A crazy day

Third day in Beijing, or maybe actually second since I really arrived after midnight (or landed at 23.50 so maybe it is third after all). I'm staying in Mei's room, she lives with an older girl and that girls 10 year old daughter and Mei is staying with them in their room. They have air conditioner and I don't, and it's really really hot, even at night, plus as a nice little bonus the is is just next to the train tracks, about 20 tracks or so with one really close that could wake up Skalman had he tried to sleep here and the others a bit more than annoying, I survive though and on the whole it's actually a nice place, a little better windows for sound and temperature insulation would have done the trick.

I was going to take my Hepatitis B shot today with Mei's help, but the nurses refused to do anything unless it was exactly one month after the first shot, which didn't bother me much since I don't like shots and had forgotten to bring my Vaccination chart anyway. And we were going to have lunch together but she had to meet a friend urgently so she helped me to a bus and got the driver and conductor to help me get off at a stop where they had both a metro station and a McDonalds close by. A young boy, highschool student he said, helped me find a straw for my drink and started talking to me, I guess he was just one of those people that are brave enough to start a conversation with a stranger just to practice the language, he was pretty good at it really.

Metroing to central where I'm much more familiar I walked around and found the area where Jocec's and my hotel were (still are actually) totally demolished, the hotel was still there and I walked around in the area for a while, it was on the way to my goal, Tiantan park, anyway. And on the way there, as everyhere else, there was a guy on a tricycle bike thingy that just couldn't let me walk, and after he got me to tell where I was going by pointing on a "menu" that he had he refused to give up. He actually started at 50 yuen, a taxi wouldn't cost more than 10 actually, and after a while lowered until 20 "still twice of the taxi, but probably smoother in the traffic", then after still a while 15, I actually wanted to walk though so haggling was not really a problem and finally he said one. I couldn't say no to that but once we had started riding he labeled me as a dollar man, even though I'm not, and a dollar man should pay dollars, I just gave up and agreed, and being as nice as I am sometimes I figured I might as well give him 10, so I did, and he had the nerve to take 5 more from my hand, that bastard. "Jävla svin" I said under my breath and walked away.

My park experience started off as a quite lonesome one, I just walked around alone and enjoyed the coolness end solitude of the park, it really is a tourist attraction more than a park and it costs 15 yuen to enter and 20 more for the temples, which I didn't buy at first but I bought a nice map with some information instead. And after walking around for some time, spending half the time sitting and just relaxing, I finally found the tourist attraction and decided I should pay the extra 20 to enter that after all. The temple of heaven is a quite nice circle thing on 3 level with a lot of stone circles, appearantly 9 circles which have n*9 stones in each, which I heard from a poorly english speaking guide (or friend of some Americans), to a total of 405 stones, which I hope I calculated correctly myself.

I did get rid of my lonelyness after a while though, inside the temple area I first talked to some American girls that I helped taking a few pictures for and I figured out that I can use that to find a friend, and after a short while I found a Chinese girl that looked as lonely as I was and did just that and she was as happy as me to find some company. We more or less gave up the touristing and just walked around talking and taking pictures for a while instead, at least until she realised I had been at the echo-wall without trying it; the echo-wall is a round wall that is supposed to carry sound very clearly all around the wall, we didn't manage to make it work perfectly but at least we could hear each other clearly over 20 meters or so.

We left the park together and shared a cab to central, said our goodbyes and I left of at a metro station to go to the silk market and meet a friend. I found the friend quite easily, or rather she found me and we went inside for me to buy new sleeping pants, I forgot the ones I brought to Asia in Hong Kong so I've felt kinda lacking in this. I think this is the first time I've actually bought pure silk boxers, and they are really nice.

After that we went to a restaurant close to there, my friend works at the American embassy close to there so she knows the area, and it was actually the restaurant on the opposite side of the one where we met dad last year and where I got sick (not from the restaurant food). The food was only ok and my friend hardly ate anything, she claimed she was on a diet and not hungry anyway. After that we walked around in the area to a nice little park and just walked around talking and taking some photos.

The way home started smoothly, I was even lucky enough to find a seat, the ride was about 30-45 minuets I think and I was really exhausted from all the walking today, and the metro train is always really crowded to that. But after I got off the metro the problems started, I kind of knew where I was but I was totally disoriented, so I tried to trust a taxi driver but he had no idea where the place that Mei's note mentions was, so instead I tried to direct him but managed to get us north instead of south or east or where ever we should have gone. I finally gave up after 5 minuets or so and managed to get him to drop me off in, well the middle of no where as it seemed to me. But there was a hotel in sight, a fancy one besides, and that means that I could find someone that speaks English. I did find a really helpful hotel clerk that after some minutes of asking around and calling managed to figure out where my notes pointed, and he helped me get a taxi and figure out together with the driver where we should go, which was quite far since I had managed to get myself about twice as far in the exact wrong direction.

We did finally find some place I could recognize, after about 10-15 minutes of driving, and I was happy enough to get back safely to tip the driver, I had tipped the clerk too actually. But the problems was not over yet, I knew where I was and approximately how to get to Mei's home from there, but the way I knew was through another small residential area and that way is blocked at night, so I finally had to call Mei, worried to wake her up or make her worry needlessly, I was actually worried that she had worried about me for some time. She hadn't worried at all, she wasn't even home actually, when I called she was out with the friend that she had had lunch with, and she had thought that I would come back much later.

She showed up after a few minutes though and I tried some barbecue goat or something that they were grilling and selling outside some stores, Mei bought some snails for the girl she lives with and we could finally walk home, safe and sound after all the troubles.