Two years later....

I cannot believe that it's been two years already
since I joined OMV (for the ones who do not know, this is an Austrian based oil & gas group) ...

A lot happened in the meantime, of course ... I no longer work for OMV but still experience a bit of a nostalgia thinking about the five absolutely superb months spent in Vienna (August to December 2004) .... What great times!! Thank you OMV for making that possible!

Here are some pictures ....

Sunday afternoon drivel….

When this online little diary friend was started, it was meant to be an accurate log of my journeys and nothing more… In the meantime, it has become more than that… a log of my state of mind, my thoughts, my feelings… It has been ages since I last updated it and I feel so guilty for neglecting it!

First I want to thank everybody, friends and strangers alike, for visiting my virtual little world and liking it! I am trying not to disappoint, of course, but I will always be as blunt as ever … with everything. Even if this will, most probably, upset some of the readers :-) That's me and don't think I'll ever change in this respect ....

Maybe I should say a few words about HK as it was a very pleasant way of ending our holiday in China. HK was (literally) a breath of fresh air after the dodgy hotels experienced in China (especially in Xian and Tibet). In HK we stayed at the Renaissance hotel in Kowloon which was quite luxurious … Alex was very amused when I declared that I instantly felt like living again! Actually, when we left Tibet (we flew Lhasa – Cheng Du – HK), we felt that we were actually leaving China and I was quite relieved.

HK is a great city, with breathtaking high buildings (the highest I have ever seen!) and atmosphere that resembles that of London. Of course, driving on the other side of the road (the correct one, as some people would say, hehe!) and the fact that all signs are in both English and Chinese help the traveller associate it with a British city.

We had a great time just wandering the streets of HK, climbing (twice!) up to Victoria peak and admiring the astounding view from the top, having delicious meals in pleasant little restaurants and … simply resting. HK by night is fantastic, one night we took a boat ride and admired the fantastic lights of the city.

I arrived back in Brussels only to spend here three days and I was then dispatched to Stockholm for a short (one week) assignment. Stockholm is a very pleasant city, very civilised and clean, very blond people, I felt almost at home there.

That is a brief update of my travelling since I last updated this blog.

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I came back from my holiday in Asia only to find out that my best friend and her boyfriend split up while I was away. To me this was no great shock, I had never really believed in that relationship – I was, however, dismayed and had to consequently spend a lot of time comforting her (which task, she living in Bucharest and I in Brussels, was a bit tedious... Long live Skype!!). The whole story saddened me as the guy’s conduct really proved scruples and my friend is a nice girl and didn’t deserve it. Well…. Such is life! Life is shitty and then you die, as one of my friends rightly put it once.

On this note, I feel compelled to dwell a bit longer on this idea of relationships …. I have done some serious thinking about relationships recently. I know I wrote on this subject some time ago and am now wondering why I feel so keen on going back to it.

I have often wondered if we should settle for a lukewarm relationship rather than leave it and start looking for fireworks. I know the common view which predicates that the fireworks do not last long and the butterflies in the stomach should hopefully transform into respect, care, warmth, concern, etc. And while I totally agree with that view (even though I find it quite common place and, why should I not say it, boring) I wonder if it wouldn’t be possible to make the fireworks last for a lifetime… To make the passion last forever... Maybe it’s just a matter of finding the right person? There must be something we could do to preserve this blissful state ... I also know the view according to which it takes brains and imagination to make the fireworks last for a lifetime. And efforts on both sides …. Maybe I’m an incurable romantic in longing for the perfect relationship in which your heart races madly when you hear your lover’s voice, their touch sends shivers down your spine, the distance between you is so unbearable that each moment alone is a burden you feel you’ll soon collapse under…

Maybe, probably, this is absolutely impossible. It exists in fairy tales but definitely not in real life… Fireworks that last for a lifetime…. Errr…. What a life, what a love!!

Blogs I visit on a regular basis...

http://unsapient.blogspot.com/

http://www.smashingbloke.co.uk/

Hong Kong...

Last day in Tibet

Today I had a relapse and was forced to stop in bed for the afternoon. After having eaten two pills in the hope that the annoying headache would eventually go away (but to no effect), it was clear that I was not up to the second part of the day.

In the morning, we visited the Drepung Monastery, which is one of the six largest monasteries of the Gelupa sect (one of the 4, I think, sects in the Buddhism). It is located at a foot of a mountain, about 10 km from Lhasa. It was built in 1416 and is one of the largest monasteries in Tibet. Again we saw Buddhist scriptures and countless other relics. It also has three monastic colleges for the study of philosophy and one for the practice of Tantric Buddhism.

