I'm in Beijing! and today I climbed the Great Chinese Wall! It's an amazing, confusing, enormous city that is full of contradictions. The first surprise was being greeted by a shiny blue sky yesterday afternoon, the 2nd has been a little hazier, but still pretty blue. They obviously did something good into those games last year... Second highlight (I know I'm easily pleased) was getting our temperatures checked as we walked through the airport, to ensure we were not carrying anything flu-like into the country (this was again backed up this morning as 3 people from our group were "randomly" selected for temperature checks in the lobby, there was even special monitoring equipment installed so they could be checked quickly). Our hilarious local guide, Tomic ("like A-Tomic, but without the A, powerful stuff", shortly followed by "and girls I'm married since one year, so no funny business"... phew), is doing his best to keep this group of 15 (to shrink to 9 in a few days) on track for the "organised" part of the day. Outside of that, in a desperate attempt to avoid the traffic and enjoy some air-conditioned travel, I found myself in what must be THE most efficient tube system in the world, and at a mere 10p per trip... however, I'm finding it very hard coupling the well groomed young Chinese people I see on the tube with the living quarters in, albeit quant, but very Kathmandhu-like Houhai district... The Chinese Wall was extraordinary.
Tomorrow I'm off to The Forbidden City, which will be somewhat complicated by the rehearsals for the 60th anniversary of "modern China" (as founded by Mao in '49), coming up on Oct 1, which means that large parts of Tian'anmen Square will be shut down. And then in the afternoon we're boarding a 20-hr train (!) to Langzhou.
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