I found out that my hotel used to be a summer holiday home for the communist party before being turned into a hotel in the 80's. Theres a long list of famous people who used to stay here.
The room is quite strange, it has a fax machine as I mentioned, but also full office supplies including a stapler, hole punch, ruler etc. The tv comes with free internet and a keyboard (I have taken the ethernet cable out of it and stuck it in my laptop), and they also have usb keys for sale in my room.
Yet after all that, no chair! theres an old desk with an ornate wooden stool with no back on it which I am perched on like a fool.
Speaking of the minibar, they also provide some camera film and what I think is a popcorn popper as well as a fully manual coffee machine including separate grinder.
Head into the bathroom, and theres 2 hairdryers, 2 sets of bathroom scales, 4 toothbrushes, 4 razors, 2 entire boxes of condoms all free.
Exactly what were the communist party members getting up to?
Onto the forbidden city, I took lots of photos.
Room rate doesnt include breakfast, so I had a giant coffee (not quite as giant as the soup bowl from last week) and a delicious muffin.
This was at 8:30, the place wasnt open and I had to convince them to turn the coffee machine on.
Entrance court, full of tour groups with blaring loudspeaker systems, flags, whistles etc. Some now have loudspeakers where they press a button and it makes a series of car alarm sounds.
Picture number 200.
The autumn leaves are everywhere. Excellent weather today, despite it being 2 degrees when I set off, its already about 15C an hour later and I am wishing I didnt have my coat with me.
Brace yourself for a few pictures of tourist stuff.
You can only walk on the right half of everything.
It was last rebuilt around 1400, so its not particularly old.
Difficult light for photos looking into the sun.
Enjoy my attempt at blurry art photo.
Many of the tourists are Japanese schoolgirls, behaving as the stereotype suggests, posing in a cute manner everywhere, non stop giggling and panda hats for most of them. Oh and also surgical masks for at least half of all Japanese school girls.
I look like a secret agent in a bad movie. If I just had an earpiece and pistol with a silencer.
Apparently, according to the Engrish signage, this is where concubines were sent if they were 'caught misbehaving'.
Exit from the palace museum part of the forbidden city, and I spot a big hill, only one thing to do then.
Excellent view, very difficult light, should be up here at dusk not dawn. I can also tell from here that there is pollution haze, but compared to pictures I have seen its nothing.
I can also tell that the centre of the city, where I am staying, is indeed left undeveloped, and off in the distance in all directions I can see more of what looks like modern neon China.
More redundant view.
Last one.
Spot where the last emperor hung himself. I havent seen the movie.
I thought I might as well get another of the big tourist attractions out of the way.
Just like the internet says, Tiananmen square is just a vast expanse of concrete with nothing much to see or do.
There are some very big buildings around and in it, including the national museum which I will probably go to at some point, and also the tomb of Chairman Mao where they have the unfortunate corpse of someone that looks like him on display (apparently the real one fell apart after they pumped fresh alcohol into it every day for 30 years).
I looked around the place for signs of tank tracks, but all I could see were tourist groups sitting on the concrete enjoying the concrete.
An example of the vastness of roads in central Beijing.
The square. Theres soldiers and police everywhere, and you go through security checks to get into the square.
Not sure what this building is, I thought it was Mao's tomb but it turns out thats in the middle of the square.
A large flag, soldiers stand to attention in perspex booths whilst others goose step around it.
Theres a number of patriotic frescos such as this.
This is fairly typical for a Beijing side street, I am in the middle of the road, where they have such gardens and walkways and an army of people sweeping up the leaves.
I had a late lunch at the Chinese version of pepper lunch. You are supposed to cook it yourself but the guy must have thought I didnt know this, and he stirred it all together until cooked before allowing me to take it to my table.
Lunch was small, so enjoyed a delicious crispy chocolate vanilla cream puff from beard papa. Highly recommended!
Many stores have some sort of gimmick out the front, I have seen Darth Vader, a knight in shining armour, geishas and this guy.
Apparently, part of the great wall. There you go, I have done that now too!
Having already been out and about twice today, I didnt plant to do anything specific in the evening. Hence I headed East to see where that gets me.
First it got me to some fancy western hotels like novotel etc. which wasnt very exciting, but there was also fancy car dealerships, including Koeniggsegg (I will spare you the photos).
I did however wander through a couple of Hutongs, which are old neighbourhoods, I dont think these ones were particularly old though, just small, dusty, and lots of people sitting in restaurants with only 2 tables glaring at me.
I guess they feel I am only wandering through what is effectively their communal garden to gawk at them, and they are right.
My new tactic with the 'hello, do you speak English? where are you from? are you here for holiday or work? Will you have tea with me?' nonsense is to say I am here for work, as a police man.
This is very effective, one girl actually ran off.
Rather than add more ramblings here, I will do that on the pics below of random stuff.
Blue light street had many car dealerships, including not just the car makers but the European tuners like AC Schnitzer and Ruf. There were also some really cool Toyota Tundra all black modded 4wd's that look a bit like the ones top gear drove to the North Pole, only bigger.
OK, thanks sign, now I know exactly where I am going.
Random intersection to highlight that the buildings here are not high, but they are enormous. Not just the street frontage, but the depth of some of them must be between 50 and 100 metres. No natural light in there then.
Street overpasses generally have makeshift markets. You know you have wandered away from the tourist areas once the vendors dont acknowledge you at all.
This is the rather chaotic Beijing central railway station. This is not where the new high speed trains arrive, but the older slow trains. You can get a train from here to Tibet (which has oxygen tubes attached to every seat) and North Korea. There were no westerners at this station that I could see.
Ths shops around the station are interesting, also theres a bunch of guys hanging about with sack trolleys, and when people come out of the station with bags they race to be their first and put your bags on the trolley, forcefully, and then make you pay for them to push it to the taxi / bus station.
Theres a few such giant sports centres about town.
My dinner. They had beef noodle soup and some nice looking dumplings on the menu, but I decided I should have something different, this is fish ball and something and something else in something, with noodles. It was not particularly nice but I ate it. I also had a milk tea with grass jelly and red beans, which was deliciously sickly sweet.