I admit I was a bit bored and, by the end of the visit, bored stiff. The Buddhist statues were repeating themselves and our guide felt the need to repeat himself too in his endless explanations. I was literally at the end of my resources and I’m afraid I seemed a bit impatient and willing to see the visit at an end. The scenery was absolutely amazing, though. Even the effort of climbing yet other nasty stairs to get to the monastery was endurable.

In the afternoon we were supposed to visit yet another temple and another medical college. Feeling as I was feeling, I gave it a miss and Alex went alone to those places. According to him, it was nothing too special; interesting to mention maybe that the guide took him to some shops where they tried to make him buy an “old religious painting” for not less than $6500!! Good god, these people have no shame!!

Yesterday I discussed with our guide the funeral customs in Tibet. To my utter astonishment, I found out that, when people die here, their bodies are actually cut to pieces, taken to some special places in the mountains and left there for the vultures to eat!! It may seem incredibly barbarous and cruel but they actually say that the vultures are noble birds; the spots in the mountains are very clean and in the middle of nature. The deceased’s relatives are not allowed to accompany the body to the sacred spots in the mountains, only the friends do that. When the person died of a contagious disease or was killed by a weapon, the body is cremated. The Chinese cremate all bodies. Amazing!

We are off to Hong Kong tomorrow. I am a bit sad of leaving Tibet, I really liked the people here and the landscape is fantastic. On the other hand, I hope our physical strain will be at an end as soon as we get to lower altitudes. I wonder if I would be able to spend 7 years in Tibet! Who knows! Under the present circumstances, farewell would seem more appropriate.

Yaks

Oh, what a great day today was!! At last I did enjoy myself!

I am afraid that this entry will be rather short. Not because I keep my praises short but because I am feeling tired and there is a headache which will soon overcome me completely. Furthermore, Alex is waiting impatiently for me to go to dinner.

Today we visited Lhasa's most imposing attraction – the Potala Palace. This was once the seat of the Tibetan government and the winter residence of the Dalai Lamas. The construction is huge (13 storeys tall) and contains thousands of rooms. Its construction began during the reign of the 5th Dalai Lama in 1645 and took more than 50 years to complete

The tickets were obtained with difficulty (at least, this is what our guide told us), we had exactly 1 ½ hours to see the entire palace (the parts which were open to the public) and our passports were needed on entering. No pictures were allowed inside the palace (and not even out of the rooms' windows, which was really frustrating).

We had to climb thousands of stairs to get into the palace which, at 4000m, is no easy work. But the breathtaking view of the surrounding mountains made up for the effort. The palace impressed me, this time I really liked some of the statues and decorations. Huge tombs of massive gold of various Dalai Lamas catch your eye. Streams of pilgrims file through this religious maze to make offerings at the numerous chapels and shrines.

After the visit, we had lunch again in another local restaurant. This time I was more prepared to eat (I own that I was feeling really hungry as I had had a very light breakfast), especially because the place looked cleaner than the yesterday one. This time it was not a la carte, the menu was pre-established but I found some of the food to my liking. I managed to stick to vegetarian food – I had yak yoghurt, vegetarian dumplings, some strange beans and rice and yak soup (no meat, only the clear soup). The food was good and quite filling (I am not hungry even now).

After lunch, we made a short trip outside Lhasa. This trip was not included in our original schedule but we wanted to see more than Lhasa and, as we are in love with nature and the mountains, we managed to persuade our guide to alter the schedule. We felt like we were doing something forbidden as the travel agency did not know about the change (we paid the driver and guide a certain amount). The idea proved to be wonderful, the landscape was astounding, we drove to approximately 5000m. We saw beautiful snowed summits, picturesque Tibetan villages, blue skies. One of our purposes was to see the famous yaks and, maybe, even to touch them. Our wish was fulfilled – we saw plenty of yaks and took lots of pictures but, unfortunately, they were too wild to let us go very near and touch them, to my sheer disappointment. They are very cute and sweet, I saw some beautiful baby yaks very close, they made sweet noises. Richard, I am afraid that we would not be able to actually bring you a little yak and, also, there are no street cabinets here!! Maybe I can send you some yak pictures in compensation!! Hehe!

Despite the annoying headache and the sunburns on my shoulders and face (yes, I did it again!), I feel happy and relaxed. At last!

Lhasa

We started from our hotel in Xian yesterday, at 11am, as our flight was at 1.20pm. Everybody thought that was to be sufficient for us to make it to the airport in due time. Little did we know that there were some bad traffic jams in the city that made us believe, at some point, that we would miss the flight. Luckily for us (and for our guide!!) we made it on time and the flight was also delayed so it was OK after all.

