After bedding

Yesterday we decided to make the trek out to Ikea to get a warmer doona as it's pretty cold in our apartment. When we've tried to look at this sort of stuff in Carrefour, we were basically mobbed so in the interests of that not happening and also having a bit more of a look around, we headed out on our bikes.

It had just started raining a tiny bit so Jane went back to grab some rain coats. As we left, a guy came barreling around the corner on his fold up bike going stupidly fast, saw us, slammed on his front brake, instantly locked the wheel and fell on his face right in front of us! We went to help him up, but he jumped up, looked pretty silly then rode off! It's very slippery!

It's chilly in Beijing at the moment, a maximum of about 12 so kind of an Australian winter so far. We headed out past where we buy our fruit and veg to a turn off where google maps said there was a road that would take us there and the Lonely Planet Beijing app said there wasn't. It turns out that Lonely Planet were right (good on them!) and there is as yet no road, just a confusing series of alleys that don't go anywhere. Back to the main road we went then and it meant we had to ride against the traffic on the side of the road which I'm not a big fan of. It wasn't too far fortunately and aside from almost being run over by a taxi when we arrived (the lane marked as a bike lane going in is also marked at the other end as a taxi lane going out), we were there. We'd been told it was ridiculously busy but still nicer than Ikea at home but maybe due to the weather it wasn't too bad.

We went in, eventually found doonas, cover and pillowcases and (most excitingly) some fitted sheets! I also got some fine slipper/boot things that make me look like a Christmas elf so that's all good. Most amazingly, our reasonable winter weight doona cost ... 249 yuan which is a bit less than $40!
Attempting to deal with the crowd (which in true Chinese fashion was about 50% going the wrong way, but they know best of course, not the Ikea architects!) we made our way to the exit and joined the very well labelled "Card Only" line. This is pretty common here. Not common or well marked enough for the people in front of us though who put all their stuff through (about 3 bags full) then pulled out cash to pay :(. The poor checkout girl had to go and find a supervisor and get them to come and sort it out. Then when we went to pay, she took Jane's card, and ran off. We never worked out why, maybe it's because it has a chip or something? We haven't had many issues with it before.
Coming home was much easier, we could go with the traffic and it's pretty straight to get back too.

The new sheets and doona are really nice and warm too!

Forbidden City

This last weekend (didn't quite get to writing it up until now!) we finally made it to the Forbidden City (or as the Chinese somewhat prosaically call it, the "Palace Museum"). The Forbidden City isn't like the other tourist attractions in Beijing, they're sort of on the outskirts and a little out of the way. It's literally (!) in the middle of the city. All the ring roads run in concentric circles around it, it's definitely the heart of the city.
And as we discovered last time, it's always packed, totally full of mainly Chinese tourists. Still it was a reasonable day (just a little overcast) and we decided we should check it out before it got too cold. On our bikes we jumped and cycled the 25 minutes or so to the front. The main entrance to the palace is on the south side, between it and Tiananmen Square, so you get the tourists for both in the same place. There weren't nearly as many people as there were the last time we tried to get in, and it was about 18 degrees cooler as well so it was a much better day for the purposes of checking it out. Given we're here for another 9 months or so, it's pretty certain we'll be back so there wasn't the pressure to see everything in a single day.

From Forbidden City

The place is HUGE. It's divided into the front palace (below the steps) and the back, private one (above the steps). The division was so great that one of the Chinese words for important people translates to "above the steps". There are lots of courtyards (for lots of court I guess), heaps of red pillars and marble, lots of decoration. The major architectural parts seem to be from the 17th century (1650s or so) but it was started almost 1000 years before that and changes and updates happened right through to the early 20th century, with the greatest change being getting rid of the "Son of Heaven".

From Forbidden City

I said in my post about the Summer Palace that the Chinese and I have very different views on historical locations/objects and this was true to an extent about the Forbidden City as well. Most of the buildings were closed and the ones that were open had small windows to look at the inside. This was the case for most of the throne rooms (I think there were at least 4!), there were 3 smallish doorways at the front, opening into darkened rooms. The result was that there was a huge crowd of people outside each one, physically pushing one another aside to look in. I understand that culturally the Chinese have issues with queues and stuff, but it just seems to me to be a weird way to see a priceless historical and cultural relic. It was worse for Jane, at least I could see over people!

