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Oct. 6th, 2008 07:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
julietSafely arrived in Beijing this afternoon. Customs yesterday (Mongolian then Chinese) only took 5 or 6 hours, not bad. (Some of this was the bogie-changing process, which I'd actually inended to skip this time, but our passports weren't returned in time.)
Decided to get a taxi from the station rather than the tube, due to stomach cramps & consequent headache, ill feeling, grumpiness, etc. Taxi queue enormous but fast-moving; reached taxi and showed my Piece of Paper on which hostel name in Chinese and little map were (as provided by hostel). Driver peers at the whole thing in a confused fashion, but heads off. I assume he's worked it out. Not So. A couple of minutes up the road, he requests the phone number of the hostel, and phones them for directions. And then again five minutes after that. Still, we got there in the end, and the couple of quid it cost was well worth it.
Treated headache, grumpiness, etc with the following:
- shower (water took 5 min to run hot, which had me worried, but got there eventually)
- fried veg & rice
- ibuprofen
- BIKE BIKE BIKE BIKE HURRAH
Some or all of the above worked (actually it was probably mostly the bike, at least in terms of the grumpiness. I hadn't realised how much I've missed cycling, & it's only been a couple of weeks!).
The bike in question was a very elderly single-speed sit-up-and-beg, 10 Y (about 85p) for the day, or in my case the rest of the afternoon. After much fiddling with the saddle height in consultation with the elderly mechanic (the universal language of Bike Gesture), I set off happily up the road. And promptly ot lost, but lo! I did not care. I managed to fetch up in approximately the right place eventually, and the nice thing about being on a bike is that it doesn't *matter* that much if you get a bit lost, because it never takes long to get back on track. And I was enjoying pottering around, anyway.
Made it to the Forein Languages Bookstore, which was my destination, in order to get a better map (not much better, but there we go), a phrasebook (success!), and a reading book as I have finally finished the Baroque Cycle. Wah. Returned to my Glorious Steed to discover that it was now a push-bike in the strictest sense, viz, the pedals were no longer making the wheel go round & the only way of moving it was to push with the feet on the ground. A nearby traffic directing person dropped his flag and rushed to my aid, but was unable to assist - we established (again with the Universal Language of Bike Gesture) that the chain was fine - it was something to do with the axle/freewheel. I said "thank you" a lot and set off to scoot/walk back home. Even this did not dent my new good cheer, as I pottered round the Forbidden City, got lost again, and wandered home past lots of busy restaurants and shops and barber shops and shiny neon things and red lanterns...
As you might have gathered, I have only been in Beijing for about 5.5 hours & I already love it. It's busy and noisy and bright, and much though I do like being outside in quiet beautiful countryside etc etc, I am basically a city person :) Everyone also seems friendly, and cheerful - multiple traffic warden/driecting people helpully pointing me in the right direction when I accidentally tried to take illegal turns (road markings a bit unclear...), the chap who tried to fix the bike, a nice girl on a bike who stopped and helped when I was perusing the map & being lost. It just feels like a nice place to be.
Also they have lots of bikes, and that invariably makes me happy. Although no one seems to know how to signal, and absolutely no one has lights. (I knid of approve of this, in a complicated way which has to do with why the CTC opposed mandatory lighting regs back in the 30s. NB this does not mean I approve of riding without lights in the UK now, where we have a different set of expectations :) ).
Anyway, my headache is returning so I will go eat & have ibuprofen again, & maybe go to bed early or something.
BTW, apologies for any typos or odd formatting in this - I'm having to write it in w3m on the, as LJ appears to be blocked (well: it won't load in Firefox, and it loads just fine from the once I've sshed in there, and China notoriously blocks lots of things, so...). Most odd.
Decided to get a taxi from the station rather than the tube, due to stomach cramps & consequent headache, ill feeling, grumpiness, etc. Taxi queue enormous but fast-moving; reached taxi and showed my Piece of Paper on which hostel name in Chinese and little map were (as provided by hostel). Driver peers at the whole thing in a confused fashion, but heads off. I assume he's worked it out. Not So. A couple of minutes up the road, he requests the phone number of the hostel, and phones them for directions. And then again five minutes after that. Still, we got there in the end, and the couple of quid it cost was well worth it.
Treated headache, grumpiness, etc with the following:
- shower (water took 5 min to run hot, which had me worried, but got there eventually)
- fried veg & rice
- ibuprofen
- BIKE BIKE BIKE BIKE HURRAH
Some or all of the above worked (actually it was probably mostly the bike, at least in terms of the grumpiness. I hadn't realised how much I've missed cycling, & it's only been a couple of weeks!).
The bike in question was a very elderly single-speed sit-up-and-beg, 10 Y (about 85p) for the day, or in my case the rest of the afternoon. After much fiddling with the saddle height in consultation with the elderly mechanic (the universal language of Bike Gesture), I set off happily up the road. And promptly ot lost, but lo! I did not care. I managed to fetch up in approximately the right place eventually, and the nice thing about being on a bike is that it doesn't *matter* that much if you get a bit lost, because it never takes long to get back on track. And I was enjoying pottering around, anyway.
Made it to the Forein Languages Bookstore, which was my destination, in order to get a better map (not much better, but there we go), a phrasebook (success!), and a reading book as I have finally finished the Baroque Cycle. Wah. Returned to my Glorious Steed to discover that it was now a push-bike in the strictest sense, viz, the pedals were no longer making the wheel go round & the only way of moving it was to push with the feet on the ground. A nearby traffic directing person dropped his flag and rushed to my aid, but was unable to assist - we established (again with the Universal Language of Bike Gesture) that the chain was fine - it was something to do with the axle/freewheel. I said "thank you" a lot and set off to scoot/walk back home. Even this did not dent my new good cheer, as I pottered round the Forbidden City, got lost again, and wandered home past lots of busy restaurants and shops and barber shops and shiny neon things and red lanterns...
As you might have gathered, I have only been in Beijing for about 5.5 hours & I already love it. It's busy and noisy and bright, and much though I do like being outside in quiet beautiful countryside etc etc, I am basically a city person :) Everyone also seems friendly, and cheerful - multiple traffic warden/driecting people helpully pointing me in the right direction when I accidentally tried to take illegal turns (road markings a bit unclear...), the chap who tried to fix the bike, a nice girl on a bike who stopped and helped when I was perusing the map & being lost. It just feels like a nice place to be.
Also they have lots of bikes, and that invariably makes me happy. Although no one seems to know how to signal, and absolutely no one has lights. (I knid of approve of this, in a complicated way which has to do with why the CTC opposed mandatory lighting regs back in the 30s. NB this does not mean I approve of riding without lights in the UK now, where we have a different set of expectations :) ).
Anyway, my headache is returning so I will go eat & have ibuprofen again, & maybe go to bed early or something.
BTW, apologies for any typos or odd formatting in this - I'm having to write it in w3m on the, as LJ appears to be blocked (well: it won't load in Firefox, and it loads just fine from the once I've sshed in there, and China notoriously blocks lots of things, so...). Most odd.
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Date: 2008-10-06 12:39 pm (UTC)xxxb
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Date: 2008-10-06 01:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-10 09:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-06 02:12 pm (UTC)*across the world hugs*
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Date: 2008-10-07 03:01 pm (UTC)