China, Tears of, Pollution and Birthdays
Well, after a week in Beijing, we finally managed to get a ticket out.
What more can I say about Beijing? It's all about the 2008 Olympics here. The city organises "Queueing Days" where citizens are compelled to actually stand in a line (!!!). Suddenly, things like spitting, gobbing and blowing your nose onto the street are frowned upon. TV commercials are hilarious - showing citizens what to do if an old lady falls over in the street (like, you help her up, imagine that!).
Old icky (fabulous and popular with tourists) neighbourhoods are being torn down and replaced by, according to the Chinese, lovely instant shopping malls. Old trees and gardens bulldozed for parking lots. China, as per usual, overdoes it.
ah, the world's most polluted city. 100 people a day killed in road accidents. A day in Beijing equals 40 cigarettes smoked. And so on.
Chris played it quiet, while I went to see the Transformers, the Forbidden City (a let down, actually, just swarming with tour groups and not as atmospheric as Shenyang) and I even bought the brand new Harry Potter the day it came out, so I was good to hop on the Hard Seat 13 hour train to Pingyao.
For you who don't know, Hard Seat is just that. You get a seat and you sit, crowded in by all the people who have standing tickets. Imagine, they stand all night - in the toilets, the aisles, everywhere. Me, I can sleep good in these situations, but we did end up across from the one dickhead who talked - loudly, in typical operatic full Han shouting - all night. Usually to himself. It's amazing I haven't strangled anyone yet
PS Pingyao was nice. I had a bad cold (thank you Beijing/hard seat train) and spent my birthday moping and watching it rain.
