CHANGE AT THE TOP!

Sadly my boss is leaving, we all wish him well as he's looked after us all. At this time I raise a few problems with my flat and he offers me his: a good deal to think about. I have mixed feelings and wonder if that's the right course of action even though it seems logical. There are a few evenings out with booze and grub.

New term begins!

On returning to Baoding I have a few days to relax and get ready to start the new term: I see Tom and his friend a couple of times, also Seven and Christine, so we go out for one or two meals. I start with the students by asking them about their time over Chinese New Year , then go over the course content and get them to draw their Chinese birth sign.

In the second week we build an installation inside the art block made of string: it goes four floors down and is almost impossible to photograph: here's a part of it.

I plan to visit the art college, get a bike and find some art materials. 

BEIJING DAY FOUR: 798 ART DISTRICT

I travel out on the bus, about 10 miles outside central Beijing and spend the morning at this sprawling complex of former German electronics factories, now occupied by art galleries, bars and supposedly, studios. It isn't very busy and most of the work on show is disappointingly conservative, not much of it is the “leading-edge” work one is led to expect by the publicity and tourist information. There are not many visitors and some galleries charge entry fees so I don't bother to go in.

I tend to feel that art exhibitions are rarely, if ever, worth paying money to see. I gather what information as I can, as for me this is work!

I wander around looking mean and moody, and have a burger for lunch with beer and catch the bus back to Lama Temple Road, (it's a very long journey, you sometimes feel you're never going to reach the end!)

I actually manage to find a secret network of new galleries in this area and feel pleased about this. I fetch up at Houhai again for lunch.

Couple of beers at Great Leap and back to the hostel, then out for a curry to round off the trip. I drop into a bar that has lovely moving steampunk sculptures and have absinthe on my way back, as I've never tried it before!  

BEIJING DAY THREE: TIANANMEN SQUARE/OLYMPIC CENTRE BY NIGHT

I sleep quite well and feel a little better today, I may be lucky and the cold may be subsiding. Colds in China can last for months. I have a good vegetarian breakfast in the hostel. I originally plan to go to 798 Art district but find that a lot of it is closed on Monday. Disappointed at this I decide to visit the Forbidden City again to try and get some better photos. However when I get there I find that this too is closed Mondays: I knew but had forgotten. It's actually a good thing because I wouldn't have been able to get in anyway as I've left my passport at the hostel. This is the only attraction I know of where you have to take your passport to get in. Looking at the prospect of a wasted day I relax on Tiananmen Square for a while.

Tiananmen Gate seen from the Square

There isn't really much to see, so I walk back to the subway station and go back to Lama Temple Road for some beer and sausage at Stuff'd, the bar I went to yesterday. It's expensive but I do manage to relax a bit. Lately tension has been building up inside me.

I wander back through the hutong and after a doze which is interrupted by a door slamming in the wind, I go back out to Shichahai to take the subway to the Olympic Centre again. I sometimes feel like a photojournalist on some assignment but I don't want Sarah to miss this!

The whole city is exploding with fireworks: they're everywhere and I wonder what the hell is going on! It's just like New Year's Eve again. When I get back to the bar in Houhai I find out it's the start of the Lantern festival, which is held 15 days after New Year.

Overheard in the bar, young expats:

“I nevvah thought I would end up in some beck street bar in Chinah on may barthday! Yahhh!”

BEIJING 3 DAY TWO: NATIONAL OLYMPIC CENTRE AND NIGHT MARKET

I get up at around 8 ish feeling dog-tired, and go down to the bar for a coffee to wake myself up. I make myself have an English breakfast although I hate eating at that time of the morning: it's hard to force it down but I do it as I don't want to get hungry later! Fortunately I've brought the medikit that Sarah made up for me before I left England, so I dope up on Lem-Sip, paracetamol and cough drops, then shower. On my way out I ask at the reception desk about laundry as I need some clothes washed, this turns out to be OK, and get them to write down a request in Chinese for some more cold remedies if I need them later: they're only too happy to help. I also ask about cycle hire but ultimately decide against it. Today I don't feel like taking on too much so I decide to visit the National Olympic Centre. It's easiest to walk to Shichahai subway station, which is about 25 minutes away, instead of getting on outside the hostel and changing twice, which involves about the same amount of walking.

