ReidaBlog

Sorry about that. I had a poker game to play in…didn’t win.

Ok, picking up right where the last one left off.

In the Imperial garden I get that they didn’t want us to climb on the rock formations but not quite sure if this was the appropriate sign:

Not much of a hill, much less very perilous. Still I get the point.

After returning 007 we left through the north gate and walked quite a while to get to a really good Thai restaurant. I admit that it was farther than I thought but I’m going to stick with the story that I didn’t actually get lost. Along the way we got a couple more pictures:

Meg and Sara on the north side of the forbidden city. Definately springtime.

I think we must have been slap-happy at this point. I do remember a couple of Chinese cops walking by and muttering something about ‘Wai guo ren’ or ‘foreigners’ but couldn’t pick up the rest. At least they didn’t use ‘lao wai’ which means ‘old foreigner’ and is considered an insult. Which is kind of weird because the common way to address a teacher is ‘lao shi’ which means ‘old master’ and that is considered a sign of respect. I’ve found that in many instances neither jokes nor insults translate very well.

For those interested in similarities between languages, the actual Chinese word for police is ‘Jing cha’. Individually the words mean ‘warn’ and ’supervise’ but putting them together means policeman. However just like in the US how we call cops ‘pigs’ the Chinese call them ‘dogs’ or ‘gou’. But I digress.

Walking to the restaurant we pasted the first person I’ve seen in Beijing giving parking tickets.

Look closely it is there I swear.

And while the weather was nice and warm it hadn’t been windy for a couple of days so the smog had settled in. I’ve never lived in such a polluted city and the Chinese have promised the Olympic committee that they will do something to reduce the air pollution. Apparently they are making progress but you can see they still have a way to go:

Not fog unfortunately. Although this picture probably explains why I’ve never seen anyone running in the city it does make we feel sorry for the poor marathoners in 2008.

During the walk I got, actually Meg got, the picture I’ve been trying to take since I got here. Most little kids in China don’t wear diapers. Instead the back of their pants have a big slit so they can go to the bathroom whenever they want. It is actually pretty funny and I knew it would make a good picture but I wasn’t sure how to go about taking the picture without getting arrested. Meg just went up to the mom and asked. Then showed her the picture on the display screen which made her happy.

Notice the puddle. Not spit.

After a couple more days, Meg and Sara took off for Shanghai where I joined them a couple days later.

But that is another post.

Before I sign off I’ve got one more picture. Saved the best for last:

Where’s Waldo?

This time I have a good excuse for taking so long to post. A week ago Saturday my sister Meg and her good friend Sara arrived in Beijing from Delhi. It was awesome to see Meg and to meet Sara. If you read Meg’s site you’ll have already met them both.

Anyway, they stayed at my dorm in Beijing for a couple of days and then went down to Shanghai to visit Ian. I flew down to meet them last Thursday for my first trip out of Beijing. I’ll get the pictures done from Shanghai next, this one is going to be long enough.

Meg/Sara: if you want any of these pictures (in high rez) let me know. I have others as well but they didn’t all turn out so well.

Anyway, let’s get to it:

They arrived on Saturday afternoon and after meeting them at the airport and getting checked into my dorm, where by the way they got a much better room then I have, getting them a hamburger, and hearing them mention in astonishment the lack of cows on the road we ended up in HouHai. In the winter HouHai was cold and empty but now that the weather is warm it was full of people and the outdoor seating made for great people watching.

Witty caption: Swede in the headlights

As we pulled up in the cab there was music playing and tons of old people waltzing around on the sidewalk. Not sure why…but I was happy that this was going to be one of their first impressions of China.

Since I hadn’t been to HouHai since I took a bad picture of my favorite street poll I figured this was a chance to get a good picture. I wasn’t disappointed:

Witty caption: Chinese speed bump

What is weird is that the rest of the lights are on the sidewalk as they should be. Appropriate second impression, China wasn’t letting me down.

The next day was nice so we decided to head to the great wall at Simatai. Beijing actually has 4 different places where you can see the wall. Simatai is the farthest (about 3 hours by car) but also the highest and most scenic. Lonely plant said that this place has a toboggan run but it doesn’t. Meg and Sara weren’t surprised as they’ve been traveling with Lonely planet for a couple of years now. They let me in on a little secret which I’m happy to share with you: apparently “charming” accommodation is code for “dirty hole”. Who knew?

Speaking of the lonely planet:

Witty caption: Here’s hoping I get a free guidebook.

After taking another chairlift you still have to hike a couple of hundred vertical meters to get to the wall. Just wait; I’ve got a picture that puts this into perspective.

Once you get to the wall you can go up the stairs to the right:

Which we did and then ate lunch. However the problem is you then have to go back down these stairs. Notice that there isn’t any railing and while it might not look so high it is slick, the steps crumble, my shoes don’t have traction, and ancient Chinese people must have tiny feet. Shudder.

But I survived…which is a good thing because I now present the first of 3 new fashion photos.

Witty caption: Clown on the great wall.

After lunch we started the long hike back down but stopped to take quite a few pictures. Luckily we discovered half-way that Swedes haven’t got the whole camera thing figured out yet. So after teaching Sara that you need to actually push the button (she was just making camera noises earlier) we got some decent shots.

Looking back the way we just came.

Notice the little bridge in the bottom left corner. That’s where we’re headed.

