There ARE nine million bicycles in Beijing

Monday 8th January 2007

And we got two of them! Another good day today. We got the hotel to ring the ticket office and get a taxi to take us there – even the taxi driver got lost – it was a long way from where we’d been looking yesterday. Sid says the ‘author’ should admit here to having placed an x in the wrong spot on the map. We walked from there to The Friendship Store which was interesting and then visited the Silk Market and had some fun bargaining for just about everything. It was easy as we had no intention of buying anything as we can’t fit anything else in our luggage. The plan is to go to a post office on our last day in Shanghai with all our ‘cold weather clothes’. Apparently they pack them up in a sack for you and then sew the sack and we can post them home – or to Stephanie in our case. From the Silk Market we had decided we really wanted to do the only other thing we’d planned for Beijing but hadn’t yet done – ride bicycles around the Hutongs – the narrow streets of old Beijing. We decided to go to the Hyatt Grand Hotel where we’d had coffee yesterday. We’d learnt in San Francisco that the top class hotels seem to have Concierges who can get you anything you want, even if you’re not staying there. And they came up trumps, arranged for bikes to be delivered for us. We had such fun riding the bikes around the main streets around Tianenman Square to start with – all the Chinese were laughing and pointing at us. It’s very rare for Westerners to ride bikes.


We then went off to the Hutongs which were a fascinating insight into life for the real Chinese, outside the major hotels and business areas of the new city.


We’re now on the overnight train to Xi’an, as I write this. Must give a mention to last night’s Beijing roast duck at the Quanjude restaurant – the oldest in Beijing serving duck – in fact, we got a certificate to say that ours was no. 330686 since opening. As Sid says, thank God they never named them. I say, apologies to Donald and Daffy (deceased!). Wow, tasted wonderful though and the walls were full of pictures of premiers, diplomats and despots from around the world who had eaten there over the years.

Back to the train. Very comfortable, four berth – bought it out for ourselves so we don’t have to sleep with strangers. Beds and linen look great. Will report on sleepability tomorrow.