After a 2 ½ hour flight we landed in Lhasa yesterday afternoon. The flight was quite uneventful. There were, however, a few bad turbulences as we were flying over Tibetan mountains. Alex tricked me into letting him have the window seat so he enjoyed the great view of the mountains covered in snow below.

We were met at the airport by our guide – this time a young fellow who proved to speak good English (what a relief!) and to possess a lot of knowledge about Lhasa and Tibet. We were offered white, long scarves, a welcome sign in Tibet.

The journey to the hotel was quite long (more than ½ hour) but the scenery was absolutely incredible: very high mountains, some with snow on top, a beautiful, large river (Lhasa river) and very blue skies. The temperature was absolutely perfect, a real blessing after what we had to endure in Beijing and Xian. It was approximately 25 degrees and sunny. Lhasa is at 4,000m above sea level so the oxygen is scarce here. This is why, on the first day after arrival (or, for some, on the first 2 or 3 days) it is very common for the traveller to feel dizzy and to be tortured by nasty headaches (which we experienced yesterday and during the first part of today).

Our hotel is rated 3 star and it used to be a Holiday Inn some time ago. However, Holiday Inn withdrew their licence as the standards were not met but the hotel continues to use the Holiday Inn name. It is now called “Lhasa Hotel – ex Holiday Inn”. Interesting way of attracting tourists!! It is still considered the best hotel in Lhasa so... I guess any complaining would be useless.

After checking in, we took a nap in the hope that we would get rid of the headache which, I'm afraid, was wishful thinking. When we woke up, we felt the need for a light dinner so we went to one of the hotel's restaurants. We were both dizzy and nauseous.

The restaurant was an interesting surprise. They had mainly European dishes on the menu, the single Tibetan addition being the yak steak (which actually was a replacement for our beef steak). There were wonderful things such as minestrone or French onion soups, Wiener schnitzel, apple strudel and the like!! Paradise! And, on top of everything, the waitresses seemed to speak reasonable English!! We instantly felt much better! We ordered a full course dinner but we could hardly finish anything. Of course the dishes were not the best we had ever had but still, we felt a bit at home and more at ease.

Alex kept complaining of being unable to breathe properly so, after a (very) short walk in the hotel neighbourhood, we went back to our room and had an early night.

Due to Tibet's special circumstances, the local guides are quite eager that the tourists are not left unattended. They suggest, from the very beginning, that it's better for you to have long rests, stay in the hotel and only venture outside when accompanied by your guide. The given reason was that there are many people in Lhasa that came from other parts of Tibet and it's not very safe to wander the streets unaccompanied. Of course we saw right through it but... what could we do. If it was up to me, I would venture into the city and wander the small streets and see how the people really live. But Alex is very categorical about it –“it says in our guidebook that we could get in big trouble if we did that!” :-( It's a bad world out there!!

After breakfast, we were taken to Norbulingka, which is the former residence of the Dalai Lama. The park contains several palaces and chapels, the highlight of which is the New Summer Palace. This time there were things to be seen inside, mostly gifts to the Dalai Lama from various governments. All furniture and carpets looked old and shabby and in poor taste. The paintings on the walls were quite interesting though, once their meaning was explained to us by our guide. We learnt lots of interesting things about Buddhism and their traditions.

The next place on our visiting list was a nunnery (Lhasa Tsamkhung Nunnery), the only nunnery established in the old city of Lhasa. The name of the nunnery literally means meditation cave as, during the 7th century, a Tibetan king used to meditate in a natural cave at this site. The nunnery was first established in the 15th century. The place was quite small but interesting to be visited inside. We saw several nuns, dressed more or less in the same manner (a jumper to keep them warm and a skirt). All of them had their heads shaven and, it being breakfast time, were drinking a sort of butter drink (very rich and filling). They would either pray or copy the scriptures all day long.

Afterwards, we were taken to a local restaurant to have lunch. We were positively not hungry and the place looked so shabby that I wanted to skip the lunch altogether. It did not seem like a good idea though so I just had a bottle of water while Alex, our guide and our driver had a frugal lunch. To do them justice, I am convinced that the food was very tasty (Alex actually confirmed that) but to me everything looked dirty so I simply decided to refrain.

After lunch, we visited the Sera Monastery which was founded in 1419, has an assembly hall, three colleges and about 33 houses. About 600 monks are now in residence, well down from an original population of around 5000 monks. Debating sessions take place from 3.30pm to 5pm in the garden, which we witnessed. Basically, monks gather in the garden and get engaged in discussions / debates in pairs. They are grouped by seniority levels. The pairs are made up of one sitting and one standing monk. The standing monk is the one asking the questions, whereas the sitting monk is the one answering them. Whenever an answer is considered to be wrong, the standing monk would clap his hands. Consequently, the noise in the garden was considerable.

