Beijing

Beijing is just huge. I know it's well known, but really! About 15 million inhabitants and the size of Luxembourg. It is a nightmare to cross above ground. I caught a bus back from the summer palace just to check things out and found it to be a long and painful journey. There are some roads which are about 6-8 lanes across (difficult to tell, as no one stays in lanes and things get very messy). The subway, however, is a thing of beauty. I keep stopping to question why China has such great public transport and I can't get it in Melbourne. An express train to the station at least!

Anyway, in the end I only had 2 days in Beijing (you need 7, I'm told). One day was to see the wall, so only one other precious day was available. Forbidden city? Sounds like a bit of a bore. Tiannemen Square? It's just there. An expanse of concrete where the state slaughtered their own and hosed away the blood. Little appeal. So the summer palace it was.

The summer palace sits around a lake on the outskirts of central Beijing. The emperors of various dynasties would hang out there, you guessed it, in the summer. It has been destroyed and restored (you want details and historic facts, you've got wikipedia) and is now where locals and domestic tourist flock to on a weekend. I was there on a weekend and a 31 degree day. I wasn't handling the hoards very well. Domestic tourists can be loud and push, use umbrellas for sun shade and don't mind poking you in the head with them.








It's pretty amazing and I'm glad I visited, but was also very glad to leave.






Not wanting to waste any of my precious time, I signed up for an acrobat show in the evenings and was not disappointed. Highlights included a girl working on a suspended hoop - extremely moving and graceful performance, and a metal sphere with motorcycles riding around within it simultaneously, at ridiculous speeds - a gut wrenching, mental performance.