qWT2K9--the quasi World Tour 2009: Week 2

London and Beijing:

London was a ton of fun. I got to see Catherine Murphy, Nicole Green and John Jackson all friends from various points in my life who have all ended up in London. I didn’t do much touristy stuff while in London: had a very enjoyable 3 hours in Hyde Park on a glorious sunny day overlooking the serpentine pond, went to a Champagne Bar on the top floor of the tallest building in London, explored Brick Lane and went grafitti hunting, ate excellent market food from a market very close to London Bridge (Hoxton maybe?) and got to see the Anish Kapoor exhibit at the Royal Academy. He is the guy who did the bean in Chicago. His work was amazing and very diverse. What was on display ranged from a cannon that shot wax every 20 minutes into an other room crashing onto a wall (pictures weren’t permitted), to further explorations with reflective surfaces, like the bean in Chicago, as well as work with steel, powder, and plaster. I had half expected the exhibit to be a bunch of Chicago bean type things and was very impressed by his mastery of so many different mediums.

I flew to Beijing on Thursday night and arrived around 1on Friday afternoon. After reading in the NYTimes about people getting quarantined I was a little uneasy about going through the health inspection upon arrival. About an hour into my flight my face felt really hot and wouldn’t cool down. When I asked the French woman next to me if she felt hot, she quasi-coldly replied “if you have the flu you need to tell me”. I sat nervously in my seat for a couple hours and when I got up to go to the bathroom, I looked in the mirror and realized I was sunburned! I tend to get a bit neurotic when in transit, with this being no exception.

We’ve had sun and 70 degree weather every day since we’ve been here which is great. As I had said in my last post, China is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic and the crowds are a bit insane at tourist spots. The only thing I can compare it to is Obama’s Inauguration. We aren’t staying in a touristy area though which is great. We’re about a 30 minute walk from the forbidden city in a Hutong (means neighborhood) called Fangjia. Beijing is a huge grid, with very logical Primary, Secondary and Tertiary circulation established: There are 6 HUGE ring roads which surround the city (we’re staying between the first and second ring). Within the ring roads is a grid of secondary streets which are 4 lane roads for the most part, some bigger. Within the grids are Hutongs, which are basically like alleys that have neighborhoods contained within them. Pedestrians and cars use the same space, and although they are two way traffic we’ve seen a number of times where cars are reversing for 30 feet or so to get out of the way for oncoming trarffic to pass. Within our alley, our hotel sits in a courtyard that has a restaurant, a theater, a coffeeshop and several other businesses. For a westerner, it is bizarre to be moved down to the alley scale and then walk through an opening into a larger open space, but it creates for very intimate public spaces that are all unique from one another. The alleys are not well lit, and yet people are always in them, old people sitting on steps talking to one another in the dark, children running up and down, and motor bikes, cars, modified power wagon all moving with one another to make way.

We navigated the crowds to visit the Great Wall on Sunday. Most foreigners go on tours, taking big buses that leave from hotels or hostels. We opted for the city bus (primarily because it was only $2 each way which isn’t bad for a 70 km distance). After some frustration we found the correct bus (Lonely Planet says to take the 919, what it doesn’t say is that there are about 7 different 919 bus routes) and were shuffled with the masses onto buses. On a bus of about 65, Chels and I were the only two foreigners. The ticket woman on board was very friendly, though we did not speak, we had the exact fare ready and that was that. At the Wall, the crowds, again were intimidating, but we managed to walk the opposite direction of them all on the wall and get to enjoy the wall without too much trouble. The part that we were on was restored and rehabilitated in the 80’s but could see the more deteriorated parts in the distance which were of more interest. Seeing the wall curve up around and behind the mountains is truly amazing. Although it more or less failed with it’s initial purpose of security, it is a wonder that it was able to succeed as a highway transporting goods given how steep parts of it are to walk! Also, American fast food must have a contract with UNESCO World Heritage sites because there was a KFC (and Starbucks..and random non American place called California King Beef Noodle USA) about 100m from the entrance to the wall (similar to Pizza Hut being the closest building to the Sphinx in Egypt…).

My friend and coworker Brooke Xu from SmithGroup was able to put us in contact with two of her friends who were so incredibly hospitable! In addition to picking us up from the airport on Friday and getting us settled into our hotel, one of them is an architect and he gave us a tour of his firm on Monday. Although most businesses are closed down for the national holiday, typical firm, we walked in and there were a few people there working on AutoCAD. After the tour we got treated to a peking duck dinner at an amazing restaurant situated in an old house and through a series of courtyards. We had enough leftovers for 2 more meals, the generosity was greatly appreciated!

Tuesday we did Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City and explored a couple other Hutongs, some very nice and some very impoverished. We got our train tickets for our next city that we’re heading to tomorrow. We’re going to Pingyao which is one of the best preserved Chinese towns of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Also a UNESCO World Heratige site, so I’ll let you know what fast food we find within a stones throw.

PICTURES:

1: Anish Kapoor sculpture, Royal Academy, London

2: London Graffiti, Shoreditch