Wednesday, March 28, 2007
On my own
On Monday, Yang is at work and I get to go out on my own.
Back on the old clunker - I take out a spanner (having thought ahead this far) and raise the saddle about six inches. Joy! I can almost straighten my legs.
I'm wearing shorts, which attracts more attention than my foreignness.
I satrt off at a local park. At 10am on a Monday it's packed - nowhere in BJ is empty. People are variously playing volleyball, badminton, keepy-uppy or singing or partaking of organised tango lessons.
I cycle for about 1.5 hours up to the Nth of BJ and see the Olympic Nest. (BJ is biiig)
Back into town to find food. I stop at a random dumpling house, seats 50, 8 staff, no customers - it's about 2pm. They speak no English; about 5 of my 150 words are useful. I end up getting food (beef dumplings and a kind of rice broth, 30p) and am the caberet for the staff as I eat it. Everybody's happy.
Accidentally I end up in Tiananmen Sq on my way back. Whoa - that's one big sq.
Again I'm the only Caucasian - you only see westerners v close to the main tourist sights; and even then Chinese tourists vastly outnumber Ws.
Back on the old clunker - I take out a spanner (having thought ahead this far) and raise the saddle about six inches. Joy! I can almost straighten my legs.
I'm wearing shorts, which attracts more attention than my foreignness.
I satrt off at a local park. At 10am on a Monday it's packed - nowhere in BJ is empty. People are variously playing volleyball, badminton, keepy-uppy or singing or partaking of organised tango lessons.
I cycle for about 1.5 hours up to the Nth of BJ and see the Olympic Nest. (BJ is biiig)
Back into town to find food. I stop at a random dumpling house, seats 50, 8 staff, no customers - it's about 2pm. They speak no English; about 5 of my 150 words are useful. I end up getting food (beef dumplings and a kind of rice broth, 30p) and am the caberet for the staff as I eat it. Everybody's happy.
Accidentally I end up in Tiananmen Sq on my way back. Whoa - that's one big sq.
Again I'm the only Caucasian - you only see westerners v close to the main tourist sights; and even then Chinese tourists vastly outnumber Ws.
# posted by David @ 2:58 am 
