New Years Eve

Trip Start Dec 13, 2009

Trip End Jan 22, 2010

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Flag of China Beijing, Beijing, China
Friday, January 1, 2010

The day started off as usual; even though it was NYE, we still worked as hard as we have every other day. It is not a holiday until 12am, so we were expected to treat it like any other working day. Rebecca was still going to finish work between 6-7pm, as were most people. The last few minutes of class we were treated to trying to say Chinese tongue-twisters, which are so much harder than English tongue-twisters in my opinion. During one of the breaks, Alberto, the Spaniard, took the teacher to teach her a traditional Spanish dance. It was really cute to watch.
After class, I hailed a taxi to take me to the Capital Museum to meet my family. I had never taken a taxi by myself before, so it was a little daunting to flag it down and tell the driver where to go at first, but once we were moving it didn't make any difference. I saw my family on the stairs where we compared experiences from the museum, as I had been there a week before with Rebecca

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We went by subway back to the station, and from there Nanna and I went via tuk-tuk to the local restaurant. I found out today that they call tuk-tuks 'three wheeled cars' here, but I much prefer the name 'tuk-tuk'. We ordered before the others arrived, so the food came almost as soon as they did. We went back to the hotel to sleep before the big new year's celebration that night. We
woke up in time to take the subway to Tian'anmen Square to watch the flag-lowering ceremony. The train doors are automatically opened and closed, so when the seven of us, plus many others tried to get off at Tian'anmen West Station, it was hardly surprising that Dad, Laura and I got left on. Those doors remind me of the type of doors that Maxwell Smart walks through to get to his office. We got off at the next station and ran to catch the train that would go back. We had to run once we got off the station, because the flag is lowered at exactly 4:59pm. We managed to catch up to the others, and we made it just in time for the soldiers in military precision walk across the road from the Forbidden City to Tian'anmen Square. They had blocked of this whole main road for the entirety of the event, so it was obvious that it was a big deal. The flag was lowered very ceremoniously, with it being folded in a precise way. The ceremony only lasted about 10 minutes, and I loved watching it. The last time that the flag would be lowered for the year, and we were there to experience it

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. Once the ceremony was over, police vans moved through the square, hoarding everyone out. They had loudspeakers that were used to move everyone out. We stayed back for a few minutes to take some photos, but we were still herded out like cattle. It was done in a quite unfriendly manner, but it was effective as the biggest public square in the world was cleared within three minutes of the flag being lowered.

The Silk Market was only a few stations away, so we decided to go there to kill time before we would meet Ian and Emily for dinner. It truly is a small world, when we bumped into some Australians. When asking where they were from in Australia, they replied Berwick, which was even more surprising. They were actually from Upper Beaconsfield, but they didn’t think that we’d know it. We told them that we have family there, and once we told them 'Fisher’, she goes, "yes, Ron Fisher". She was teaching English in Hong Kong, and was holidaying in Tibet and Beijing. It was a great coincidence.

We took the subway to Dongsi Shitiao station to meet Ian and Emily. They decided to take us to a restaurant in some Hutongs. They have just started a business where they translate the restaurant menus into English and it will soon expand to be a food take away delivery business too

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. They had translated the menu from this restaurant, so they knew that it was good. We had never eaten a meal at the Hutongs before, and it was an interesting experience. Although the outside fa�ade is ancient, the inside is modern. The only thing missing was a bathroom; you had to go outside and up the road for that. The meal was delicious, and was cooked quickly as always. We had our meal in a private room, and by the time we had finished, the chefs were eating dinner together in the main section of the restaurant. The owner of the restaurant was so accommodating, that she even offered me the salt and pepper shakers that I mentioned that I liked.

We made our way from the Hutong village into taxis to go to a place imaginatively called "The Place" to celebrate New Years. Many taxis did not want to take us, because they knew that there was a big event there and there would probably be a traffic jam. The traffic ran smoothly though, and we all got there and met up. The Place has the biggest video display in the world. It made up the roof of the outdoor shelter. The Place by day is a very upmarket shopping centre, home to all the notoriously expensive brands. It was freezing in the cold, and we couldn’t bare to stay until midnight. That, coupled with the fact that there was tens of thousands of people there, fighting for a few taxis. The Place was breathtakingly beautiful; the lights, Christmas trees and general set up of it was magnificent

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. There was a giant Christmas tree at the end of the screen, which was shining brightly from hundreds ofmeterss away. The screen is so big that they have to make up their own animations, and they had a special one with sounds to go with it for NYE.

We caught taxis to go back to the hotel, where we intended to be home in time for the big countdown. We didn’t make it though, and so we welcomed the New Year from our taxi. Unfortunately, our taxi driver was not in a festive mood, so he was not into commemorating the new year. Mum,Nanna and the other girls had a driver that could speak English and was friendly and celebrated with them.

We came back to the hotel, having left in 2009 and returning in 2010, to go to bed.

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