll post what I have in the next day or two.

Site Subscriber Joined: 25 Nov 2004 Posts: 350

Quote:

We would like to think that this is because of our 6 foot + stature

Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 6:09 am

Sounds impressive, I love to travel,

Level 8 User Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 278

Okay I've sorted through the photos that I have and we're looking at a sample of about 50 photos...

Hmmm, this means about 60MB of webspace and broadband only viewing, is this okay?

Site Subscriber Joined: 13 Oct 2004 Posts: 4722

fine by me,

2 meg line..wont put a dent in it Smile

Forum Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 19978

yep get em up!

Level 8 User Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 278

Finally...

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/cancel/index1.html 20MB

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/cancel/index2.html 20MB

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/cancel/index3.html 10MB

Bloody Tiscali won't let me link to the actual pictures and they only give 50MB of space so a few simple html files did the trick.

A couple of notes:

The picture of the fish tanks was taken in a resturant, you pick the on you want!

The "Chow Tai Fook" is a jewelers.

The bank notes (laid out) come to a total of Â£38.

The stuff wrapped in leaves is rice mixed with dates, very nice, it is only available on a special festival day.

The food was really nice, the dishes had the name of the chief who prepared it on it so they knew which one to sack.

The guy on the wires is an NIE/Scottish Power/etc. guy.

Well worth a visit.

Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2005 4:00 pm

Those pics are excellent, The place looks amazing,

Love the english translations! Laughing

Forum Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 19978

About time!

great pics though, worth the wait!

You can see its developing, hopefully not the european way where the old is cast off, demolished and forgotten!

Thats a proper holiday, going to spain to sit and talk to fat brit's is not my idea of a holiday!

I hope India next year for you is as good if not better!

Mr Quoter-vator Joined: 16 Feb 2004 Posts: 7405

Amazing, thanks for them stephen, looks awesome!

what was the dude at the bottom of the first page doing? engravings?

awesome orange lit building, what was that?

LOL at the bloke with HUGE amount of stuff on the back of a bike!

beautiful architecture, they take so much time to do things well.

Level 8 User Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 278

It's sure developing, it's the fastest growing economy in the world.

The palaces/tombs of the Emperors are well preserved but are (only) a couple of hundred years old. Compare this to the likes of York minster or Durham cathedral which are hitting a thousand years old. It seems that apart from the Great Wall, most of what we saw was from the 1500/1600's onwards.
A lot of buildings around the city were run down, people/companies didn't seem to maintain things, it was just a case of let it deteriorate and build a new one... or maybe they weren't so "house proud" as we are and spent their time on more productive activity?

The bloke with the stuff on the back - We seen one of these every so often and usually cracked up laughing so much that we forgot to take a photo. This is their Transit Van, "just full her up boys"!

The orange building is actually the Red Theatre, it has a steel fame in front of the building lit up and it looks class at night. We watched a Buddah Kung Fu show there, it has to be the best show I have ever ever seen. I sat there in awe the whole time, totally unreal, and the speed they changed scenes at was phenomenal - One minute they were sat around the audience tapping drums with just their faces lit up, the next they were doing some seriously impressive Kung Fu stuff on the stage. Even the stage itself was spit so that it lifted up like two drawbridges, it was amazing.

The engraving dude was engraving (by hand) a message at the bottom, basically whatever you wanted. He engraved the whole thing by hand with that little solid pen thing. This of course, was at the Great Wall.

Mr Quoter-vator Joined: 16 Feb 2004 Posts: 7405

Amazing Stephen, you're a lucky guy!