Take-Aways

I love Beijing. I really really really do. I feel like I am being given a daily dose of oxygen and mojo. So much to do and so much to see in this city that is full of confidence without the arrogance, full of people without the noise and full of little hidden surprises and quite obvious big ones. The Summer Palace was certainly one of them. It’s not only a palace. It is a whole city. It is a perfect relic of Imperial China, almost more so than the Forbidden City. There is an austerity and grace to the Forbidden City that the Palace must look down on. The size of the lake, the marble boat, the massive Buddha Pagoda, the 17 arches bridge and the elaborate theatre all speak of a culture of abundance and indulgence. You can so easily spend a full day there and then some. The gardens are a delight and the lake is full of little boats with families making the most of the summer day. Quite a contrast to what followed on the weekend: a rave where the ocean meets the Great Wall. I didn’t even know that the Wall reaches the sea. The journey started on a Saturday afternoon in front of the Worker’s stadium in Beijing where the buses where assembled to take the assorted ravers to the place of doom. I was lucky enough to be with Jeronimo of Guangzhou fame and his Spanish tribe. Nuts! All of them!. In no time they had the entire bus jumping up and down and singing, including the Germans. These guys had unbelievable energy, for the five and a half hours that the journey lasted and the rest of the night too. I fizzled out very fast. The highlight for me was sitting on the beach at 4am talking to the local police who were there in charge of our security. This consisted largely of not letting people go too far for a pee, so overall they were very chilled and delighted to be able to practise their bits of English just as I thrived in throwing them my rudiments of Mandarin. One thing I have to say is that the standard uniform jacket of a policeman in Shanhaiguan is quite toasty and I wish I did not have to give it back.