Beijing ...

so, Old Granny dealt with successfully, i got off the plane in Beijing a full 12 years after being there last. it was quite a change. last time i arrived absolutely knackered on the back of 6 weeks backpacking around China, and that after travelling Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia and Thailand. Needless to say i was a bit over travelling and just needed a rest, which Beijing really didn't provide. Leaving my friend Jane to stalk an Israeli i just wandered the city reading Dickens which seemed to encapsulate the state of the city at that time: the poverty, pollution, street kids and all the miseries of 19th century industrial London alive and kicking in 20th century China. i read 10 books of Dickens in a month and never felt closer to an author. with small flurries of trepidation fluttering in my stomach, i disembarked from the plane and then joined one of the many queues i was later to face in my 2 days there. the first surprise was the airport: it was HUGE: clean and sparking and VERY efficient. even Old Granny seemed happy as she elbowed her way past me in the exit queue. the stewardess went by yelling 'THANK YOU DOCTOR' and pointing at me which, as the whole queue turned and looked too which as well as being inaccurate i did feel rather put me on the spot. i caught Old Granny giving me an even nastier look. after getting through customs i then had to work out how to get to my hotel. a small problem occured which with all my travelling experience i should readily have anticipated: the address was in English & the drivers can only read Chinese. ah ha! foxed, yet again. still, it didn't prove hard to fix - a bus journey, a taxi and a short walk and i was there & seeing a sign for a vegetarian restaurant on the way made me feel like i was on the right track. it was a great choice for a hotel too - right in the middle of an old area of Beijing called the hutuong it was all done up in reds, golds and greys with a lovely little courtyard right outside my room. i felt great and even the bruises from Old Granny's elbows didn't ache so much. i'd arrived early: 7am sunday morning and was leaving first thing tuesday so i had to make the most of my 2 full days. what i hadn't counted on was the weather: the humidity was through the roof, the sky overcast with dense white cloud, the streets hot, dusty and dry. walking 5 paces i broke out in a sweat. still, not to be disuaded i set off. in the wrong direction. an hour later i was in a taxi heading in the right direction (hopefully as the taxi driver couldn't speak english and i had to use the 'stop and point' means of communication). my first stop was the old Drum Tower and Clock Tower. the Drum Tower turned out to be closed and the Clock Tower was a thousand or so steps and another 5,000 tourists. i gave that one a miss. nice to see, but really! strangely my travels had brought me to an area of Beijing i'd never seen the first time around: a beautiful lake with a lovely walking path right round it. this was a highlight: in the terrible oppressing humidity i was able to walk around a clear calm lake watching the elderly Chinese folk swimming peacefully under the 'no swimming' signs whilst others were doing the splits and even more playing table-tennis. quite a hive of activity for the pensioners. it took me an hour to walk around until i arrived at the other side but couldn't figure out where the hell i was. luckily a Metro stop was right next door and lucky it was coz i was nowhere near where i'd thought i should be. the Metro was another revelation: clean, white and cheap. it was packed to the gills but no worse than London and so i took my self off to Tiannamen Square. Arriving there i marched up the steps to the sound of thunder in the air. a lovely couple went walking by and the man came up to speak to me. 'It's Destiny' he said. 'No i'm not a child,' i thought. just at that moment the heavens opened and literally hundreds of Chinese ran this way and that, screaming and screaming. It was like the Tiannamen Square uprising all over again but no guns or tanks, just umbrellas and raindrops. I'm gay: i think musicals. Mr Destiny took control of the situation and guided me rapidy towards a covering, inside of which happened to be an Art Shop the owner of which he happened to know and the paintings within which he happened to be able to offer me a discount. What a strange coincidence. Needless to say i informed Mr Destiny of his precise destiny at that particular moment in time (which wasn't good) and went back out into the rain. it was torrential so i quickly ran back to the Metro station and crammed myself in with hundreds of Chinese still running, screaming and cramming up in a very small space, everyone fighting and with torrents of water flooding down the steps and umbrellas being shoved in faces and still more people coming down. i did wonder if it was going to get nasty at one point: there were too many people in too small a space. but then the storm passed over and things settled back to normal. as it was Sunday the square and the Forbidden City were packed and as i'd seen both before i wasn't that bothered to explore them all again. it was snooze time so i headed back to the hotel, quickly bowsing some lovely locals magazines called 'DogFan' and 'CatFan' (pics to follow) before bedding down for some much needed shut-eye