Meg and me again.

I thought this one turned out well. Sara was complaining that Meg only posts bad pictures of her website. Meg replies, “that’s because all your pictures are bad.”

Witty caption: Nice photo of Meg…and a Swede.

Much to my relief we finally got to the bottom alive. So this Irish girl took a group photo to commemorate the event and then I apparently proceeded to call her fat.

Yep, we were up there.

On Monday after my classes we headed over to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Right next to the square they are building the Beijing Egg. Not sure what it supposed to be, I hear an opera house to rival Sydney’s but I’m not really sure.

Witty caption: Meg…with egg.

Hey, it rhymes what more do you want?

We then headed to the square which can be summed up as: the worlds biggest square filled with Chinese tourists, big monuments, a dead chairman, people selling you stuff, kites, 2 Americans and a Swede.

I believe this is “The monument to the People’s heroes”.

The first person to ask to have their picture taken with us. Actually, I believe she wanted to have her picture with the tall blonde girl and just put up with Meg and me. In any case we should have known that this would open the floodgates.

Kind of weird that people would be so excited to have their picture taken with my camera. However they were happy when Meg showed them the result on the display screen. Not sure who the other white guy is but notice the kid in the track suit. Just for your information, school uniforms in China are track suits. I think that the color denotes the grade. But now that I mention it I’ve never seen anyone actually out running? Weird.

It really is big. That’s Meg and Sara in the middle by the way with the Forbidden City in the background. As a note, the Chinese call it Gu Gong which doesn’t translate to Forbidden City. I was told that before the revolution its name was something like Zi Xing Chang (although I probably spelled that wrong) which translates to something like “Purple Forbidden City”. Before we go any further guess the color?
Give up?
Red.
Go figure.

Before going any further we needed to make sure that Sara had this whole camera thing down.

This big gate is technically part of Tiananmen and not the Forbidden City.

Witty caption part 1: A capitalist and a communist.

Witty caption part 2: Two socialists and a communist.

Speaking of Mao. I was having a dilemma. You can buy lots of Chairman Mao souvenirs all over China. And while the Chinese still speak highly of him, or at least say he was well intentioned, I’m not so sure. I really want some of the souvenirs, especially the Mao “Mickey Mouse” watch but at the same time I wouldn’t buy stuff if it was Hitler or Stalin. In the end however I figured Mao would be horrified if he knew his image was being used to sell junk to tourists so it’s got to be OK.

Ok, time to lighten the mood with some Beijing fashion photography as seen at the entrance to the Forbidden City.

Ok, maybe not so bad but just think…you can only afford a couple of outfits…would this be one?

Witty caption: The purse matches the pants.

Meg and Sara said that the roofs are like this so dragons won’t land on them. 007 said it was traditional and something about a prince riding a hen.

007?

Yep, one of the smartest things the tourism authorities have done is to get Roger Moore to narrate the English version of the self-guided tour. Which is what those weird things around our necks are going to be in the next couple of pictures.

But before we get to them I just wanted to point out that what makes this place so impressive isn’t its age (it was only built around 1400 so most ruins in Europe are much older) but its size. Notice how it goes on and on. All while being right in the middle of Beijing.

Meg in the middle of preparations for “er ling ling ba”.

Or the 2008 Olympics as they are known in the west. They deserve a post of their own, suffice it to say that all of Beijing is under construction in preparation and they are a really big deal here.

Meg and Me inside the first of many courtyards.

Witty caption: Nice trees.

I just noticed that I always stand on the same side of my sister. Not sure what to make of that.

Meg and Sara.

Witty caption: Don’t tell me what to do.

In the imperial gardens there is a pond where people through change to make wishes. Same around the world right? Well, in Beijing most of the change is given in paper currency.

I’m not making that up. In the west we have two units: Dollars and Cents or the European equivalent. In China you have 3: one represents the dollar, one representing 10 cents, and one representing 1 cent. Think that’s weird? Well to add to the confusion there is a different name for the first two types depending if you are writing or speaking. So you will see it in print as: Yuan, Jiao, and Fen. But in speaking you say: Kuai, Mao, and Fen. So then next time you see someone on the news speaking about the “Chinese Yuan” you know they don’t know what they’re talking about. And just to muddy the issue all of them put together are called RenMinBi. Which translates as the “People’s Money”.

To be continued…

I was reading a local ex-pat mag and they were talking about the procedure to get a Chinese driver’s license in Beijing. As part of the article they listed some of the questions from the English version of the test. So here they are verbatim. Enjoy.

1. A motor vehicle is not allowed to blow it’s horn ____ in an area or road section where the horn may be blown.

a) more than twice
b) more than thrice
c) at will, but only 30 sec. each time

2. A person who wants to take a motor vehicle ____

a) is not allowed to call a taxi on a vehicle lane.
b) should wear tidy clothes and hats instead of wearing a pair of slippers.
c) should wait in turn for the bus at the platform or specified place and get on in turn.

3. (T/F) A driver is not allowed to wear a pair of slippers, smoke, have meals, or talk with passengers while driving a vehicle.

4. [Traffic sign question that I can't copy here.]

5. (T/F) A motor vehicle with a faulty wiper and brake or horn is not allowed to pass until repaired.

Answers:
1. B 2. A 3. T 5. F (you can drive a car with all of these problems.)