Good Morning Beijing!

Happy New Year!

So, Beijing isn't anywhere close to Vietnam, and most people probably won't get the reference, but there you have it.

Today I left Guangzhou and came to Beijing. I had my first experience with Chinese air travel, and I came away rather impressed. The Guangzhou airport (which I took a picture of) is one of the most impressive buildings I have ever seen, and getting my ticket and finding my gate was extremely straightforward. I had about the same amount of difficulty I would have in the Vancouver Airport, which is to say, not much.

The plane ride was pretty excellent as well, except for the wait we had for air traffic control to let us in. I sometimes get very nervous in planes, and this happened to be one of those times. You see, despite the fact that everything was exceptionally well taken care of, and that I was in a Boeing 757, I had some wild suspicions about the quality of maintenance on the aircraft. I've noticed how insane the Chinese are when it comes to driving, and what sorts of risks they take (the Taxi driver today turned left across three lanes of traffic, even though he was in the right lane, for example), so I wondered if perhaps the same went for aircraft. I tried to console myself with the fact that I had never HEARD of plane crashes in China, but then again, the state controlled media doesn't like to report on disasters that happen within China. Tends to dissuade people from spending their moneys = dampening the economy.

Anyways, we arrived safe and sound at the Beijing airport. Let me just say that Beijing is huge. Absolutely enormous. We flew over most of it on the way to the airport, and it just goes on and on and on. We must have been at several thousand feet, and I could not see an end to the city in any direction. I tried to take some pictures, but I did not have a window seat, so all I got were some lovely pictures of the sun.

Then, I met my tour guide and he took me to my hotel. My hotel is AWESOME. Not the hotel itself, it is pretty regular, and a major step down from the five star treatment I have been used to. But its location is amazing. I am about a five minute's walk from the Forbidden City, which is directly connected to Tiananmen Square. In the other direction (which happens to be the direction I randomly walked when I went exploring), is a famous market street, which I wandered around in, and ate supper in. I went to a Chinese fast food restaurant, which is much like a Chinese Restaurant in Canada, and had supper. I had supper for $2.50. I love the price of food here.

The street my hotel is on is also some kind of crazy marketplace. It is basically a bunch of street vendors who yell at people to get them to buy things. Unfortunately, it seemed the only people on the street were me and other vendors.

The other awesome thing about my hotel is the Guest Directory. This book is such a goldmine of Engrish (poorly translated Chinese, that is) that I might just need to steal it. I'm OK with paying for it if they want me to. Some highlights:

"Mails: If you want to post the mails, express mails or packages, please contact the business center at ****. You can get your mail or package at the front desk, or inquire it at 11 or 12."

"Catering services: Located on the -1st floor..."

"Visitors: If he is not accompanied with the guest, the visitor is not permitted to enter the guest's room."

"Rule 4: It is forbidden to install the copycat and fax machine in the bedroom."

"Rule 8: The gambling, drug, bawdry and whoring and other illegal acts and forbidden at the hotel."

I love the use of the word bawdry. It is so archaic that my spell checker (yes I have one) doesn't know it exists. The only place I've seen it before was in a class on 17th century drama. It means lewd or obscene acts, for those of us who are not complete dorks.

Lastly, although I can't read my own blog most of the time (as blogspot mysteriously doesn't work inside the walls of China), I still get the comments. They are sent to me via email. And also: I really enjoy getting them. More than once, a single comment has pulled me out of some pretty intense homesickness. So, if you have something to say, I'm happy to hear it.

Oh, and on the topic of comments, I got this one on my last post:

"建伟 has left a new comment on your post 'Lazy days in Guangzhou':

.As China increasingly is seen as a growing business power, interest in learning the Chinese language had rocketed, and dominance of Chinese over English will be a long time coming. More and more people begin to learn Chinese, because here is clear career potential for the future. Chinese language education market will be prosperous. Check the site http://www.********.cn/ to learn more about learning Chinese."

Dominance of Chinese over English, huh? Could happen. But those wacky Chinese are jumping the gun a little bit. 15 years of phenomenal growth does not a certainty make. Remember the lessons of the Americas during the 1920's. Or more recently, Japan in the 1990's. Although I admit that a lot of that is the fact that I'm rather fond of certain western values (like freedom of information. I like reading my own blog), which I don't want to lose, should a censoring dictatorship rise to dominance.

OK, here are the pictures. I've had to switch to Flickr, because they've decided in their great wisdom that Picasa is too seditious to be allowed in China. Also, I am now on my fifth set of batteries since getting here.

View pictures here