Beijing and the Brother

At home in our luxury suite aboard the fantastic Z14 super train.

Two Chinese guards posing for their Tiananmen Square protectin' shot.

The single member of the Chinese Ice Hockey team arrives early for practice.

Mao!

Attempts to protect both Communism and Mao himself, were dissuaded by the stern looking guards who had the job covered.

Forbidden City.

Temple of Heaven.

Just Protectin' one tiny length of an enormous wall.

Taking a break on the never-ending steps.

China takes a quick bite outta ole Dev.

The 'Z' class train from Shanghai to Beijing was by far the nicest train I have ever ventured on and is worthy of a direct comparison to the much hyped 'Super-Cama' class of Argentinian buses. Trevor and I hung out for the majority of the ride in the "bar" car, until we were kicked out and quarantined to our rooms where we continued the festivities via some wireless Nintendo action and smuggled beers. Arriving in Beijing early the next morning, the temperature difference was immediately noticed and appreciated by yours truly (rather tired of the heat and humidity, as I'm sure most of you back in Vancouver are as well...). After spending the last 4 days in the bustling capital of China, I must say that for some unknown reason, Beijing ranks extremely high on my list of cities visited. The huge streets and walkways make it easy to get around, everyone is very nice and the overwhelming presence of the seemingly robotic soldiers everywhere means you don't have to worry about any funny business.

Our first full day in the city saw the two of us visiting the (in)famous Tiananmen Square where we caught our first and luckily only glimpses of what living in a totalitarian state can be like when we saw an innocent looking fellow running for his life from police, then beaten down and dragged away in front of a crowd of several hundred, all of whom, including myself, too fearful of repercussions to even think about taking a picture of the event. Not sure what the guy did to deserve it, but the look of absolute fear on his face as he was running and his fairly decent clothes added a lot of unanswered questions to the situation. Walking up through Tiananmen we strolled under Mao's never-blinking gaze (as well as the hundreds and hundreds of video cameras) and entered into the Forbidden City. Originally set up as a home for the various emperors of China, who spent nearly all their lives in the large, yet small area, the City was comprised of dozens of the typical Ming dynasty looking buildings and art work, surrounded by a giant wall and moat. Very cool just walking through the thing as well as enjoying a Forbidden Hot Chocolate from the Forbidden Starbucks that now exists inside the city walls. This particular establishment has made quite the stink here in recent months and made for an interesting side quest.

The next day Trev travelled out to the Great Wall, while I stayed behind and toured the city, spending most of my time in the Temple of Heaven park. My main reasons for going down there is that it was rumoured to be the home of a few cool architectural pieces that based on where you stand etc, can project even whispers to the other side of courtyards. For the .8% of my readers who have read Gary Jenning's "The Journeyer" (you know who you are!), I assumed this was the area that Marco Polo often visited while he was staying here (or as it was known in those days, Khanbalik), but was saddened to learn that this was all built several hundred years after the Mongols were pushed out. Speaking of the Mongols, I also spent this day securing my much lauded Mongolian visa after travelling through the DMZ known as the "Embassy Block", and on into the friendly little Mongolian embassy, where they were so excited I was going to their country that they basically gave me the visa for a 1/3rd of the price, as well as armfuls of pamphlets and brochures.

Trev left yesterday afternoon on a 28 hour train ride south back towards the Vietnamese border (in which he has a ticket for standing room only...poor bastard) while I made my way across town to the 4 star hotel in order to await for my incoming kin. Dev arrived a few hours later and after the pleasantries and greetings were finished, we got down to work on finding out where our train tickets had vanished too. 3 hours later, after securing said train tickets through a painful process of hand gestures and broken cell phone calls, I took my fellow Committee member and brother on a short but informative tour of the immediate surroundings of our hotel, including the outside of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square.

This morning, after a restless night (Dev has jet lag, and I simply don't sleep anymore for some reason, thyroid...issues...?), we ventured out to the Great Wall. The driver took us to the wrong section of wall, but we really didn't care as it offered some spectacular views as well as a difficult climb or two up to the top. Hanging out there for a few hours (had much of the wall completely to ourselves) we then drove back to town and strolled our way through the Hutongs, tiny little avenue/neighbourhoods that were built in the city after the Mongols burned it down, at one point emerging out into this large inner city lake, full of ice skaters, ice carts and even a lone hockey player off in the corner.

Tomorrow morning we're up and out of here early in order to begin our 7865km train trip to Moscow and beyond!