h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm posting this from Beijing.

Arrived in the early hours of Wednesday morning and am just about over the jetlag.
First impressions of Beijing? Well, we're located in a fairly central part of the city, which incidentally has 14 million inhabitants, and there's plenty noise, plenty pollution and plenty heat.
Most of the Chinese people I've met so far have been delightful and a lot of them speak good English - which rather puts me to shame since I can barely manage Hello and Thank You.
The food's been great - fruit and veg especially are top quality.

Mr T's back at work - and now managing with only one crutch.
Tomorrow I'm going to spend the day visiting the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven and Tian'anmen Square.
Next week I will visit a section of The Great Wall - and some s - so expect lots of photos at some point.

How exciting!

Good to hear Mr T is doing quite well now...

Looking forward to photos!

Isn't this internet thing rather wonderful!

Glad to hear you got there safely, and that Mr T is on the road to recovery. Look forward to further reports.

Enjoy your stay now that you don't have to worry so much anymore about Mr T's health.

It is wonderful that Mr T is well enough that you can enjoy the sightseeing!

Have you arranged to meet Wandin ? I think she's in Beijing at the moment.

Anyway - have a lovely time and all my best to the pair of you.

Hurrah! So glad Mr T is on the mend.

Enjoy the Wall and the !

Glad Mr. T is on the mend

enjoy Beijing - it's a place I've always wanted to go.

Whaaaaaat?

Now that is delightful! I hope you have a wonderful time there. Good to hear about Mr T too.

W

It's wonderful to hear from you! I'm glad J is back at work and is doing so well. Enjoy the sightseeing.

sounds wonderful....cant wait to see the photos and hear the stories

Glad you got there safely and very glad that Mr T is up hobbling about and in a much better state than you thought he would be. Enjoy yourself sightseeing!

k

What a wonderful experience! I wish you all the best and hope you can see everything you intended to see.

Don't do what my friend's grandson did and drop your camera into the waters at Hong Kong harbour on the way home and thereby loose all the photographs you took on your visit to China!!!!

The tour was pretty good. It comprised two Auzzies and me - and the guide.
The Forbidden City was stunning. A lot of it's been rebuilt over the years but still looks fantastic. I was asking the guide if the fantasy martial-arts film Hero had been filmed there, since a lot of the scenery looked familiar from seeing it the other night, back in the UK. Apparently, there's a mock-up of the Forbidden City in Shanghai and that's where any filming is done.
Tian'anmen Square was big. I wanted to go and pay my respects to Chairman Mao - but he only receives visitors before 12.00 noon and we were too late.
We had lunch in a wee restaurant, where the food was mostly delicious and I managed to eat everything with my chopsticks. Favourite items were pork buns and braised pak choi.
Then we had a visit to a silk factory, where we saw the entire process, apart from Mr Moth and Mrs Moth getting married - as the guide put it
I suspect the factory/shop was a gubmint owned operation but the guides/demonstrators were very enthusiastic and it was hard to resist buying something. I got a silk-filled duvet for a fraction of the cost in the UK. It's less than 2kg but rather bulky so I haven't yet figured out how I'm going to get it home.
The final place we visited was The Temple of Heaven - another complex of old and fabulously beautiful buildings.

On Saturday - Mr T and I went into central Beijing for a walk/hobble around and I got my first opporchancity to do a bit of haggling as I needed a wrist strap for my camera. I think I did okay on the price.

Sunday was a quietish day, due to Mr T overdoing the walking the day before. He caught up on some work and I went for a swim.

Today I spent an hour in the gym and then went for a manicure and pedicure. I'm huge, compared to most Chinese women, and felt like a giantess with this tiny woman tending to my digits.

I think tomorrow I will go to the Summer Palace on another of these wee tours. It'll be great if it's a small group again.

Incidentally, one thing which amuses me greatly is that the shops and cosmetic counters are chock-a-block with products for lightening the skin - which seems to be a major deal over here. In the UK, we're doing the complete opposite by trying to look brown!

About the bulky duvet - see if you can find vacuum plastic bags anywhere. I've seen a sort where you can suck out the air with an ordinary vacuum cleaner (hoover).

It seems you can even do it with a regular plastic bag - see this youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6coszw67GSQ

That sounds fascinating, Teuchter.

I'm glad Mr T's health is so much better, enabling you to enjoy your stay.

and about Mr. T.

Have fun and lots of interesting moments. And that's an order.

sounds really relaxing so far, Teuchter.

As for chopsticks - whenever I go to Korea I get a bad case of Chopstick Finger after about 3 days of 3 meals a day - how are yours?

Glad to hear that you are enjoying your stay and that Mr T is recovering.

Is it something special with chinese beauty treatments? I've seen a lot of photos of princess and her girl friends getting their hair done, backs rubbed (fully clothed), getting manicured with impressing false nails and such. Or is it just more common to have these things done?

Thanks, Titania - I'll investigate the vacuum option. I've seen such bags in MMF's store so will try to source here.

B'el - Mr T's feeling so much better, (though still in a leg brace and hobbling around on crutches), that he's back at wo*k and I'm being left to my own devices during the day. He lost a couple of weeks due to the injury so is running (sort of, ) to catch up on the project.

I'm certainly making the most of this trip, tartaronne. There's so much to see in and around the city - although the language barrier presents some problems, despite our best attempts at Mandarin, and the traffic is daunting.
I've eventually figured out what the rule of the road is. It's taken me a week of observing Chinese driving practice - through half closed eyes, due to sheer terror - but I've realised that they only worry about what's ahead of them on the road. There's no consideration given to what's behind - leading to sudden pulling out of lanes and weaving in and out of traffic lanes; any problems created by such manoevres are those of the people behind.

I haven't yet developed chopstick finger, Sho, as only a couple of meals have had these particular eating implements. We had another delicious lunch today at one of the Gubmint restaurants. The food was far better quality than anything I've eaten in the UK.

Sounds like princess is having fun over here too, DQ. I don't generally go in for much in the way of beautifying in the UK, as you can probably tell so I¡¯m not sure if the prevalence of such things is increasing.