During this time I realise I need to visit the toilet with an imminent bowel movement and walk into a public loo of which there are many in Beijing. However I find that there is no toilet paper! I go into two or three public conveniences and find the same thing: Chinese public toilets do not have paper! With steadily mounting discomfort I finally use a couple of pages from my notebook in desperation. Suitably relieved I make my way to Shichahai where I buy a roll of loo paper which henceforth I carry around with me everywhere. From here I make my way on to Line 8 of the subway to the centre.

This is the National Stadium, known as the Bird's Nest.

My Yorkshire friend of last night in the pub called this “boring.” I have to say I don't know what he's talking about as to me this is impressive modern architecture. I do have a kind of desire to see modern things this time around!

Here's the Aquatic Centre or "Water Cube" which I gather looks more impressive at night. I make a mental note to come back in the evening. The weather is fantastic as you can see!

Also this IBM building looks quite interesting (for me anyway)

This building is bigger than it looks and is a shopping centre.

The Olympic park is vast, and there is an observation tower at one end of it that you can see here: it looks like something out of a science-fiction novel. You can go up it but it costs RMB 100 (£10) to do so and I don't feel it's worth it. The view is probably tremendous but these things tend not to photograph too well anyway.

By the time I get to the other end of the park, I've walked two subway stops, that's how big it is! So much for an easy morning.

At lunchtime I make a line change and fetch up at this bar/restaurant where I treat myself to (of all things) Bangers and Mash with real ale! It's actually delicious! Following this I go and relax in a couple of pubs. I do find a small contemporary art gallery with an exhibition in it and chat with the artist for a few minutes, but not long as she can't speak much English.  

I have a doze in the afternoon, have some soup in the hostel bar then go out in the evening to see Dongzhimen Night Market which is promoted in LP as something special, but I find it disappointing, the one on North Street near the University is much better (I'll show you another time.)

Two girls call out to me on the street asking where I'm from and if I want to go to a bar with them. I know there is a well practised scam that works like this so I decline and wander off. Finally I have a couple of cocktails in the hostel bar to help me sleep.

This is one of the bar signs in the hutong.

This area is full of foreigners and my experience of social contact in China so far leads me to pigeonhole people somewhat (fairly or otherwise) like this:

CHINESE: Marvellous. You couldn't wish to meet more open, warm and generous people. Embrace their hospitality wherever you can!

EXPATS: Depending on the person and the circumstances if you meet the right people at the right time you can have a lot of fun. I've done this a few times. Sometimes however its just like the UK: they want you to leave them alone so approaching them is sometimes difficult.

BACKPACKERS: Self-obsessed with sociopathic tendencies. Avoid.

BEIJING VISIT 3 DAY ONE: PINGYAO TO BEIJING

I get up and walk around hoping to have breakfast early but the cafe is closed. I could have breakfast at the hotel but it's Chinese breakfast and that doesn't appeal to my taste buds! So I go and look at the Confucius temple instead. Ambling back I have a vegetarian breakfast of fruit, muesli, yoghurt and toast at Sakura: delicious! The lady who runs the place knows I'm leaving Pingyao today and asks where I'm going. I feel flattered by this and we have a short talk about Pingyao and Beijing.

I go back to the hotel, shower and pack, which takes about an hour and I'm planning to leave at 12,

so I just have time to grab a quick bowl of soup and a couple of beers. I feel horribly anxious: I always do when transferring cities.

