Hello! Hello! Nice T-Shirt! One Dollar!

This will be an attempt to recap my day as well as provide a cost-analysis of living in China:

First of all, I am currently staying at Clark's place, which is on the 14th (and top) floor of an apartment complex in Beijing. One of his roommates has gone back to the States for a while, so I get his room...the place is GORGEOUS! Clark and I had never met before last night. I guess our mom's work together or something? Whatever...he's a really great guy and has been so kind and generous to me...it's just what I've needed after spending the last few weeks on trains and in hostel dorm rooms.

So today I got up late and decided to wander up to the Great Wall. One of my friends was going with a tour that her hostel arranged, but they were leaving at 7:30am and it was going to cost 180 yuan. Instead, I decided to take the local bus (route 919, 24 yuan return) and go solo. This did mean I ended up at the most touristy part, but in some ways it was nice not to feel like a minority again (on the other hand, I was pestered by souvenir sellers, using the line I put in the title, among others). However, in the end the whole thing, door-to-door cost me 55 yuan (including metro fair to and from) as opposed to 180.

First of all, let me say that the Great Wall is alot more steep and a rugged climb than I thought it would be. I'm glad I wore my boots!




Having only a few pringles, a hot dog on a stick and a bottle of iced tea (which is extremely popular over here...understandable, since the Chinese love their tea, however the Brits drink tea too and iced tea hasn't quite caught on over there in the same way, but i digress..) was really not the best diet to hike on, yet I managed. And I was certainly better off than all the Russian women who thought they could do it in 3 inch stilettos. Honestly now...

After climbing around for a couple hours, I caught the bus back and was starving (i didn't want to eat at the Great Wall cuz everything was tourist prices x 100). I ended up walking into a random restaurant on the way home and invented a new game. Basically, it works like this: go to a restaurant where you don't read or speak the language, and they can't speak yours and then you try to get something to eat. I pointed to someone else's rice and made the international sign for the chicken (flapping arms and 'bock-bocking') and yet somehow wound up with a bowl of noodles covered in beef. Nevertheless, it was a success. And the total cost? (For the huge bowl and two 500 ml bottles of iced tea) 11 yuan. That's $1.75 Canadian or about 80 pence. You couldn't even get one bottle of iced tea for 80p in the UK!

Last night I had a few drinks with another friend of mine...between the two of us we consumed about 2.5 L (just under 5 pints) and the cost again? 12 yuan. That's like 1 pound sterling. For 5 beers. Good beer too. Clark says that if you buy it by the crate (like to put in the fridge at home) it costs half that. Man, I love China!

One last semi-related tangential observation I have made about the Chinese is that they can fall asleep absolutely ANYWHERE. Here is photographic evidence:



Tonight I'm watching a bootlegged copy of Lost in Translation in preparation for Japan.

UPDATE: I think I was half-asleep last time I saw Lost in Translation...that and the fact that I couldn't appreciate the cultural differences and the traveller's mindset...at any rate, it is a BRILLIANT film...I can already relate to it on this trip in a billion different ways....