June 17 and 18, 2007 (remember, I’m 12 hours ahead of Toronto)
Never drive in China. Really – don’t. Unless you have guts – serious guts.  You’ll have to get used to a 3 lane road being turned into a 4 lane road by the drivers; multiple turning lanes (marked or unmarked); crazy bicycles and pedestrians; tons of traffic everywhere; and minimal braking by drivers (they have right of way apparently). Those are only a few things you have to worry about. Road rage doesn’t exist here – because it doesn’t help. Aggression won’t do anything. Fearful people shouldn’t even cross a road in Beijing, let alone drive. If you can drive in China, you can drive anywhere in the world.

Tian’anmen Square: Nobody here talks about the massacre. There are plainclothes police all over the square. I guess silence is supposed to help people forget it ever happened.

The Forbidden City: A place where Emperors and their royal families resided away from the public. It’s ridiculous how much money was spent on the palaces.  I guess when you’re the rich leader of a country, you can do anything.

China is always smoggy. It’s kind of disgusting.

Summer Palace: one Empress had a place built for her seasonal dwelling…oh and she had a man-made lake put on the property. Yup, her own private lake took 8 years to build.

I climbed the Great Wall. And it was tiring. Yea, they’re just stairs…very steep and uneven stairs. They measure how much you’ve climbed by how many watchtowers you’ve passed. I think I did 4 (up and down in less than an hour). If I don’t have wicked legs by the end of this trip, I’m going to lose faith in walking and climbing exercises. But it felt damn good getting to the top. Now my legs feel like jelly.

Chinese tea is a good addiction right? I think it’s one of the things that I’ll retain from my culture throughout my life (without the parents bugging me about getting in touch with my own culture).

I didn’t want to bore you with historical facts about all the places I’ve been. I didn’t even mention all of the places I’ve visited – just the ones you’d know, maybe. 

Good night! (10:00 pm Beijing time)