The next and last place that we visited was Lhasa's medical college. The visit was very similar to the one in Beijing, but this time we skilfully avoided the consultation and (I) the nasty, tasteless tea which they force on visitors. We were explained how the Tibetans use various plants and even parts of animals (like a yak's penis!!) to heal various illnesses. I bought a small and cute stone which they put on a string for me and which is, supposedly, good for blood circulation and heart. Of course I don't believe in the nonsense, it was an impulse purchase, the reason being that it looked so nice :-). I will probably be bored of it by tomorrow and throw it away... but, then again, maybe not!

Tomorrow we'll have a very full and tiring day but also very interesting! I can hardly wait! That is, if we won't die from lack of oxygen in the meantime :)

Dog on the menu

Very hot in Xian today. We were a bit more relaxed as we had no organised trip to attend, no guide to meet in the hotel lobby at a fixed hour. How cool to be able to organise your day the way you want to!! I went down to breakfast in better spirits even though I knew it would be very hot outside and a day in the dirty city was ahead of us.

We wandered the city at our own pace and visited more or less all the places worth seeing in Xian. We started with the Little Goose Pagoda, located near a temple originally built in AD 684 as a site to hold prayers to bless the afterlife of the late emperor Gaozong. The top of the pagoda was shaken off by an earthquake in the 16th century, but the rest of its high structure is intact. The surrounding park did not impress us too much so we consequently cut our visit short.

The next thing we went to was the Great Mosque, situated in the Muslim quarter. This mosque is supposedly one of the largest in China. The present buildings only date back to the mid-18th century, though the mosque might have been established several hundreds years earlier. Suprisingly enough, the mosque is actually built in Chinese architectural style (to my utter exasperation!) but it was overall quite a pictoresque place to be in as most of the grounds are taken up by gardens. Only the muslims were admitted in the prayer hall. To get to the mosque we had to survive an extremely narrow street, with very crowded stands, with the most varied merchandise ever, mostly imitations of world known brands. The sellers urging passers by to have a look at the things on sale in the few broken English words that they managed.

On escaping the narrow street, we took a taxi and went to the Forest of Steles Museum which houses the heaviest collection of books in the world. The earliest of the more than 2,000 large engraved stone tablets dates from the Han dynasty.

Other things which we visited were the Drum Tower and Bell Tower (with basically the same functions as the ones in Beijing) and the City Walls which Alex courageously climbed while I waited for him at the entrance.

The second part of the day was worse and ended with me having a fit in the hotel's Chinese restaurant. I am sick and tired of Chinese food (which I hated anyway, even before the trip to China). However, yesterday we tried the European restaurant and it turned out to be a bad experience (both of us got diareea right afterwards) so today we thought of having Chinese again (despite my reluctance). I was probably in a bad mood on entering the restaurant, which was rendered worse by the fact that only Alex got a menu, so I had to specifically ask for another one for me. It soon became bloody obvious that the waitress did not speak a word of English (well, she did understand water, fork, bill but that was about all!!). This was the first time in China when I actually saw a dog dish on the menu. On seeing that I really wanted to leave the restaurant at once and, if it had not been for Alex, I would have done it. Things being as they were, we tried to find something edible and I ordered a chicken based dish and Alex a duck based one, rice, and egplant. When the food was served, I nearly started to cry with frustration as it seemed to me that the chicken meat was, in fact, some other meat and all food was literally floating on a sea of oil. I am still not entirely convinced that what I ate was indeed chicken but Alex was so... I guess it does not matter anymore. I needed a lot of coaxing and comforting to be kept at the table but I confess that I ate very little this evening.

I cannot help the way I am and I admit that Chinese food, lifestyle, customs and traditions are and, I am afraid, will forever be strange and incomprehensible to me.

We are flying to Lhasa (in Tibet) tomorrow in the afternoon - that is, of course, if we will ever get the special permit needed for this adventure. We were promised by our guide here that we would get it today but it hasn't happened so far so... Probably tomorrow.

Buddha's finger bone

We made another trip today. This time we ventured to some sites approximatey 150 km northwest of Xian. Actually we visited two places. The first one was Famen Temple, built during the Eastern Han dynasty in about AD 200. It has a 12-storey pagoda which collapsed in 1980's, after torrential rains had weakened it's brick structure, being afterwards restored. During the restauration, they accidentally discovered below the pagoda, in a sealed crypt (built during Tang dynasty) 4 sacred finger bones of Buddha (actually only one of them was real, the rest being just copies). These were exhibited in one of the temple's pavilions. People were piously praying in front of these finger bones (more fervently, of course, in front of the one considered to be real) which made me laugh a sarcastic laugh... It's unblievable how credulous people can be... And it's absolutely the same in our culture.

