August 2006
(15th August 2006)
I can mostly highly recommend the Z5 sleeper train from Beijing to Shanghai. The train is smooth and fast. I know this because there are displays at the end of each compartment telling you how fast the train is going. (At 5.15am this morning, for example, it was going 137 km ph.) There are hot water dispensers in every carriage (note: next time, bring tea). ...
→ Sick
(14th August 2006)
Before the tail end of the southern China typhoon hit yesterday - rain, rain, rain - we went shopping at a market in eastern Beijing. On Sundays, it opens at 4.30 am, which is apparently when the Real Antique Dealers come. But by 10.30 the Real Antique Dealers had turned into Many Lowais. And many many Chinese. It is officially the "folk art" market, selling ...
(13th August 2006)
Yesterday was arty and noisy. First, a half-hour taxi ride to Dashanzi, a Chinese army factory that now also houses many art galleries, some nice cafés, and many lo wais and hip Chinese wandering round looking at the art, which seems rather obsessed with Chairman Mao, in my uneducated view. The Long March gallery had an installation consisting of old Chinese houses rescued from a ...
→ Big Wall
(12th August 2006)
Simatei, yesterday, where some Chinese a long time ago built a very big wall to keep out other Chinese. Here is part of it.
The Great Wall is great. And wondrous and breathtaking and any other superlative adjective you care to insert. Simatei is three hours from Beijing and - I know I keep banging on about this - the ...