Greetings from Beijing! Just a few first impressions to get you started:
After the 15 hours cooped up in the 747, I arrived at Beijing International, which, shockingly, is a giant construction site in preparation for Beijing 2008. As the doors of the plane were opened, the smell that will define every moment of my new life begins to burn into my nostrils, the smell of coal smoke. It's thick, it's heavy and it is everywhere. It covers even the diesel fumes of the ring roads, the smoke from the cigarettes in the hands of everyone over 6 years old, and even the lovely and haunting palate of urine so common in other nations. You see it, quite literally, curling around the corners of the high rises, blue and wispy.
I sit and write from my desk high on the 25th floor (actually 22 floors up because there are no floors with 4's) of Phoenix City. I have a pretty good view of much of the city, at least what is visible through the blue haze. For those of you that have been here, guess what I can see if I look directly across the street? Here's a hint, it's pretty much what you could see from any window in any building in Beijing. Yes, you've got it, a construction site! Luckily out our front window we can see the construction site of what will be a very convenient metro station on the new hurriedly constructed Olympic line to the stadiums and airport.
Though I've only been here about 48 hours, Rachel and I have already been bike shopping. We've looked for a model that will seat us both, one on the back rack with feet on the back pegs. Soon we are also going to purchase an electric model, that can give you a little boost on the hills.
The food is awesome. Rachel tells me that she was disappointed at our dining choices the last couple of nights, they just weren't up to her standards. I've got to say it was fantastic. I can't wait to have what she considers the good stuff if this was lousy. So far, in general I'm having a good time and it's great to have my wife back!
Yesterday, after shopping for necessities at the local Carrefour (the Wal-Mart of France, I believe the Carrefour experience is going to require a whole chapter of it's own later), we walked down through the embassy district. Rachel took me to the Tibetan Buddhist temple and we rode a bicycle rickshaw through a nearby houtong (courtyard house) district. We climbed a giant bell tower where the largest bell in China is housed. The bell was used to ring out time through the night while the city was restricted to their homes under a strict curfew. It must have been nice to live nearby and have the bell to wake you every few minutes to remind you not to leave your house.
In the evening Rachel is riveted, along with a billion or so of our neighbors, to the telenovelas. Her favorites right now are
If Heaven Is Kind and the unfortunately mistranslated
Happiness As Flowers (which Rachel tells me should be
Happiness Is Like a Flower though I like it just the way it is). Sadly these shows will soon come to their inevitable, but thrilling, conclusions and Rachel and the neighbors will have to immerse themselves in a new drama.
Sure, most of the time Beijing offers a constant drone of cars on the ring roads and the sounds of hammers and saws from the construction sites, however it can really surprise you how often you find yourself in a quiet, cool place. Even in the crush of the May First Holiday crowds at the Temple of Heaven, Rachel and I still discovered a quiet grassy park with very few people. This old man was taking his birds out for a walk. Often people keep caged songbirds and on nice days they tie the cages up in a tree and let the birds have a good chirp. This old fellow has a finch and a chickadee, both chattering away above his head.
