It has been a while, but we would like to tell you a bit more about or time in Beijing last month.

After finishing the final part of the Trans Mongolian railway we finally arrived in a very hot (39C)and smoggy Beijing.Luckily for us Rosalie, a friend of Sharda that lives in Shanghai together with her boyfriend Michiel, was awaiting us at the trainstation. On a recommendation of Rosalie and Michiel we had booked our fantastic hotel already in advance througha chinese website, which saved us almost half the price we had otherwise paid through a western website. Good to have friends with in-depth knowledge of a country!
After a good Korean! lunch we waited until Michiel, Daan & Clarisse (friends of Rosalie and Michiel andliving in Shanghai as well) and Daniel (another friend from our great capitalvisiting Michiel and Rosalie) arrived from Shanghai. During our one week stay Michiel turned out to bethe best tourguide we could have had. As a journalist he spends quite some timein Beijing and he was able to show us many fine hotspots that we could not have discovered without him, as we found out on our last day when we had picked a restaurant ourselves with a dissapointing result something to do with dog.... and resulting in a painful stomach afterwards.

As good Dutch citizens the seven of us went off on a bike on our second day to cycle through the nicelyrenovated hutongs (kind of alleys) and lakesidesof China's capital. Furthermore we visited the CNTV tower, designed by our well-known architect Rem Koolhaas. Unfortunately the accompanying hotel also designed byhim was burnt down recently as a result of some extra strong Chinese firecrackers during Chinese New Year which the Chinese don't realy regret since they have mixed feelings about the National TV. After some drinks in a bar called 'the steamboat', we went off on our bikes to the other side of town to crash aninternational architectsbirthdayparty / barbeque.As we were with 7 instead of the expected 2, we bought a couple of beer bottles and somelovely chicken wings and lambchops on the way. We had a great evening with a lot of live music, especially liked by Daniel, who immediately joined the melting pot of different musicians.Our after party was held in an uglyhutong near our hotel, where we finsihed some morebottles of Tsingtao beer and ordered some extra portions of food together withsome bare bellied spitting locals, as we were still hungry.

The food, it must be said is really lovely in Beijing, at least as long as you know what to order (the food pictures help, but are not always a guarantee for success as I told you before)! As we were with a group every dinner we ordered 10-15 meals and shared that among us: chicken, pork, beef, vegetables, frogs, snails, some stillunidentified snacksand all very delicious. We left the dogs, snakesandother exotic delicaciesfor some other visitors at least thats what we believe!

Eating has been a mainpart of our daily activities and gaveus plenty of time to share our thoughts about the name of the city; is it Beijing or Peking?We haven't come toa final conclusion yet.....apparently it also depend on how long you arein China for as a foreigner which really differs within our group.

Other sites really well worth visiting are the art district '798', where we enjoyed some nice exhibitions of Chinese modern art, the Bird's Nest (Olympic Stadium of Beijing 2008)and Watercube (where Pieter van den Hoogenband unfortunately just missed the podium).

After having visited the mausoleum of Lenin in Moscow, we did notwant to miss the opportunity to see that other 'great' communist leader upclose and personal.First we had to turnin all our cameras and bags. After queuing with a couple of thousand Chinese admirers/tourists, that have the nasty habit of boldly jumping the queue with their tiny bodies and that without any remorse, we were allowed to pass by the balmsed corpse of Mao, 'De Grote Roerganger'.

Off course we also visited the Forbidden City on the other side of the Tiananmen square, although we were a bit dissapointed as the ambiance as seen in the film 'The Last Emperor' is slightly different when passing by the beautiful buildings and palaces together with dozens of tourgroups of loud Chinese scholars and a couple of 1000 other (mainly Chinese) tourists.To escape from this madness we decided to have a delicious lunch at a nice restaurant on one of the city's beautiful lakes and later Sharda and Daniel took a boattrip on the lake (see attached pictures) while I enjoyed a couple of icecold Tsingtaos. For dinner we all went to a nearby Peking Duck restaurant. Needless to say that we ordered the city's most famous meal, while being showed performances involving dancing, sining and acrobatics. The main event was the 'changing faces' act: a man wearing a mask, which he could swap for another one in the blink of an eye, without we, the public having noticed this. We were told only 200 people worldwide (all of them Chinese) are able to do this and that a famous (but up totoday unknown by us) magician paid a huge sum for this amazing trick.

The next day we said goodbye to Michiel and Daan as they left for one of China's many expanding large cities to do research for the book they are planning to write on architecture, urban development and people in China's new and fast growing cities. Good luck with your project guys!!! Then next morning Rosalie and Clarisse also had to leave for Shanghai and we headed for the Great Wall driven by our private taxi driver, the kind Mr Wang Ping! To escape the crowds we decided to go from Jinshangling to Simatai,a less popular section. Allthough we did not come across many tourists on this particular section of the Wall, we did have to pass some 30 old watchtowers, most of them fully armed with an eager and persistant vendor, trying to sell us water, coke or whatever he or she had to sell. But as wewere well prepared wehad to dissapoint these poor guys and they had to try to sellwater, which were obviously refilled mineral water bottles, toanother toerist that might have followed that day.Furthermore we discovered that not the entire Wall is as old as they try to make us believe. We encountered a lot of workers that were busy not only restoring but even rebuilding parts of the Wall. The Chinese definitely like new things indeed:)

Our last day in the pleasant city we (Sharda, Jordi and Daniel) mainly spent in 'the Bookworm', a cosy and peaceful place where you can buy, trade and read books (in English). Or as we did enjoy a great European style lunch including several bottles of a charming Chardonnay from New Zealand (not bad at all having to go there as well:)). We were told later that day a book presentation was to be helt here, so we stayed a bit longer, drank a bit more and read a bit. It was about the new book 'Ich bin ein Beijinger' (sounds somewhat familar...) by the inBeijing expat land wellknown Chinese-American columnist Kaiser Kuo (maybe his parents were fans of the film The Usual Suspects with the mysterious Kaiser Sosei?).It was quite funny but also a bit pathetic to see this so-called 'socialist expat elite' asking serious questions on human rights in China, which were not answered by 'the Kaiser', probably out of fear of loosing his job when being too critical...? Instead he replied by telling easy and corny jokes on marihuana (always good for a laugh with most Americans) and the audience loved it and laughed a bit too loud.

Unfortunately all good things come to an end and we had to leave this pleasant city again, as a new adventure in the Himalayas is awaiting us (to be posted shortly so keep checking your emails)!

Bye!

Jordi and Sharda