Back to Beijing! In dreams only...

Factory 798 in Beijing. A huge, enormous and gigantic complex of old factories not in use anymore were artists have settled themselves. Cafes, art galleries, relax ambiance... A very nice and interesting place. Instead, I am now sitting in my kitchen, it is raining outside, grey, so autumnish... And I have tons of homework to do... What a depressing thought.

But I have to say it is also nice to be back. For instance I am still coughing from the pollution in Beijing, that can easily be observed by the greyness of my pictures... On the one bellow, right behind the workers, it is already possible to observe the ambient midst, even if this was maybe 15 meters away from me when I took the picture. Indeed these pictures are from end of June 2008, when the pollution had reached its peak right before all cars and factories were turned off for the Olympics.

Lunch break for the workers who arr renovating Sanlitum street, end of June 2008. A month later it was crowded with drunk tourists all nights of the week...



Be careful the safe!


7:00 a.m in a Hutong, the dumplings are smoking outside every little restaurants...




Dazhalan street where our hostel was. The pollution was not as bad as in the picture with the workers.


Factory 798.





People always have birds in cages everywhere...




Wall painting in factory 798.

A La Playa

Yesterday Tristan, Carlotta and me went to the beach. But we set up our mind quite late, so we had to take the night train... going from Beijing at 12 p.m and arriving in Shanhaiguan at 3:30 a.m... So it was slightly tiring, but we managed. Arriving at Shanhaiguan we decided to rest a bit in a gloomy restaurant... but after having a fight with a fat rat to go to the toilet we took of to the beach. And to our surprise there was lots of people in the water, even in the middle of the night, who where fishing crabs. So we watched the sun rise over the Great Wall, which has its foot in the water. And we spend the whole day at the beach, swimming and evensuntanning.

Yet as the day rose we realized that the mist wasn't mist but pollution, for we couldn't further that 200m. At least the factories were out of sight... But the water was reasonably clean, and it was extremely nice to get out of Beijing and swim...
However on the way back we forgot to ask how long was the train ride, and it took 6 hours instead of 3 because the damn train was stopping in every train station possible, and it also took a rather long detour by Tianjin. So we got back in Beijing at 11h30p.m, or 24h after hours after going to the beach, without sleeping. Tiring, but nice.




The nice beach... in the background a gigantic harbor building is hidden by the haze, as well as a couple of factory pipes..


People fishing crabs at 4 a.m.


Sunrise on the beach...

On the way back: people playing strange game where they stick toilet paper to their face when they lose, and Tristan sleeping on the comfy hard sits...

Beijing...

The Forbidden City Entrance...

This week end I went sight seeing (again) some Beijing places, in order to get out of BLCU for a stroll... So Tristan and I went to some Hutong and to the Tian'anmen square. Wowowewaw. We got lots of Chinese taking picture of us, of course, and a good bath in the crowds hanging around.

Some military trying to walk with the army pace, but they usually aren't so successful...

Washing the Tian'anmen square by hand...

Some nice communist train driving by Wudakou, the happening street near by our university.

Yeah. An amazing day. This morning I went for an excursion in the Hospital next to the campus, for my shoulder hurts beyond crazy cranes. Interesting. First you have to pay 2 kuai (30 cents of dollar..) to get a small piece of paper (after having fought fiercely in the queue) with which you can go see the doctor. Then the waiting line is in the doctor office, so everyone is coughing and spitting and sneezing and avian flu in the small office while the doctor was examining me... And then he gave me a prescription for some pain killer and dragon blood capsules. I'm looking forward for the dragon blood ones... I'm sure that that's exactly what I need... some good'old dragon blood. Yeah. I like China.

Zee Duck...

Zee Duck... Eh oui. Yesterday night I went to the Quebecois Dinner Peking Duck and guess what? I had some Peking duck. During this interesting evening a guy nicely tried hard to make me understand that Quebecois people are in fact more French than French people. That was fascinating. And long. Luckily the subject of conversation changed after a while. Sorry to exist...

Else it was funny to see all these black sedan Audi cars parked in front of this 7 floors roast duck restaurant... Meaning that half the customers were officials being invited to eat in exchange of nice favours. That's the way it works in here... It's hard to be an official: eating and drinking all the way from noon to the end of the night! I would become sick of ducks. What a kind of a life, he? Yeah, I like.

Anything else interesting? I'm spending 3 to 4 hours every afternoon working on my 4 hours morning class, and it's going fast. Faster that a express train with burning wheels and rapid raw raptors or RRR. That the stuff. But I think this week end it's going to be party time, if the night clubs aren't closed... Indeed some rumors circulate saying that all clubs in Beijing are to close down during the Olympics, and bars close earlier....................................................
We'll see I guess.

Travelling Diary... Day Four & Five.

I am finally back to Beijing, with my bike. There was some complication, once again, but it ended all right. When I asked if it was all right to bring the bike in the bus the people at the bus station started a debate in Chinese in front of my face. After 5 min and still no answer I decided to go and put the bike in the trunk myself, without waiting for their consentment. They didn't stop me, so it was all right. The driver still tried to take some money from me, of course. But I got to Beijing without having to throw away my bike as I thought. Still nice. Tomorrow I'll go to my room at the university and start the formalities before starting classes. So now I'm just reading Harry Potter because Sabrina forced me to buy it and read it. What a life.

China

It is now my 5th day in China with Sabrina. We just arrived this morning in Xi'an, our second destination. Beijing was hugelly massively impressive. It's just enormous. There are dozens of cranes in the city, as new sky scrapers are poping out every day. I am really amazed by the pace at which Beijing is going on. VW Passat is the must car, and indeed there are thousands of them on the jammed streets of the capital. Audi and Mercedes are also incredibely numerous. This city smells money being massively transfered between busy hands... But some do not manage to follow. Some rickshaw guys still wander around, but they seem lost in the middle of the 10+ lanes avenues, packed with thousands of cars and city buses...
Yesterday we took the bus to the Summer Palace, a couple of kilometers away from the central Forbidden City. The ride was at least 2 hours long, due to the incredible 24h traffic jams that characterize Beijing. The high rise appartment building are everywhere; for kilometers and kilometers they can be seen, as long as the smaug allow the sight. Beijing is huge.
Yet I already love China. People are great, and very helpfull. The first night I wasn't able to order food, for the language barrier is really a problem. But I'm already getting better. I even asked for soy sauce the other day to put in my rice. Also there is so many Chinese tourists that foreign ones aren't perceived as rats invading the country, as I felt in Latin America. I'm looking forward to be able to discuss in Chinese so I can talk with the people... Maybe get to visit some people living in one of the few Hutong left in Beijing (the traditional districts with houses with courtiards)... I think the comming 3 months are gonna be great.


3 km from downtown Xi'an...

The nice view from the plane, over Beijing.

Forbidden City...

And the view from the summer palace.