Arriving in Beijing - Marc goes Traveling

Arriving in Beijing

2006-04-01

So, we arrived in Beijing at a bright and sunny 5am in late March, and spent the first weekend pretty much sleeping, trying to get over the jetlag. We are living in the Chaoyang district, which is one of the more built up modern places, and will host some of the more important Olympic events in 2008.

A few days later, we decided to walk the few miles to Tian'an'men square, and check out the goings on over there. One of the strange things about this city is how quickly it goes from very modern and built up to pretty run down and not terribly interesting. Most of our walk to the Forbidden City was through one of the less exciting parts of town.

When we got there, there were a number of tourists, but mostly from within the country. Very few foreigners. There were, however, a zillion people trying to sell us various things.

It was quite late in the day, so we decided not to enter the forbidden city, and will instead save this for a later date.

[Click on any photo for a larger view]

Arriving at the Forbidden City is pretty cool. There's a huge moat around the place and tonnes of tourists milling about.		There are cool ancient-style gates everywhere.
	It's still very early in the year, so most of the trees and the like are bare.	Except for the evergreens.
We then exited the Forbidden City grounds to the main road north of Tian'an'men.	Alright, it's the chairman!	And the groups of soldiers taking obligatory photos.
Getting across this road takes some figuring out.		Eventually, you see you need to go underground to these huge tunnels they have all over the city.
The main square itself is huge, and stretches for a good km north to south. There's a mausoleum to the now dead Chairman in the middle.	Air pollution in this city is awful. There were no clouds today, and you can see how clear the sun and sky are ....	They're very excited about the olympics here, and make a big deal out of it at every possible opportunity.
Heading back to our apartment, we're in a pretty hopping neighbourhood with a number of big buildings and shopping areas.	One of the weird things they do in this country is the way in which they structure markets and things.	They build big buildings, and then cram all the stores and things inside them, with little indication on the outside as to what to expect. It can be very hard to find things.
But, eventually, we did find everything, and how have pretty much all the stuff we could want.	Traffic in this citty is hellish, and probably not worth it. Bicycles are the fastest way around.	As more and more people buy cars, parking is getting worse.
We now enter the ghetto in which we live, which happens to be a Muslim area.	There is so much construction going on that every other lot is empty, and they're constantly razing buildings.
This will be a new skyscraper in six months I bet.	There are lots of little food stands with yummy stuff CHEAP around the hood. The place ahead sells meat buns (baozi) for 12¢ each.	That's our building. It's not exactly a looker from the outside, but it's comfortable and nice.
	This is the view from our window. We still don't know what the round building's for.
No leaves on the trees.
	Here are some photos out of our window 4 weeks later on one of the 2 clear and sunny days we've had so far. HUGE difference.

Down there on the corner is a cool little fruit vendor and stuff. We have most everything we could need within a few hundred metres of us everywhere.		Lotsa leaves here now. w00000t.