trishaaa in chinaaa

People, more people… and even more people?! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

White hazy sky. (it’s hard to tell if it is going to rain or not!)

Traffic jams. (bicycle jams?)

Debris in the eye.

Since in China, I have also experienced much new random phenomena:

I have started to SWEAT---I know some of you always thought it somewhat mutant of me! And thus the necessity of a minimum of two showers per day.

Adapting to the toilet in the floor---how ‘un-wordly of me’! but I think the girls at the Peel House certainly perfected the ‘art of squatting’!

Constant thirst---debating whether to drink or not for fear of having to face such situations!

Queues mean nothing---thus the necessity of being pushy and aggressive---while waiting to pick up my bag at the Great Hall of the People, within a second three people had squeezed their way in front of me---I didn’t realize that it WASN’T rude to shove the key in the lady’s face!

Watching out for those spokes!---I actually got poked in the eye on my way into the Forbidden City, by an elderly woman in front of me who seemingly lost control of her umbrella. Thank god for my contact lens.

Checking your blind spot while strolling through the hutongs---I have no doubt that those rickshaws and bicycles will hit you---pedestrians have absolutely no right of way!

Despite all this, I seemed to have survived the week in Beijing- I had 5 full days (thankfully I was not seriously jetlagged---)

AGENDA:

Summer Palace
Forbidden City
Jingshan Park
Fragrant hill
SoHo
The CBD (central business district)
Tian’ anmen
Beijing Planning Museum
Temple of Heaven
Lama Temple
Silk Market
Houhai Lake
The Great Wall (at Badaling)

I think that my feet still hate me.

I should’ve taken my mother’s advice and brought running shoes---the city is HUGE…but it’s not the distance between the sites that kills you, you can always take a bus or taxi---but the sites themselves are HUGE…walking through a massive park for one temple?!

I was also fortunate enough to have some Chinese friends take me around. Alice and Eric hung out with me in the evenings, after my long days---they were quite a relief to some of the hostellers---when I could no longer take backpackers bragging to one another about their ‘awesome adventures’ in the far east---haha

And also my uncle was able to take me around some sites for two days---two days of extensive physical activity as we climbed the Fragrant Hill one day and the Great Wall the next! i think the evidence was quite evident in his drenched shirt!

And a friend Maggie gave me a rather thorough historical tour of both the Lama Temple and the Temple of Heaven---

All in all, I had a GREAT time in Beijing!!!---I advise all of you who haven’t been there yet to GO---haha, easier said than done but seriously…its AWESOME (la).

p.s. if one more person asks me if I need a fork to eat…