Five tips of the Beijing Star

Well after 7 months in China I finally got to the capital, the one and only 20 million large village on the planet. Here is the dream team:

Clock wise: Paulo (the Italian in red), Travis (Texas on the go), Simon (increasingly French), David (official photographer for the trip)...and Me

Beijing has seriously nothing particularly interesting, meaning that the spirit of the city is inexistant. I have a propensity to think that there was something more to this city, but decades of straight stalinist architechture and cultural wipe-outs have erased it. Nevertheless, the history and culture permeates in the faces of the people, even this kid next to the bike.

We went there with a guided tour unfortunately, it was only cantonese families and the whole tour was commented in...cantonese. Well, it might be considered a fun experience, just don't ask Simon about it.
















The land of what will be the world's longest standing communist state starts at the central point of the city. Mao dominates every citizen and tourist at the entrance of the forbidden city. His portrait looks straight to Tianamen square, where about 3 million people can gather up at once and 3000 can be killed in no time.

We stand with Simon in front of the statues symbolizing the people's revolution and their fight for freedom that led to the infamous founding of the Chinese communist state in 1949.




















We also visited the summer palace. It is a nice and serene place where people seem to take time to pleasure their sense. There are singers across the parks, the sound of various instruments crosses the air across the roads. I apologize, since the huge pagoda was under renovation , the picture is not really worth it.

The Great Wall of China

Yes, you do have to go. Yes it is the single most impressive human construction I have ever encoutered. It streches beautifully across chinese mountains, deserts and magnificence.

David: C'est bon laaa, les Bulgares vous voyez toujours trop grand vrai?
Boyan: Mais serieux David, je te jure que ce truc fait 6700 km!!!

At the most intensive point in the construction, the wall used to grow 6km a day with the help of 300 000 soldiers and 500 000 forced laborers. Those that died during it's construction are burried in its foundations and contribute to the collossal symbolism that this wall embodies.

Finally, we had great hotels all the way and our group was actually quite fun. The food though... was completely tasteless. If it did have a taste, you would have prefered it not to.
Amidst many other things, we discovered an underground city that can house ALL OF BEIJING'S RESIDENTS in case of a bomb attack. We went to a national, award winnig, tea house and tasted the most flavoured tea's on the planet.

Cheers, to nicotine clearing, alcohol removing, award winning, expensive chinese tea!