The Not So Forbidden City

Day: 238

With the effects of jet lag in full effect I woke up this morning as the sun came up after only about three hours of sleep. I wanted to have a peek around, and since my body didn’t feel like sleeping anymore I headed up to Tiananmen square to see if I could catch anything good in the morning light. At barely 6am the streets were already filling up and I was headed through the center of the Chinese universe (literally) to the Forbidden Palace to see what time it opened up.

Unfortunately it wouldn’t be for a couple more hours until I could get in, so I settled for a bowl of noodles and little kids staring at me.The funny thing about this week is that just about everyone in China is on vacation and I’d say roughly a billion people made it into Beijing to look around. It also seemed like most the kids have never seen a big red head in sandals before. Most would stare, about half a dozen giggling little girls and one middle aged man came over and asked to take a picture with me, and one inquisitive kid who couldn’t have been more than 10 came over smoking a cigarette, to look over my shoulder at the screen of my camera and jabbered at me in Chinese for a few minutes until his cigarette was finished and he wandered off.

When the Palace finally opened the square out front was packed, and I being there so early was able to get in just after the gates opened. Unfortunately the idea of any form of solitude was quickly lost to Chinese tour groups waving flags and wearing matching hats so they wouldn’t get lost. The unimpressive grey, smog filled Beijing skies were rather disappointing, so I settled on trying to catch details instead of broad panoramics, which I could have bought postcards in the gift shop of anyhow.

I am pretty sure my favorite moment of the entire Palace is when I was meandering through one of the huge squares and I saw a sign the said “coffeeshop” and had an arrow. I was beginning to drift of to jet-lag-slumberland so I followed the arrow’s advice to pump myself full of caffeine. I wander into the corner of this Ming Dynasty building only to find a Starbucks! Coffees were still $3.50 (28 yuan to be exact), and just to give you an idea of how much that is in China, later today I would eat dinner of minced lamb, rice and a liter of beer and only pay 27 yuan. I still bought one though, mainly because I am a big fan of any company who can position itself inside a world heritage site!

Pushing 11am my body was starting to feel the international dateline I had crossed the day before (or was that two days ago?) and was telling me I had to sleep soon. I gave in after another half hour of wandering and settled in for what I hoped would only be a couple hour nap.

I woke six hours later.

I downloaded my pictures, ate dinner at the hostel, chatted with an English couple for a while, drank a couple of beers and forced myself back into bed at 11pm trying to get back on some form of a regular sleeping patten. I promised myself I would stay in bed for eight hours.

From 1am until about 7am I woke up every hour wide awake, forcing myself back to sleep. I hope it worked.