Tourist Days - 1

So Monday came around, Ewan returned to work and we gave Isabelle the day off from guiding us around as we ventured into Beijing to see some of the tourist sites – first stop was obviously Tiananmen Square which required a metro ride.  Obviously for a pair of transport geeks the trip was almost as exciting as the destination!  Once we’d managed to top up the Chinese equivalent of the oyster card (something which involved some hilarious gestures involving waving the card in one hand, a note in the other and physically bringing them together in a transport equivalent of matrimonial union) we descended into the bowels of the metro.  The Beijing metro was considerably easier to navigate than the Moscow metro because all of the signs were also in English.

Therefore we easily get to Tiananmen Square, unfortunately it was the labour holidays in China and the Square was heaving with people as you can see from the pictures.  It was also a relatively bad day for pollution which you can also see.

For balance as we included pictures of Lenin, here’s the outside of Chairman Mao’s mausoleum, which we also weren’t able to go in because it was closed.

After a spot of lunch in a fantastic restaurant called Capital M, we proceeded to the next geeky thing – the Museum of Urban Planning which was amazing!!  Seriously, it was full of scale models of the Forbidden City and Beijing which meant that we could do cool things such as see where we were staying in relation to everything else . . . see the Olympic park without having to bother with trekking all that way out there . . . .

Look like giants . . .

And plan our way around the Forbidden City which was our next port of call.

So we left the museum and headed over the huge picture of Mao which hung at the entrance to the Forbidden City.  Again, the Forbidden City was bustling and it was impossible to get away from the crowds which made it difficult to soak up the history and any atmosphere of the City and even harder to imagine what it would have been like when it was only open to the Imperial court.  However we did manage to get some good photos of deserted courtyards and alleyways as it was closing.

This one’s just included because it’s just so beautiful.

 

Weekend – Beijing style

After our first night sleeping apart, which many of you will appreciate was a real treat for Fern, it was glorious to be able to get up and potter around in our  PJs, eating our breakfast (marmite on toast!!) and being able to shower yet again – trust me it took a couple of days for this novelty to wear off.

Isabelle and Ewan then decided to take us to a nearby Daoist temple - Dongyue Temple .  The temple was split into a plethora of departments for the afterlife.  The belief is that the afterlife requires a lot of organisation and administration and so there is a department for every element of this from department for bestowing happinness, a department for signatures, a department for jaundice, the department for suppressing schemes and the department for instant rewards and retribution to the Timely Retribution Department, which just gives you an idea of the traditional levels of bureaucracy in China throughout the ages.

You can see where the creators of Buffy got some of their inspiration from!

Alice's colour scheme for her next house . . .

After taking in some culture we went for some delicious dim sum where Alice learnt that her mouth isn’t as big as Ewan, literally.  The instructions “Just put the whole thing in your mouth” led to a very messy outcome . . . So we took the sensible decision to retire back to the flat for some Sherlock Holmes (the 1980s version obviously) and a strategic nap before heading out for the evening.  We met Isabelle and Ewan’s friend Andrew on route and experienced Beijing traffic with 5 of us in a mini.  It was definitely on the cosy side and proper respect due to Isabelle’s amazing coolness under traffic pressure as we tried to find a parking space – there was some impressive navigation of some very narrow, winding roads going on whilst the three of us in the back took turns in returning blood circulation to our backsides!

Unfortunately we weren’t entirely sure where we were going in relation to where we had ended up parking, but we had a pleasant walk in the hutongs as we reoriented ourselves.  It was also very interesting to see an older, less western side to Beijing.  Our end destination was a bar called Bed bar where we were going to the leaving party of the Guardian correspondent who was moving to Rio – we obviously neatly fitted into the glamorous ex-pat lifestyle given the circles we frequent at home . . Seriously though, one day hope to be popular enough to have a leaving do of that size and that people write a song for . . .

Sunday dawned with a nice lazy day of which started off with coffee and cake sitting outside in Central Park and then we had to hurry off for our important manicure appointment – trust me, the toll the journey had made on our nails made this one of the most important things that we needed to do in Beijing ;-)

Suitably beautified we met up again with Isabelle and Ewan to do a bit of shopping for dinner which involved taking in the sights of a Chinese supermarket.  Whilst it was definitely an experience, it was reassuring to go to the more western supermarket to make the many purchases we needed for the delicious menu that Ewan and Fern were planning for supper.

Isabelle and Ewan volunteered to take the shopping back to the apartment while we ventured into nearby Ritan park.  For such a large populated city Beijing has some amazingly beautiful open spaces.

On our return to the apartment we encountered more of the People’s Army on the move . . . this time with a few people tagging on!

When we got back to the apartment, Fern and Ewan secreted themselves in the kitchen to make some delicious smells . . . until additional help was drafted in to assist in the mammoth pasta production line.  The filling was ready, Isabelle had made the fresh pasta dough and it was all hands on deck to get the pasta rolled and the ravioli created before the pasta dried out . . . the time pressure was such that even Alice was trusted with part of the process!  However, not only did we end up with a sublime dinner (even if it was slightly in the wrong order!) but we also managed to freeze the excess for Isabelle and Ewan to remember us by