We understood from our guide that the Chinese government encourages the Buddhism (despite our belief that they were actually supressing it). Apparently the people that live in cities tend to be atheists whereas the ones that live in the rural areas tend to be belivers. The Chinese are incredibly superstitious, they have thousands of ridiculous superstitions.

The temple itself was more or less similar to the ones that we saw in Beijing. Huge Buddha statues and statues of other Buddhist deities exhibited inside pavilions, richly decorated, strange combinations of vivid colours. In my opinion, these were in rather poor taste but, again, I am probably prejudiced and may not be the most appropriate person to judge these things. It also occurs to me just now that some of our Orthodox churches are very strangely decorated too. So I just have to conclude that maybe this is the way by which religion appeals to the masses.

I have to say a few words about the toilets at these tourist attractions. Some of them are really very bad - yesterday I just gave up the idea of using such a toilet - the smell is absolutely unbearable in all of them (irrespective of how clean they may seem at a first glance) and that particular toilet literally consisted of several holes in the ground, united by a ditch with running water and divided by short walls but no doors. So, basically, everybody could see everybody! No privacy at all! While men may be used to this sort of toilet, I admit that I was really shocked on seeing it and told our guide that I would give it a miss. I have to add that, even where there are doors, something is usually broken and they don't close properly. So, upon entering such a toilet (it can happen in an international airport too!!) you can often see ladies peeing carelessly in the small cabins!! Well ... enough about the toilets.

It goes without saying that we were again stared at - furtive or direct looks, they were all equally embarrassing. But, by this time, I've got used to it so it doesn't bother me like it did at the beginning.

The second place we went to was Qian Tomb. Located some 80 km northwest of Xian, it's the joint resting place of Tang Emperor Gaozong and his wife, Empress Wu Zetian. The emperor died in AD 683 and his wife in AD 705. Very popular with Chinese tourists, we saw a few camels and horses to my utter delight. I admit I was much more interested in the animals than in the huge stones with or without Chinese characters written on them. There were several large stone sculptures of animals and officers of the imperial guard, most of them partially destroyed. The tomb itself is inside a hill and it has not been excavated so all the tourist can admire consists of these statues and some huge stone tablettes. Consequently, our visit was rather short.

The trip was good as it allowed us to see a bit of Chinese countryside. We drove through small towns and villages and were able to witness great poverty. Very sad. The thought that this is the sole reality ever known by these people saddened me greatly.

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Ever since I arrived in Xian, I have been trying to obtain an ironing board from the hotel reception. At first, after struggling hard to understand what it was that I was asking for, they told me that there was a single ironing board which had been claimed by another guest (cool, in a 4 star hotel!!) and then it turned out that they actually did not have such a thing. So, after 3 days of failed attempts, I had to give up and have the hotel laundry iron the shirts.

That's all for now ... I am hurrying to enjoy the last hours of a calm and pleasant Sunday ....

Cultural shock

Hello everybody! I wanted to write yesterday but did not feel up to it. I don't really feel up to it now but will give it a try... bear with me.

We arrived in Xian yesterday at noon, after a 1 1/2 hour flight. We flew Air China and the flight was absolutely OK, nothing good or bad to report. We were met at the airport by our new guide, another Chinese woman. She speaks better English and seems to be much more knowledgeable than the guide in Beijing. We got a lot of information about Xian and Tibet on our way from the airport to the hotel. I had not had high expectations upon arrival but the reality was even worse. In my eyes, the city is the most communist looking city I have ever set my eyes on. Awful blocks of flats, very old and not taken care of, true prisons for the body and soul. Very few skyscrapers and modern buildings, way behind Beijing in this respect.

Very "encouraged" by what we saw on our way from the airport, we arrived at our hotel. There were large groups of children in various uniforms that arrived there at the same time. We were explained that these were children from Hong Kong that were on an exchange program with Xian children. The hotel lobby was consequently very crowded. The hotel itself is good (for China standards, mind you!!) , it's a 4 star (called very unimaginatively "Xian") and our room is on the 10th floor. We thought that maybe the view would be wonderful from the 1oth floor ... but all we can see is a very very busy main street, two really awful, grey skyscrapers in front of our hotel which obviously obstruct our view.

