The Eye of Patrick

Hello,

I know I have not been updating my journal lately, but blame it on the fact I am lazy and the lack of internet access. But that is a good thing as it means i am out there enjoying myself. I will try to update my whole trip based on the places.

June 4th - Beijing -

I arrive in Beijing from my flight from Tokyo, it was on ANA. Wow i must say that is one of the best airlines I have flown in my life hehe. May be that is the result of living in Canada and having a horrible carrier like Air Canada. But this airline was amazing, they had the little TVs on the back of the seats and you could start and stop the movie and games, this is something that even Air Canada’s Business class does not have always.

I arrive in Beijing and I meet a kid from Norway, we talk for a bit on the way to the hostel. This was an interesting experience as we both had come off full year exchanges, his was in China and mine in Japan. After our talk I realized how happy i was to go to Japan as the quality of his program was not that great, and this was a comment that i heard from many different people who went to China on exchange. I met my friends from Kanasai Gaidai that i was planning to see, and we did a short walk around Beijing before going to bed.

Beijing - Day 2 -

I decided that it was best that i woke up early, so i set my alarm for 8 am thinking it would be a good time to wake up and see the sights of Beijing. But i am staying in hostels and as a result the person who was staying in my dorm was snoring. I have heard snoring before and this was the loudest ever, it sounded like a freight train going by, so i tossed and i turned until i had to turn on my music to sleep and I was able to get to sleep another 1 hour until 7ish, at what point I decided to just wake up and go see the sights.

I headed towards tiananmen square to see the square, Mao’s body and the forbidden city. The square has been marked in western view of China ever since 1989 and the day I went was the 15th annivasary of it. But the square is really not that special, it is a wide open space that stretches for a long while and has a lot of government offices and such. But really nothing amazing, but I went and lined up for the Mao’s tomb as it was something i wanted to do. The line was not too long, but as i was waiting in line a chinese man come up to me and directed me to get out of line as i had to put my bags away, while getting pulled out of line, i met another womeon there who was from England. We talked as we put our stuff in to storage, but the guy demanded money and she opened her wallet and he took out 100 yuen and ran, which is like 15 dollars, i felt bad so i agreed to pay half of it, but still it was not good experience. Though he did help us move up in line, so it was not totally bad.

Then we went and saw Mao’s Body, it was an eery experience, as I think this was the first time in my life I had seen a dead body before and to see all these chinese people walk by was strange as many of them had flowers. Me and my friend thought that was strange as it looked like they just resold them, and later my chinese friends agree. But Mao’s body looked like he was plastic, he did not look real anymore. When you look at him, it is hard to imagine all the things he has done, he was responsible for the birth of modern china, and he did many bad things, and there he was right in front of me. But we could not take pictures. I think if you are in Beijing and visit Tinanmen square you should make a trip to Mao and see it, it does not take too long.

I will stop here, and cont next time with Forbidden city,

sorry for no pictures yet,
take care,
Patrick