From Forbidden City From Forbidden City

From Forbidden City

Although that part of it was a little frustrating (I cannot even imagine what it would be like on a busy day), I found the Forbidden City to be a much more rewarding place for me than the Summer Palace. There was a little more context behind the various buildings, cauldrons, statues etc and some places with less people where less restoration had been done where I could get a better feel for what it had been like before all the restoration work.

From Forbidden City

We also took the time to look at the "Treasures" exhibition (but not the clock museum :). It also gave a lot of context to the way that the people in the palace must have lived and how cut off they were from the realities of life outside. There was also a fantastic wall of decorative clay dragons. I think that was my favourite spot in the whole place, it was really fantastic to see.

From Forbidden City

From Forbidden City

From Forbidden City

We made our way out of the Treasures building and were trying to get back to the front where the exit to our bikes was when two soldiers were moving everyone out of the way on that side of the palace. They ended up herding everyone out of that side of the palace (the one we hadn't seen) and pushing them towards the exit. We ended up asking him how we could get back to the front and he just pointed towards the other side. So we made our way that way, against the crowd (not an easy task!) until we got near the front courtyard. All the way the people were just moving together, no one seemed to be concerned or even curious about why, very few other people seemed to have asked why this was happening. Very strange anyway. Once we got to the front, we were just about to go to the exit when we saw it was blocked off. We were walking to the exit on the other side when a guy stopped us (and someone else on a bike) and made us move back so a group of African guys in suits could come through (we'd have made it across well in front of them too). It looked like this was the explanation for why the whole place was shut down, because these 10 or so guys were getting a private showing at 3 in the afternoon. Not very nice for the rest of us really. They also made us leave by a door that added about 2-3km to our walk back to the bikes, also pretty disappointing.

From Forbidden City

So I did enjoy the Forbidden City, it is a pretty remarkable place with amazing architecture and historical significance. It was a little let down by the presentation part, but definitely worth visiting on a quieter day :)

From Forbidden City

There are some more photos here: https://picasaweb.google.com/david.mutton/ForbiddenCity?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Quiet Weekend

This weekend was a bit of a quiet one. We went to the markets yesterday (it was raining) and had our Mandarin lesson as well (it was still raining). It was cold too, about 16 degrees. Which isn't especially cold even for Australian weather but two days ago it was 32 and really humid so it's a quick change.

People here say Beijing really only has two seasons, and given that Autumn started 11 days ago and tomorrow is the Mid-Autumn Festival (we get a day off) then I expect winter to be in full swing when we get back from Australia. Last year it got cold early and they relaxed the government mandated heating period which meant building owners could turn the heating on on the 23rd of September! So I think this might be a short Autumn :)

Today we slept in a bit then took Anita and Adam to the same bike shop we went to, so they could get some bikes. They have been confirmed as also staying for 12 months which is nice for them, and they wanted something a bit better than the borrowed bikes they had.

Looking at the bikes, I think I will buy another, decent one before I leave to use at home. Before we came I decided I wanted to start riding to work but didn't get a bike because we were leaving. I think as far as price goes, a decent amount of money (maybe $500-$600) here would get me a bike that would cost $1000-$1200 at home. So even with the postage back I think I'll be ahead. A proper road bike isn't much good here though cause drivers don't expect people on bikes to be going fast so it's actually more dangerous to be going a similar speed to the traffic.

This evening we went to Carrefour, the department store/supermarket place. It was pretty packed and I have decided the thing that annoys me most about people here is the complete lack of respect for other people. So at home if two people are pushing trolleys down an aisle, they will get out of each other's way. Similarly, if someone stops, they move their trolley to the side (most of the time anyway). People don't do that here, at all and I find it intensely irritating. People have a sense of "I'm the most important person, I don't care if I get in your way or hold you up, you can just wait cause I'm the most important person" and I'm not a fan. Partly because I'm, the most important person :)

Anyway, they're not going to change so I guess I will have to deal with it but it does get me a bit annoyed.

As I said, tomorrow is the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday and we get a day off. I'm not sure whether stuff will be open but there are a bunch of lights and decorations set up in our apartment gardens so I guess something is going to happen. Stay tuned.....