The Great Wall? Maybe not… Day 2
I thought I would take a trip to the Great Wall yesterday which involves 2 1 and a quarter hour minibus rides. I left early and set of for the long-distance bust station. I took the Bejing underground. Very quick efficient and cheap. About 30p a go. Why can’t London take a leaf out of their book!!!
I eventually found a minibus going in the direction although I wasn’t entirely sure for quite a while after yeaterday’s happenings. It was luck io found the minibus.
On arrival to the interchange, it was a matter of haggling with a group of van drivers to go the next stint. I finally got into this one people carrier agreement of a 150Y, more than what I thought, seeing as the bus to there was only 6Y!. We started off and when the driver took the Taxi sign from the dash board and put it behind the front seat I bottled it! I just felt a bit pushed into the whole thing and was still a bit paranoid from the day before. I thought he was maybe not legit and didn’t want to be caught with a Taxi sign that looked like it had been yanked off another car! I asked him eto turn round back to the junction and found a state bus that took me back to Beijing. Besides, I didn’t fancy it by then, being pushed into taking a ride that didn’t feel right and not really being in the mood for it. That’s the trouble with travelling alone I think. You have to rely on your own paranoia or luck in decision making decisions until you get into the swing of travelling or get a feel for things.
Money is such a nightmare. The theory of it really causes me grief! I really don’t like the idea of it and don’t like to think that it’s important to me, but through these sort of experiences, whether I like it or not, money does matter. It also matters to a lot of other people. I think it makes people blind to see beyond it especially when there is a gap in who has more or less. I am not saying this driver was dodgy but, through this veil of money neither party can see beyond to the person.
So back to Beijing, I decided to get off the subway early at Tiananmen Square as I didn’t quite get to see it the day before. It’s a huge expanse of open space surrounded by some gigantic buildings on either side: National Museum, Tiananmen Gate, Mao’s Mausoleum and the Congress building. People just seem to walk across it not really doing anything in particular… except fly kites. There were eagle kites flying super high and many kites all stacked one after the other in long lines.
Bicycles aren’t allowed on the Square (the guide book says that tanks strangely are!), so it’s just space. It’s quite starnge but quite nice really. Quite different to parks back home. In the park the day before, there was harly any open space – there were trees planted out almost everywhere. Then the other extreme is Tiananmen Square, only space.
All for today…
Tags: Beijing bling
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