Beijing- snoring, admin and the great beer hunt

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  Beijing, China
Saturday, April 12, 2008

We boarded our 'Z class express' train to Beijing from Xian with a sense of excitement- this train will be the most advanced sleeper we use on our voyage. We were initially not disapointed, with luxuries like individual airline style TV's in every birth and a very slick looking carriage. Things went rapidly wrong however when a very fat objectionable man slumped his jabba the hut figure into our compartment. We knew he was bad news- so fat that he even made snoring noises when awake. He snored like a beast all night and we were unable to take advantage of the super smooth ride and comfortable bed. A certain hugh laurie coined double barrelled word ending in 'blaster' would be a suitable description of him! The incessant snoring had another unfortunate effect- gavin, in an effort to block out the noise, stuck two pieces of tissue in his ears. Unfortunately these remained firmly lodged on our arrival, making a visit to the excellent 'hong kong international medical facility, beijing' a necessity to get them removed! On the plus side, at least he will get to make an insurance claim!

With paper removed, we set about seeing some of the sights on Tiananmen sqaure right by our excellently located hostel. We went to see the big picture of mao and went into the fantastic 'great hall of the people'- the giant parliament building you see whenever hu jintao is giving a speech. We also spent a while trying to work out where the famous 'protester and tank' photo was taken but to no avail. Obviously we had to avoid saying the 'd' word or the 't' word when in tiananmen square- there are soldiers and police everywhere. As it was beer o clock, we decided to find a beer emporium. One of the most difficult things about urban chinese sightseeing is there simply are no places to take the weight of your feet and have a drink. We set about finding the 'John Bull pub' to discover from some cunning reserach that it had closed 18 months before!
The next day we set about doing some of our admin. We had to pick up our tickets to Pyonyang, a challenging exercise involving a trip to suburbia and ascent of a dodgy looking tower block accompanied by a security guard. The office was closed, so we embarked on a mission of phone calls and taxi rides to track down the man who has now delivered them to the hotel. We spent the rest of the day doing all the other boring admin ticket related stuff that we had to do- in the previous months the phrase 'we will sort that out in Beijing' had become commonplace. It has the advantage though of taking you to some areas of the city that you would normally not go, making for fascinating wandering.
Friday marked the day to collect our North Korean visas, a very cool experience. You get your passport inspected by the solidier at the door who slides back the razor wire fence and lets you in to a large 1970's style room with brown chairs, mosaics and a large painting of the Kims. In the centre five or six koreans sat round a table smoking and looked up at us in bewilderment when we entered. We ran into the man who had been dealing with getting our trip approved who seemed very friendly and our visas were issued with little trouble. We spent the rest of the day exploring the fascinating forbiden city- a maze of ancient imperial buildings that is a must see attraction in Beijing.

Today we head into North Korea on the train.....our phones will be removed, the internet does not exist and there will be no way of contacting the outside world. We will let you know about it when we get back in a week!        

  

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