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Ok, so this is my first almost-week:
Before leaving Australia, I spent my first night in a cheap hotel in Sydney. Mum came up; with me so she could see me off at the airport and we spent the ebvening in Krispy Kreme and Maccas rather than staying in our tiny, ugly room. The highlight of the night was seeing two large cockroaches while walking outside. hmm, interesting stuff.
I arrived in Malaysia after a long flight from Sydney. Mum had seen me off at the boarding gate and I'd gone in alone, having to do a lot of things for the first time, but not having any choice. The filght attendants passed around lots of food and I read my book. Getting off the plane in Kuala Lumpur was weird. My first time out of the country on a plane but it's so formulaic. I followed my neighbouring passenger (think Goodbye Mr Chips/ Doc Martin guy) unecessarily through the thin one-way corridor so I didn't get lost untill we got to the main part of the airport. Lots of the shops were closing as it was late and I wandwered through, killing time. At the end of all the escalators were redundant signs saying END OF ESCALATOR! I took a train thing out of the airport and into a different part of the airport and managed to find the right gate! Thankfully all the signs are bilingual (or whatever signs are) which helped. Did I mention its hot? 10pm and 28degrees! There's a kind of placcid awesomeness about being in another country. Regards to those at home.
After getting off my plane in Beijing I was dropped into town kindly by my neighbouring passenger's family and put into a taxi (Mr Chips had gone and in his place was a guy about my age called Martin). The taxi took me, half-asleep and plane-sick to my hostel for about $5AUD. By now it was around 9am , though after little sleep on the plane and the tweo hour time difference it seemed much later. After cjhecking in and dumping my stuff I went for a walk through the streets. My street is tree-lined and on almost every corner is a magasine stand selling things like Cosmo, Vanity Fair and Dog Fan (the usuals). I learnt that day how incredibly thirsty the humid hot weather makes you, but only once I was several blocks from my room. Forgetting I had a map of Beijing, I had been studying streets signs and inventing mnemonic devices to remember my path (Smoss3) as I went along, managing to make it far thanks to the long straight streets. Thirsty work. I spent mosty of the next few days doing the same thing, taking lots, but never having enough water. After exploringmuch quieter streets I found Wangfujing Streetwhich is massive and filled with people. fun for a little while, but being in fukll sun makes it difficult to appreciate!
In the evenings, when it is still light, the people come out in throngs. young children, dogs and elderly people cleverly escaping the worst of the heat. Skateboards and balls are everywhere on the well-mainrtained garden that is the meridian strip (though its more like a park). People saunter along the paths , some of them singing. Every so often the path widens and becomes a courtyard with tweo lines of trees or sherubs set in the obligatory pboxy plots framed in stone that are all around beijing. Children have races, climb over the sloping bass-relief pictures which double as water features at certain times of day. Music is played at intervalsalo0ng the way; an old accorduianist plays quietly in a shady corner, further along a group plays guitars with music set on stands and in rte final courtysard before the park ends, when Beihayan Dajie is intected by another street ,a speaker is attached to an MP3 player which plays chinese music with a beat for old ladies to dance along to in a kind of nutbush . A lady with her grandson stands at the ends messing up the dance moves but more concerned with entertaining her granson perched on her hip. If yoiu go along the arrow-straight path, slotting yourself into the procession, you can let you mind wander and look around while in your peripherals you follow the movement of the orange shirt worn by the woman in front of you and guiding your way. The sky is blue-grey and and bats fly around above. Otherwise, take a seat and watch the people walking by.
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