Ever since we got here, I have felt particularly depressed. I continuously feel tired, I hate everything and I feel the need to shut everybody out. I feel the need to sleep all the time, the more I sleep, the more I feel the need for additional sleep. On top of everything, I have woken up with an annoying headache today which has not left me yet. I am afraid that maybe I am sick or something but I am told that it's "cultural shock" that I am suffering from.

Last night Alex and I had our first disagreement... over China and the Chinese people... But everybody is entitled to an opinion so maybe I need to state here that this is my opinion only. He seems to be enjoying everything so far.

We did not do much yesterday. In fact, I did not do much. Upon arriving at the hotel, I suddenly decided that I needed to take a nap - which I did - while Alex went to have a walk in the hotel's neighbourhood. I slept for about 2hours and I woke up suddenly to the terrible traffic noise coming from beneath our windows...

We then had a traditional dumplings dinner. We were basically served tens of different kinds of dumplings, filled with vegetables, fish, beaf, pork, etc. We even ate sweet dumplings for desert!! These dumplings is a traditional Chinese dish - it's nothing really special about it, after a few such dumplings, you cease to tell the difference. After the interesting dinner, we had a walk in the hotel neighbourhood - made bearable for me by the darkness outside.

Today we made a private trip, the same Chinese girl that was in charge with airport pick-up and hotel arrangements was our private guide. The first place we went to was called The Wild Goose Pagoda, which is a Buddhist temple, built some 1,400 years ago. To me it looked quite similar to what we saw in Beijing, but quite nice. The weather was good today - it rained almost incessantly, making the air cooler and more breathable.

The second attraction was a kind of palace, residence of some of the emperors of Tang dinasty, built around some hotsprings. Apparently this hot water was considered very good for health and the emperor and his spouse would spend many days there, just to bath in this water. We, of course, were shown the emperor's bath, the empress's bath, etc. Nothing really impressive and the scenery (which was supposed to be beautiful) could not be seen due to the tick fog.

We then were driven to a place where we had lunch - again traditional Chinese dishes. These places are typically made of a restaurant area and a huge shop where tourist can buy all sort of trinkets and other objects of various values (statues, decorative objects, t-shirt in this case, other clothing items, jewelry, etc.).

The last objective on our list was the famous terra-cotta warriors. China had a rather mad emperor, some 2,300 years ago - the first one to unify China. He had this terra-cotta army made (30 to 40 thousand terra-cotta warriors) and burried with him upon his death, hoping that these clay soldiers would help him continue to rule after his death!! We visited 3 pits - like 3 huge holes in the ground in which these statues were exhibited. The first one was the biggest (there were some 6,ooo such statues discovered there). The exhibition halls were very crowded, you had to squeeze and make your way through rows of Chinese tourists to be able to catch a glimpse of the statues. As far as I understood, these statues were actually put together upon their discovery, as they were smashed to pieces during a pesant uprising just after the emperor's death. They were discovered in 1974 by a Chinese peasant who was digging a well.

The lack of air inside these exhibition halls and the crowd made my headache even worse so I could hardly wait to get out of there. I was extremely happy to be back in our van and, some 3/4 hour later, back to our hotel and in our room where I took my long awaited nap.

This city is so polluted you just feel in your nostrils all the time the smell of fuel. I had heard that China was polluted but I'm afraid the level is much worse than expected.

Andrew, thanks for your kind encouragement, I will try to compose myself and enjoy the trip. The thought that it has to happen only once and it will soon be over makes everything more bearable!!

I miss you guys, I miss Europe, I miss just walking down the street in Brussels and seeing European faces and familiar places... I miss the comfort of my flat in Brussels... I miss......

Sauna...

Yes, today it has been like a sauna here... I literally refused to wake up this morning... I am usually grumpy upon waking up but today it was even worse. But I was lovingly dragged out of bed and made to face another day in the City.

We had some fun at breakfast when we saw our friend again... Our "friend" is a Chinese guy (we have never talked to him, of course, but imagined a lot of things about him) and he was having breakfast too. He had a grey suit on, black shoes and.... white socks!! Yes, apparently this is considered fashionable here, we saw lots of men dressed like that! The reason why we found him to be so special is that he is able to eat enormous quantities of food (for breakfast, anyway). As I was watching him having the third omlette I felt like I had enough and urged Alex to leave. We imagined that he belongs to a sort of secret police of the hotel. In fact I imagined that and Alex was of the same opinion.... :-)

We thought our plans for today were modest - we just wanted to visit the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven (the one that we missed the other day because we arrived there too late). However, these two attractions proved to be very courageous targets for an extremely hot and humid day. We found a taxi and, after 1 hour journey, we arrived at the Summer Palace. The taxi driver explained (using his hands and his watch) that he would like to wait for us (for 3 hours!!) and drive us back to the hotel for the sum of RMB 200. He would take a nap while we visit the Palace and would wait for us in the parking place. We agreed and left him to his nap.

