WEATHER: Tops 15C - Low 1C
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY : Kung-fu Show
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Knackerd at 7pm at night – early start the next day
BUYS OF THE DAY: Dumplings bought at the food market 6RMB – toothbrush 4 RMB – Dinner 25 RMB
WORD OF THE DAY: - always written phonetically - Che Che ( Thank-you ) Nee How ( Hello )
Welcome to China. The land of where everything is made and it is cheap cheap cheap, as you would expect when it is made in the same country right!
After arriving into Beijing, 15 hours later after leaving home, my little transfer guy Marvin was there in the throng of little Asian faces waiting for me after customs. My private transfer took me from the airport to the hotel ( 30 minute drive ) which was located right near Beijing Railway Station. I did have a moment after my drop off if tipping is required in China. Apparently it is not expected, but if you get good service you should leave a few dollars. Sorry Marvin – you missed out – but it is always an awkward moment when the bags are unloaded and everyone seems to pause for what seems like an eternity on whether money will be exchanged or not. I just delivered the biggest smile I could muster and loaded all my bags onto my shoulders and headed into the hotel – sorry buddy.
My roomie was already off for the day on the included tour of the day, so I rang my guide Julia to let her know I had arrived and we met in the lobby an hour later to go over our trip notes that I missed out on the day before. Julia is Russian, a non- vodka drinking Russian at that ( she had her vodka days when she was younger so I guess that conter acts the non-ness now right? ) , but she is just awesome all the same. We are going to visit the Vodka Museum in St Petersburg together and she has promised she will have a shot with me there. Julia has done this tour for 6 months last year and in total was 9 times, crossing back and forth across the continent – what a life! New career move for me maybe ???
As we still had the afternoon free, Julia and I walked to Waifunging Food Market , located off the famous Waifunging shopping street, about 30 minutes from the hotel. I tell you I think if it can be deep fried or BBQ’ed the Chinese will eat it! Just to name a few things on show they had: Sea horses, snake, cat, scorpions ( that were still alive till they went into the vat ), centipedes, monkey meat, sparrows, pigeons, crabs still in shells, silk worms, cockroach looking bugs, taranchulas, crickets – and they were staked like satay sticks just waiting for the customer to come along and get purchased. I was not as adventurous as Julia who had a snake kebab and a also a scorpion kebab – for me I had a BBQ’ed corn and also some dim sum and dumplings that were just delicious. It was an interesting introduction into the local foods and there weren’t too many tourists, a lot more locals. It was a great way to blow off the jetlag cob webs.
That evening I met the rest of the group. We have a great couple from LA – Chrissy and Eric, a computer expert from Holland - Jesse, a grand young man of 72 from Canada – Bill, a ticketing agent from Melbourne – Melissa, plus myself and our guide Julia from Russia. We headed to a Kung Fu show at the Red Theater for the evening and it was an amazing show. A lot of visual effects on the history of Kungfu viewed from the eyes of a young boy as he masters and moves through his lifes journey.
No photos or status updates via Facebook from China. It is currently prohibited in China to use Facebook, due to some riots that happned in Xinjing, with the Government citing that there was alot of Western input beforehand and the consensus was the riots were instigated by outside agitators. I tried to trick the system by going in several different ways, google, email links etc…. but it was just to damn smart. Get me to Mongolia – I hate to say I maybe having just a slight Facebook withdrawal……
Welcome to China – this place is amazing!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment