Beijing - Chinese New Year!

Our guide book told us that going to China during Chinese New Years is a stupid idea, as many places are closed, transport is chaotic, and the celebrations are noisy. Although these things may be true...I still think it was worth being in Beijing just for the experience of the fireworks on the first night of the new year.

The Chinese use fireworks and bangers to scare off evil spirits (as well as trembling tourists.) At midnight, chains of thousands of bangers were set off in the streets, causing us to hop about to avoid losing our toes. The sight of a toddler launching a rocket twice the size of them was a common sight...apparently a sparkler loses it's appeal with you could have a box of 20 massive fireworks instead. The celebrations started at around 3pm (yes...in the daylight...) and have been going on ever since (2 weeks?!) We've almost become used to leaping out of our skin every few minutes, and I'm pretty sure I've gone deaf in one ear. Either that or I can't understand a word Tom is saying to me because he's learnt Chinese in the last few days.

Throughout the new year, the most popular thing for the Chinese to do seems to be going to massive temple fairs. Every sideshow game you can think of features, as well as dancing, comedy acts, and ...spitting. Tom won a frog, and I won the world's heaviest soft toy - some kind of singing Chinese Teletubby...essential packing for a round the world trip with an already full rucksack :-/ Outdoor mass kareoke was hugely popular, and I had to drag Tom away kicking and screaming, or else we'd have never been able to show our faces in China. We were sad that we never got to see a lion or dragon dance...but as it may have become clear by now, getting accurate information in China is not the easiest task.

The highlight of Beijing for both of us was, unsuprisingly, the Great Wall. Our (brilliant, authentic) hostel, offered a trip to a rarely visited part of the wall, where we could hike free of other tourists (damn those tourists!) and see the more exciting parts. The wall is truely mind-blowing. We had to climb vertical stairways (often stairways without the stairs) and it was hard to imagine how people managed to work, guard and live up there - although amazingly some of the guard towers had beds in the corner - I guess the hawkers have to be really committed to the job. For some bizarre reason, the Chinese had built the wall up and over the biggest peaks in the area instead of detouring round them so the wall could be flat - we could barely scramble up the wall, let alone drag rocks up it.

Tom and I have got a good travelling system now. We're learning where to get the cheaper food and save money, and we're becoming confident enough to spend time apart. So occassionally Tom goes out with other guys from the hostel whilst I get time for deep, intellectual thinking (washing my hair and playing Pokemon.) It has resulted in us getting on very well, and me not being as stressed from the constant socialising (I don't do people.) We decided to experience Beijing nightlife after the wall though. The night started with a completely insane tazi driver taking us to the club. He insisted on showing us his collection of foreign money...whilst swerving through oncoming traffic and singing loudly to the backstreet boys. The city has a lot of very cool (cheap) clubs, and we got adopted by groups of bartenders in every place we went as they mixed (and set alight) shocking alcoholic concoctions for us and grinned as we winced whilst drinking them. I was in constant fear of experiencing another Hiroshima-style hangover...and tried to keep Tom under control as there was no way I could find our way back home if he got into "putting jacket on upside down and curling up in some one's garage" stage of drunk again.

Unfortunately, after 4 hours sleep, I didn't manage to avoid the hangover (although Tom was ridiculously perky...jammy git.) I spent the day watching Tom's shoes whilst sight-seeing, trying to remember how to walk.

That evening, we went to a classic Peking opera after eating roast duck and pancakes. The opera was possibly the most bizzare thing I've ever seen, and for most of it I thought I was suffering from hangover-hallucinations. The actors wail in a high-pitched, made up language whilst being over-powered by an even wailier violin. Long suffering concubines seemed to be the main theme in most of the short stories...and usually ended up with the queen giving up on her useless husband and getting drunk (whilst wailing.)

So far, our Chinese experience has been improving with each city we visit, and the people in the north come across a lot less rude than those in Shanghai. We still get stared at constantly and I'm starting to feel a bit like a zoo creature.