I've arranged a transfer to the railway station from the hotel and they are aware of this, but I get anxious as I want to leave at 12 in order to be at the station in plenty of time. The train is at 1.40 pm. Now that might seem a long time but the station is about 25 minutes away and you never know how long the queues will be for baggage checks etc. I go and check out at about 12.10 and wait but as 12.30 comes and goes and I'm still waiting, I get very apprehensive and start texting the manager to find out what's going on! If I'd known I would be waiting for this length of time I'd have stayed in the pub! I get messages asking me to wait until 1pm, and I protest. Finally a little old man takes me through the streets to a small car park about 10 minutes away. Its 1pm by the time the car arrives and I jump in, by now I'm beside myself with tension. I get to the station just as they start ticket checking. If I'd waited another 10 minutes at the hotel there's a good chance I'd have missed the train!

The journey is four hours long and the train is packed. It's the least fun journey of the tour so far but the time does pass quickly.

On arrival at Beijing West the subway queues are monstrous. I almost decide to get a cab but manage to get on the subway in about 10 minutes by finding a relatively short queue.

If you hear music on the Beijing subway, this tends to be played by beggars who will wander up and down the trains, often in khaki, (one imagines they're former soldiers but it's hard to tell as you can buy khaki anywhere in China) often with some awful injury, like face burned away, legs crippled, malformed or amputated. Sometimes they roll along sitting on a skateboard or trolley of some kind, trying to get passengers to give them money.

The journey takes about 45 minutes with a line change so I fetch up in the hostel at about 6.30. You have to walk down a dark alley for about 3-4 minutes but it's easy enough to find. I feel quite pleased with myself.

I go and check in and find to my annoyance that they don't take cards, so I have to use what cash I have left on me. Luckily there is an ATM nearby. I get to my room, dump my bag and head straight for the bar for a beer: (it's quite a pleasant bar and does cheap draught beer just like the one in Xi'an) then out to Nanlogou Xiang for a hot curry!

I drop into Great Leap for a few beers and chat to some American expats, a fun night. An English expat bores me silly with his know-it all manner. I suppose he can't help it. Back at the hostel I have a fitful night, waking with a dry throat which I attribute to too much beer, but it develops into a sore throat and cough, and I realise with dismay that I've managed to catch a cold!

PINGYAO ANCIENT CITY DAY THREE: HUTONG AND TEMPLES

I have breakfast at the cafe then a relaxing aimless wander around the old town away from the main streets. This area is full of residences, some inhabited and others seemingly deserted. It appears everyone has a coal fire, as there are always trucks around delivering coal which is in enormous lumps like railway coal only bigger. These are three-wheel affairs which sound like this: BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM (quite loud, like a car that backfires all the time.) I realise I'm in a living and breathing community.

There are tiresome electric trucks everywhere ferrying lazy Chinese tourists around which are forever congesting the hutong. They're a bit of a nuisance to be frank. Many Chinese get around on electric scooters which are a menace as they are a) silent, b) fast, so unless you look behind you all the time you won't be aware that they are there. However they do sound their horns constantly: (A Chinese trait) It come maybe from having having gone from a walking/cycling culture to a motorised metropolitan civilisation in less than 25 years which is almost overnight in cultural terms!

I come across a colourful but strange procession, the centrepeice of which is a large closed sedan chair.I eventually conclude that I'm looking at a funeral procession, and further research proves me right. I don't photograph this out of respect.

http://tiantan.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Pingyao-funeral-K2015-57.jpg

Sadly my decision to eat Western food in Pingyao means soup, burgers and chips. I feel like a complete Lonely Planet sad-case ersatz traveller, which is not how I think of myself. Maybe I'm a tourist at heart. However it's hard to see what else to do. I don't want to go around trying trying stuff I might not like so this will have to do for now as frankly I can't enthusiastic about cold meat, cold noodles or fried vegetables.

I chill out in a couple of restaurants and do a bit of window shopping around the markets. Walking around I find a Taoist temple and Lama Temple, my ticket gets me in, giving a bit of value for money. 

Incense Burning in the Taoist Temple.

Catholic Church in Pingyao

Nine-Dragon Screen

 I also manage to stumble across another bar where for the first time I manage to talk to some locals.

Being by myself for this long without talking to anyone has cause tension to build up within me and maye made me a little stir crazy. So doing lots of walking is a good thing.

Funnily enough this has been a good day.