The Best of Beijing

I've been in Beijing now since Sunday, and while it wasn't so difficult to find a computer with Internet access... there's one in my hotel and seemingly on just about every street corner... I've been completely absorbed by this place, and just didn't have much desire to sit down and write about it. From the moment we left the airport, there have been a steady stream of impressions and experiences.

My first moment of sheer wonder came when the bus taking us downtown drove by the Gate of Heavenly Peace, where Mao's tasteful and somehow very handsome portrait stared down on me and the thousands of other tourists jocking for the best photographic position. The words I uttered were not particularly profound, but I was far more impressed than I could at that moment articulate. My friend Thomas and I were pretty exhausted from our trip, which included a grueling 8-hour layover in Moscow, so after a good walk around Tienanmen Square, we chowed on some dumplings, drank some beer and called it an evening.

Yesterday it was the Forbidden City, home to several hundred years worth of Chinese emperors. Perhaps I had taken the "City" part of that name a little too lightly, because the place is really enormous-- quite city like. People often say that in China you won't find any of your own space -- especially not in the tourist areas. But we found the Forbidden City spacious enough once we wondered around it's side passages (some of which housed former imperial concubines) to be find our own bit of space and tranquility. The city is built entirely according to the principles of Feng Shui, meaning that it's more or less perfectly symmetrical. As it's so expansive, you can quickly lose your sense of direction -- which is actually kind of nice because you can find your own little place, as I mentioned above. Later that afternoon as we visited some of the parks surrounding the Forbidden City, Thomas and I put our basic Chinese skills to use, warding off souvenir hawkers and rickshaw drivers, a few of whom were extremely persistent.

Today we joined a tour group made up of people from Argentina, Spain, New Zealand and China to take in the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs, two major tourist attractions north of town. On the way there we got to see some of the most intensive areas of construction for the 2008 Summer Olympics. It seems as though the entire town is being renovated to one degree or another, but the area near the Olympic Stadium and what will be the Olympic Village is probably the world's biggest construction site right now. In addition to work on the stadium and a swimming arena, I saw what must have been 40 huge skyscrapers being either renovated or built from the ground-up in the surrounding neighborhood. We enjoyed the rest of the tour as well of course -- I think the Great Wall is as much of a physical experience as it is an aesthetic. Working up and down the steps of the wall definitely requires some physical exertion, but it was easily the best and most unique workout I've had in months.

There's plenty more to write about, but those are of course the most exciting things I experienced in the last couple of days. More later...