Rambling: Blow by Blow- 31 march

31/3/2011
First day in Beijing. Beijing is different from Tianjin, and Beijing seems like a complicated place to live in, compared to Tianjin. For one, there seem to be much more people in Beijing, and a lot more tourists. Beijing’s traffic jams are quite spectacular, and this is when walking is faster than driving.

Traffic jam! At about 10 am on a Friday morning, where the rush hour period is long over, and many people are at work. Well..Nope, and the road seems permanently crowded. The idea of rush hour traffic seizes to exist, cause throughout the day, the roads are jammed. Like that. It's a good thing the cars do move, but very, very much slower.

Apartment block for singles only. So if you're attached, married, separated or widowed, you cannot stay here. Well, that pretty much takes care of the many potential residents for now.

We visited the summer palace and the temple of heaven today. Even though the carparks may seem deserted and nobody is there, you take that impression that no one there back after you go inside. The summer palace is overrun with tourists. There were hawkers everywhere, selling things like maps, snacks, toys, instruments and souvenir items. As we walked, we were continually approached them, peddling their wares, trying to get some business from us.

Entrance of the summer palace. This is where you need a ticket to go in, or climb over the walls 'cuz you're a CIA agent and you think tickets are stupid cause they are a waste of paper, money and manpower.

Giant LED panel displaying the information, or rather "Notes" about the 2 ticketing seasons, codes of conduct. They have explanations in Chinese(for mainland visitors or overseas chinese) and English(for the rest of the world)

Same LED, but this with a different display.

And another one

And another one.

Ah, ticket pricing of admission. Looks pretty reasonable, compared to the fees we pay in Singapore.

Entrance of summer palace. Squeezed through the gate with tons of tourists. Yes i now love crowds. zzz.

A man doing chinese calligraphy using water and tiles as ink and paper. The water dries up after a while, so the words fade in a few hours, which is kinda sad. Still, extremely cool on my rank.

A rather big 寿, which means longevity. I took this when he was done with his word. I reckon it's 3m across and 5m long.

I don’t know whether to pity or scorn them. I pity them because they have no choice but to sell souvenirs on the streets to earn their keep, I scorn them for not applying for a proper job, given the number of hiring notices around. In any case, they’re (hopefully) independent and living on their own money, which I think it’s the bare minimum to live your life.
I nearly got lost today. The place was soo big, and I was occupied with taking photographs (on assignment) and I didn’t notice the rest of them walking off!

Inside the main courtyard, where numerous tourists groups were gathered beneath the flowering spring trees. It would look nicer if it wasn't this crowded.

Men hawking/playing chess in a quiet corner of the gardens. I still can't remember/ don't know what they are really doing.

I need to be more attentive of my surroundings in the future. I don’t want to end up as a “missing person” in china that no one is able to find. That kind of news isn’t very welcome to anybody, especially to my mother.
Checked into a hotel in the evening. The hotel in Beijing compared to the one in Tianjin seems like miles apart. The room felt really comfortable and nice (so are the rates, they go by USD), and I didn’t feel like coming out any time soon.

Picture of our hotel room, view of the door. The bathroom is on the right hand side, and the "kitchen" on the right. The bathroom has a bathtub, powerful toilet and a giant bath mirror in front of the sink. Now my house toilet seems on par with the one in Tianjin, compared to this one. It feels like a dream.

Picture of the writing desk. Like how am I supposed to write anything if the light's all wrong ?

For dinner we had a taste of roasted duck. Dinner was in a specialty restraint selling that. We were greeted by dishes and dishes of food, and as many of my friends were not feeling so well, so the table we were at for 10 people had only 6 people around it.

Table of food.

The same picture again, just the camera's slightly tilted so you can see the size of the table (and dishes), and you can see just how much food is uneaten.

I don’t know because we were tourists, the decision to add extra dishes was made, or simply because that is the normal appetite of the locals to eat that much food, but half of the food on the table went uneaten. The portions were simply too big for us, I felt overwhelmed just by staring at the food, not to mention eating it.
At the end of the meal, the food would have been disposed off, and it’s such a waste to cook so much and barely half gets eaten. And there are people who can hardly get enough to fill their stomachs. I guess this is the wealth-poverty divide in china.
I think it’s alright to cook just enough food or sometimes even less, but I hate to see wasted or uneaten food. Besides, cooking less = wasting less=buying less=higher savings.
Caught up with my sister on the phone after roll call. The poor girl got so much going on, I think she needs a break. I shall find something nice for her. I don’t know what yet though. my parents are uncontactable for now.

DAY PHOTOS

On the highway to Beijing, we drove past a farm. There's a person cycling on the small road in the picture, just that I can't zoom in too much (the zoom eats the battery life. Please use a DSLR people. It saves electricity)

Trainee Policemen on a walkabout. I think this was outside the training academy.

A newspaper stand in Beijing. Geez, even the Tianjin one only probably takes up half of the size of the newsstand. I'm not used to it.

A tour guide taking a short breather while waiting for her tourists to return from their photo taking frenzy after getting absolutely carried away by the scenery in front of them. She replaced the normal tour guide flag with a Miffy Rabbit toy, which is rather uncommon.

Residents taking the day to practice their acrobatics. They do this for leisure and as an interest, rather than taking it to a full time job.

A classic example of Chinese ingenuity. This is actually the drain for the gardens to prevent rainwater from collecting. It doesn't look like one and there are intricate carvings on it. I thought that was the platform frogs jump on in the middle of the night.

· A small boy playing with a toy. His expression of concentration is adorable

-temple of heaven

· Poor bird chained on a stand, so it can only sing. The bird was flying about when we approached it, I managed to take this after it had its attention drawn to a piece of fruit my friend held up