The Summer Palace is a huge compound, containing lots of pavilions, a few exhibitions and a huge lake. It used to be the imperial garden and residence during the Quing Dynasty. It was constructed in 1750 and burnt down by the Anglo-French Allied Forces in 1860. It was then restored in 1886 only to be devastated again in 1900 by the Allied Forces and rebuilt in 1902.

Apart from the park which is really nice, there is nothing really interesting to be seen in the pavilions. We saw an exhibition of imperial objects (clothes, personal pots and other stuff used by the empress who reconstructed the palace in 1886 but nothing spectacular. Everywhere there were funny instructions such as " Help protect the historical relics" and, right behind it, "Help protect the railings"!!. Also, all pavilions had delicious names such as "The Hall of Benevolence and Longevity", "Heralding Spring Pavilion", "Hall of Happiness in Longevity", "Sea of Wisdom Temple", "Heart Purifying Pavilion", etc. We also saw a marble boat (yes, a huge boat made of marble!) which was constructed on the order of the above mentioned empress. Apparently, for having this boat built, she sacrificed the budget meant to be used for an entire fleet!! That's what I call intelligence!!

The place was packed with Chinese tourists, we hardly ever saw an European face. It was very crowded and everything was rendered worse by the absolutely terrifying heat. Everywhere adolescents of indefinite sex and badly dressed grown ups. I promised I would write more about the Chinese dressing style but I don't feel up to it now.... Apparently it's very trendy for women to wear socks with their shoes (when wearing dresses or skirts!) - the nylon ones are the preferred ones, of course. They even wear these socks with sandals!! I saw some very strange things today!!!

We cut our visit short (2 1/2 hours instead of 3), found our taxi driver (who was snoring happily in his car on a sort of radio play / monologue) and we were off to the Temple of Heaven, extremely happy to be in the air conditioned car. Of course I slept for the entire 1 hour journey back, despite the Chinese play on the radio. Alex made me laugh saying that it was probably a drama, judging by the angry intonation!

The Temple of Heaven was really disappointing, personally I felt it was a waste of time to go back there again. It simply is a round temple, beautifully looking on the outside but there was virtually nothing inside. And, again, some side pavilions with photo exhibitions, with explanations mostly in Chinese. So disappointed, sweaty, dirty and very tired, we found another taxi and got back to the hotel.

We are off to Xian tomorrow. I am afraid that it's going to be even hotter there... :-( I hope we will survive otherwise this may be my last blog post ever... Should I say "farewell"?

The jade bracelet

We started from the hotel very early today. We were supposed to meet the driver in the lobby at 7.30am; however, as we oversletpt again, I was not exactly ready at 7.30 and it took me some additional 10mins to get downstairs, which made our Austrian co-trippers a little unhappy. We were accompanied on this trip by two older couples - an Austrian and an Iranian one. The Austrian couple was extremely nice and cheerful, we had long discussions, they were very happy to hear that I enjoyed my 5 months in Vienna a lot and I love the famous Viennese coffee. He had been to Hong Kong on business and they decided to meet in Beijing and use the opportunity to visit the city. The Iranian couple hardly ever spoke, as it turned out that they did not really understand English at all... He spoke a few words of English while she did not speak the language at all.

I was so sleepy and the car journey usually induces me a deep sleep - so yes, it happened again :-) It really is like a drug - as soon as the wheels are set in motion, my eyes automatically close. Don't ask me why!!

Our first objective was a place where the Ming dinasty kings were burried. It is quite an impressive place, the location is beautiful as it's near the mountains. There obviously are several tombs but only one of them was excavated, apparrently due to the precarious preserving methods now in use. Lots of interesting objects (found in this tomb) were exhibited, all used by the emperor and his wife (items of clothing, jewelry, etc.). The visit was quite short which was good as it had already started to get hot.

Our guide spoke quite good English even though she did struggle with some of the words but overall the level of spoken English was satisfactory.

The next place on our list was a jade factory - we did not actually visit the factory itself, but we were shown into a big shop full of jade objects - both decorative and jewelry items. After we were explained the method of differentiating between real and fake jade, we were (of course!) invited to take a look around hoping that we would buy something. I must say that jade (and, generally speaking, semi-precious stones) are not my thing. I've always been and always will be a diamond girl - after all, diamonds are a girl's best friends, aren't they?

