Beijing Tour Guide, part 2
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?