After being blessed with warm (for Canada) winter weather over Christmas it was time for us to get into the China Groove! Luckily for us China was also warming up just in time for our arrival. Instead of the -5 to -15 we should have endured during that time of year, Peking City was between +3 and +9 the whole time we were there! Sweet!
So what does one do in the Big BJ? Well, first on our order of business was to explore. We opted to stay a bit out of the way and in a non-touristy area and were not disappointed. The streets of China are buzzing at all hours of the day and night, and there are copious amounts of people everywhere. We could not help but be caught up in the energy of the city. It was so much fun just to walk around, check out the shops, and people watch. One of the most interesting parts of the city was people’s ingenuitive use of bicycles and motorcycles. We saw many different examples of bikes turned into delivery vehicles or portable food stands. The Chinese also have these ingenious winter shells for their motorcycles which make for a less chilly ride!
Another cool aspect of the city was its active elderly population. Early in the mornings, in parks all over Greyjing, old people meet in groups to play/do cards, Kung Fu, aerobics, dance, badminton, devil sticks, and even hacky sack (that’s right! Greyjingers are hip!). Such an active elderly population probably explains why everyone we saw above 70 looked healthy and mobile.
It’s a good thing that the Chinese are active into old age, because 13 million of them live in the City That Never Breathes! You’ve likely heard that the pollution in China’s capital is really bad. The rumors are true! Heavy smog means that the sun rises after nine and sets around 3 in the winter, but the sunsets are gorgeous (they always are in urban areas with dense smog)! Although, a great combination of dry winter air, and a low pressure system meant that while the pollution was visible, it didn’t bother our breathing at all.
What did bother our noses, was the other reason that the City Never Breathes: a dangerously large amount of public toilets. While, on one hand, the large number of toilets significantly cuts back on people going the bathroom on the streets (although, this is probably not much of a problem in the winter [except for the little girl we saw dropping a duce in Tiamanen Square]), the bathroom are not cleaned and if you are any where within 300m of one of these badboys, the stench is overwhelming. Even the street dogs were holding their noses!
A further observation we made was the ridiculous size of construction sites in Renovejing! Many of the building sites are like mini-cities, complete with their own temporary apartment buildings! We hypothesized that it’s probably cheaper for construction companies to hire their workers from the poor rural areas, and to put them up in Renovejing, then it would be to hire locals to do the work. Poor rural folks generally work for peanuts anyways!
Having enjoyed our days of random wanderings, we decided to head into downtown to explore the beautiful JingShan Park which gave us great views and our first glance of the renowned Forbidden City. An afternoon at the Winter Palace was also in order complete with old and important trees, held up, not by their strong desire for life, but by the steel bars that enwrap them. As we continued to wander through the repetitive, yet beautiful Chinese architecture, we were pleased to see the locals gallivanting on the ice, skating, sledding, and falling in style.
With our not-so-lonely nights, we ventured to Beijing Olympic Park to see the famous buildings, and thevendors selling the longest kites ever (or in this case 100+ kites tied together). We also checked out the Chao Yang Acrobatics, a show filled with amazing feats of human strength, balance, and agility. The highlight, of course, was the men who rode their motorcycles inside a giant steel globe. Not 1, not 2, nor 3, but 8 motorcyclists in the ball! Craziness!
As the minutes turned to hours, and the hours into days, it soon became clear that we were under no Beijinx: the capital of China was treating us quite well! More to come . . .
Steve and Andi (not so) Live from Bangkok 