Because I am quite polite, I looked around faking a moderate interest in the exhibited items. As I happened to take a closer look at the jade bracelets section, several Chinese girls immediately surrounded me and started to take out various items and make me try them on. All this while cheerfully praising the qualities of jade stone, of course (it's good for the heart, it goes with my skin, my eyes, etc.). I had quite a difficult time explaining them that I am not really into jade and avoiding to offend them at the same time. So I told them that I indeed liked the bracelets but I would never wear such a thing myself. I pleaded and explained but nothing worked. Their heart was set on selling something so they were very pushy. If you had told them that you did not really like a certain item, they would have immediately moved on to something else, trying to convince you of the qualities of the next item. It was absolutely horrible. I told Alex to get me out of there, he simply told them "no, we are not interested to buy, this is not what my wife would usually wear" , he tried everything himself but they were still very persistent. In the end, we made our way out of the shop and into the van and, as we were feeling relieved and confident that we were off the hooks at last, the van's doors opened once again and two shop assistents pop their heads inside, having brought the infamous bracelet with them, and started to plead with my husband again. It was simply too much. Alex just said " no, we don't want it!" and they finally understood. My god, it was the toughest scene of this kind I have witnessed so far and I've been to places like Egypt and Turkey before!!

So half an hour and a grumpier guide later (as, obviously, she would have received her commission had the sale been performed!) we were on our way to the most important attraction on the menu - the Great Wall.

The Wall itself is not that impressive - its setting is very impressive - the mountains, the woods the river did the trick. It was overcast today, which was good as there was no sun and the heat was thus under control, but the smog was there and we could not have a clear picture. We climbed the wall up to a certain level - it is quite steep and the steps are quite high so it ends up being very tiring exercise. I had to take short breaks from time to time and Alex took the opportunity to take a few interesting pictures of me climbing, resting, very red in the face with effort, etc.

Afterwards we were taken to a so called "cloisonne" factory - a place where they make all sorts of engraved pots, vases and other decorative objects. Here we were also supposed to have lunch - tranditional Chinese. So after we were explained the art of producing these decorative objects (which was quite impressive, as they are entirely hand made!), we were invited to have lunch. It's maybe worth mentioning that I saw small children (maybe 9 or 10 years old) working in that workshop. It's hard work, I believe it's damaging to the eyes after a certain period.

The lunch was nice and tasty - the Iranian couple disappeared somewhere else as they did not eat pork so we were left with the Austrians who made quite enjoyable conversation and were actually very funny. At the end of the meal we had the opportunity to "compare" the liquid we got as coffee with the Viennese melange... Quite interesting indeed! Personally I did not really know what I ate (this was what I feared most!!) but whatever it was, it was quite tasty.

After lunch, Alex had a timid inclination to buy a vase that had peakocks engraved on it - I found it awful and did my best to prevent him from buying it. And I succeeded!!

The highlight of the trip was a visit to a Chinese traditional medical centre. Alex had been to China before and had been taken to this kind of centre so we had a good idea as to what to expect. However, I felt a bit scared to enter this hospital. We were invited into a room where a doctor gave us what I felt to be an awful long and extremely boring presentation about the differences between the Chinese traditional way of treating various illnesses and the Western way. To cut a long story short, the Chinese seem to view the entire body as a unity, a single entity and they consider all organs to be interconnected while the Westerners tend to treat each organ separately. He then explained the three pillars of the Chinese traditional medicine - the acupuncture, physical exercises and herbal treatment. He then went on saying that there are Chinese specialists who can tell the illness one person suffers from just by taking that person's pulse, checking their tongue, etc. I just stared in total disbelief (oh, my savage self!!) and could hardly refrain from asking him about the bears that are raised in China in appalling conditions just for their blatter substances that are extracted from them and used as medicine. These poor creatures are kept in cages not bigger then their own bodies, they cannot move, they have a seringe in their blatter for all their lives... They simply die very soon or, the ones that are set free, are forever lost, they cannot go back to a normal life, they are forever handicapped. It's a very sad and very true story which I would have wanted to find out more about...

Anyway, Alex had his pulse checked and some pills were prescribed to him which he had to buy on the spot. The Austrians bought some medicine too and the Iranians wanted to but they spoke no English so it was very difficult to get the message of the learnt old lady (pompously called "the professor") accross to them so... they had to give it a miss.

It's probably easy to imagine how relieved I was to step out of the medical centre and in to our van which took us to our hotel (our small paradise on foreign land!). My friends can rest assured that I am struggling really hard to keep an open mind. And I am successful! Yes, I don't like it but yes, it really IS a very interesting land!!