Every morning, hanging on the door handle of our hotel room, there’s a copy of the China Daily newspaper. It’s an English language paper that collects stories from all over China and prints them in a small, easy to read format.
On the second page there is a round up of small stories that made the headlines in local press reports across the country. Some of these are just brilliant. Here is one from today.
Perhaps she’d be better off using plain water next time.
Today, following Mirinda’s amazing day at the incredibly productive and worthwhile conference that wasn’t, we had a sleep in then decided to stroll up to a park or two.
We started off in the amazing Bei Hai Park. This was where the original Beijing royal residence was a very long time ago. Of the original palace, there’s not a lot left, just an arch and a jug that Kublai Khan used (for spitting in, I guess), but of the park, there is a lot.
Originally there was nothing there, just flat, I assume, ground. Then, the Emperor decided he wanted to build his palace in the middle so he told someone to dig out a huge lake and pile the excavated dirt in one place, in order to make an island (waste not, want not, as the Mongols used to say). That island was then added to with lots of weirdly shaped rocks collected from a long way away (just to make it as difficult as possible).
A lot of the rocks were stuck together with sticky rice in order to create cliffs and then, as a sort of major indication that he needed something to take away from the fact that he was obviously really, really short, the emperor had a giant hand bell built on the top of the island.
This giant hand bell is called the White Dagoba and has a very large Buddha inside though you’ll have to take my word for it because there’s no way in and the walls aren’t see through. I’m taking the word of the board outside which says he’s in there.
It was a very long way up and quite rewarding if you consider climbing up about 8 million steps rewarding.
Actually, it wasn’t that bad…let me rewind a bit…we actually had a very nice day…
I showed Mirinda how much more pleasurable it is to take things easier. From Bei Hai Park we crossed onto the Jade Islet (I think that should be Isle) and immediately found a seat upon which to watch a group of very cheery people, in some sort of traditional dress doing a merry old dance.
The chaps wore the oddest false moustaches and twiddled them with their noses every so often. the ladies, on the other hand wore very bright costumes that sparkled in the sun. Mirinda claimed it was the Chinese equivalent of Morris Dancing. I think she’s right.
But, back to the climb to the dagoba at the top of the hill…in order to get there, it is required that a person climbs quite a few vertical stair cases, formed into the man made hillside. They are quite steep and not a little scary, however, it’s well worth it.
As usual, in order to ascend to the great heights, one must pass through various Buddhist shrines with both good and evil statues to cheer you on your journey. Actually, I have to say it’s a good idea, otherwise it would be one long, tortuous staircase.
Having reached the top and realised there was no way to see inside the dagoba, Mirinda decided it would be a good idea to take the non-paying, meandering way back down (rather than the steep staircase). Unfortunately it was during this trip down the uneven and slippery steps that she picked up an admirer.
Some weirdo with a mobile phone who wanted to take some serious, closeup footage of her (maybe he saw her on CCTV or something). She told him to desist a number of times but he merely laughed. Eventually I grabbed his phone, with the intention of throwing it as far as I could, which made him run away (though he was still laughing for some reason).
I can see why people just love to come to China and frolic with the kindly natives. Basically, and apart from the foul air, it’s the people I dislike the most. They are uncivilised and, on the whole, appear to be stupid. But…I’m being nice today…
Ever since we’ve been here, we’ve seen people selling, what appears to be, tiny little apples, dipped in toffee and skewered on sticks. We’ve been intrigued so today we had one each. The miniature apples are, in fact, the sourest fruit I think I’ve had the misfortune to put in my mouth. The toffee is very sweet. I didn’t finish mine, conveniently dropping it on the ground. Mirinda ate hers, declaring it lovely. She does rather like sweet and sour, though.
As we left the park, we wandered into a very local type of market selling all sorts of foodie things. Most of them left me completely flummoxed but we decided to try a couple of cakey, biscuity things. And I thought they were delicious. They were similar to rock cakes but without the dried fruit.
We bought two types; one had a date on top and the other sesame seeds. They actually reminded me of a type of Roman cake I’ve tried before but I think that’s the type of flour and lack of yeast. Whatever, they were yummy.
The other thing that looked amazingly yummy was the fairy floss flowers we spotted while walking up and down the hutongs later in the day. They were the most extraordinary things, mostly bigger than the head of the person eating them. And they looked like big flowers. Then, finally, we spotted the guy making them.
We (and about twenty other people) watched this guy make one. He spun the coloured sugar around, creating the different coloured layers, gradually forming the flower layer by layer. It took about 15 minutes but everyone was spellbound. There was a lot of photographing and Mirinda took some video.
When he’d finished the one he was making, he presented it to the woman who ordered it and she was instantly surrounded by admirers, wanting to take photos of her sugary treat. It was a bit of a highlight of our trip, if you ask me.
But, all good things must come to an end and we soon headed back to the hotel…except we had a bit of a problem finding a taxi driver who’d do it. Why, oh why, do Beijing taxi drivers take one look at our map, grunt something disparaging and just shush us out of their cabs? Do they have such secure and high paying jobs that they can afford to just dismiss western fare payers? Are they map illiterate? Do they hate Westerners?
I’d really love to know because we are genuinely very confused. In every other country I’ve been in, unless they’re already hired, a taxi is more than happy to take you somewhere.
Anyway…back at the hotel we joined Sarah for a lovely dinner which included the chicken and coconut from the title and a lovely bottle of French wine (which wasn’t shaken up and poured into a small glass jug).
As a sort of postscript to today’s post, I’d just like to mention that I didn’t mean to put Bob off visiting China…though I’m glad I have. I reckon you’d hate it as much as I do, Bob!
