Beijing, everything old is new again.

Qianmen, the north tower of the Archer's Gate which used to be the southern gate in a now absent wall that encircled the inner city. Silly communists...


So Beijing is indeed cold! I got in this morning after an overnight train trip in a soft-sleeper car. It was super! I've got to say, that was one of the most comfortable 1500 km I've ever travelled. I'll get to the trip and where I am now, on Christmas day in the Beijing Far East International Youth Hostel in something of a developing chronology... So, I last posted on my first evening in Shanghai. The 23rd worked out to be a bit of a disordered day. It was very interesting, just not what I'd intended to do. I set out that morning, with a breakfast of fried rice looking out onto a thoroughfare choked with bicycles and scooters of every shape and size racing and honking and almost hitting each other time and again. Walking along the European architecture lined streets into some of the older parts of town turned into quite an adventure. I wandered and met a Chinese guy on his way to work. He spoke English quite well and we talked about how the city was changing. I left him at his bus stop and set off into the old town area where, apparently, most of the small machine shops are. I passed guys cutting 6 inch steel bar on the street with no protection for them or anyone walking by. They were just there, in the middle of my path, cutting steel, sharpening or grinding things all the while women, children, dogs and all kinds of guys were walking by. The sidewalk was about a metre and a half wide at that point, so it wasn't as if there was a lot of room... I found myself worrying my pants would go up as I passed him, by mere inches, having my boots showered with sparks.

From that neck of the woods I got deeper into craziness and danger. I wonder how they don't die more often from construction and industrial accidents. I accidentally stumbled into a construction site while trying to make my way along a 6 lane road when the sidewalk just ran out into a construction site. There was a giant front end loader with two and a half metre wheels heading for me with a load full of bricks. Kinda scary. I caught a taxi to try to get to the train station and that was again scary, although more for the people the dude almost hit... I was empathizing with them... my first mistake.

Anyway, the guy dropped me off at the north side of the Shanghai rail station. This was an all Chinese place. There were third world style warrens with peeps putting together all kinds of stustainance, that I mournfully declined. I keep finding myself wanting to engage, but the gluten and the general risk of three days of daihorea (sp?) keep me at a distance. I also felt a little weird walking through there with my pack, my warm leather boots, gortex jacket and big, functional backpack and generally well padded wallet. Not sure if I felt it was an affront, but I definately felt the difference my opportunities had made.

So following a long walk around the train station that involved ultra-modern, maybe even post-ultra-modern architectural phaluses of glass and steel juxtaposed between warrens of two century old, poorly treated poverty stricken craziness, populated by throngs of Shanghai's unwashed, disadvantaged cooking, smoking, sitting, talking, spitting, haulking, watching people go by, fixing bicycles and the like.

Profoundly telling.

After all that, I managed to buy a softsleeper ticket for Christmas Eve. I then took a metro to People's Square and checked out the Shanghai Museum for about five hours. Lots of pottery, jade, caligraphy and painting. Yep. Pretty neat. Lots of foreigners. Tea for 30 RMB. (my hostel bed was 60).

After that I went back to the Captain's Hostel and got another night. I went upstairs to relieve my headache with a nap, had a conversation with a couple of guys speaking Putonghua, one of whom turned out to be Japanese named Yoshimura. The other guy was from Huangzhou and had adopted the English name Johnson. We later went for Uyghur kebabs next to a construction site and followed it up with a bit of wok fried stuff in a place with a lot of cats hanging around chasing things. I though, if there are cats, there won't be rats... I was a little leary as I'd seen a rat in a place that afternoon and was really wishing I'd seen it before I'd eaten in the place. So, the place with the cats was a comfort. Pollished the evening off with a few beers, and a chat with an American woman named Katie, who turns out to be an English teacher in Yamaguchi, near Ube-shi. We arranged to hit up the French Concession the following day. Midnight, I turned in.

The following morning, after a super sleep, I hit up a green beans with garlic and fried rice breakie and hit the road with Katie, catching the subway down to the absolutely marvelous French Concession. I have to say, that place was the highlight of Shanghai for me. I could definately have tolerated living there. There were Plain Trees lining all of the streets and the architecture was cared for, not just used up. We got ourselves a couple of hour long foot massages. It was possibly the nices thing my feet have ever felt. Afterward, I stuffed the poor things back into my big leather boots and shouldered my fourty pound pack, heading back out onto the street to find some of the famous grub in the area. We ate at a place called Yang's Kitchen. It was super! Absolutely unrivaled in my stay here so far. After that, we tried our hand at the metro to get up to the train station. After two jam packed trains had come and gone, we decided that a cab was going to be our best bet. We hired one and he took us on a winding route to where we assumed the Jade Buddha was. Katie, being a perhaps a little more realistic, worldly or cynical, (I'll opt for the first) figured he was paid to drop off foreigners in a giant commercial miasma. He left us two km from our destination with only 2.5 hours to go on the clock before I had to catch my train. We hoofed it and made the distance in half an hour despite the traffic. Jade Buddha. Awesome. Jade Buddha temple. Wonderful. Jade Buddha temple's throng of beggars. Amazingly persistant. Like two blocks persistant. Even after you finally give up and hand them a bill that should feed them for the day, they keep coming after you, grabbing at you and stuff. It's only when the police come by that they give up. You can run, but they're like the mummy, shuffling after you... creepy.

Anyway, the overnight trip to Beijing was spent in company of three Putonghua speakers learning a bit more about the language. I ended up having a good conversation with a guy who happened by and heard my English who had studied in Nottingham. Interesting, this travelling thing... Anyway, that's about where my hour of internet time leave me. More later. Back into the cold to face the haulkers and spitters...