Well, I've been in Beijing for a good while already, and tomorrow I leave for Xian. It was quite an adventure getting here. We flew out of Tokyo/Narita bound for Beijing on ANA airlines, and after 20 minutes in the air, I finally caught a glimpse of Mt. Fuji! All this time I could never see it and even wasted a long boring day going up to the foot of it and failing to see it. But from the air, there it was in all its glory to see. I was able to snap a few pictures. In fact, I got to take quite a lot of pictures because we made THREE passes at it. It didn't take long to realize that we were flying in circles. Then the pilot came on the intercom and gave a long message in Japanese, followed by another long message in Chinese. At long last, he told us in halting English that there is a mechanical malfunction, the engines were overheating, and we might need to go back to Narita. Then ten minutes later, he decided to go back and we passed by Fuji yet again. Then we spent an hour cooped up in the gate extention things that we walk through to board the planes. We were not allowed to go to the gate since that is Japan territory but we had to leave the plane while they gave it a restart. Finally we arrived in Beijing about 3 or 4 hours later than expected. I've travelled a lot and that was the first time a pilot took the plane back to the airport.
It's been quite interesting here in Beijing. The first day was very, very smoggy and hot -- so I could only bear visiting Tiananmen Square. Then we went the next day to the Great Wall on a stupid bus tour that included a lame-o visit to a tourist schlock place four ONE AND A HALF freaking hours. I was sooooo tired from climbing the Wall (a very arduous hike), and I badly wanted to go back to my hotel room. Well, by the time the bus left the moronic ripoff tourist site, it started raining. And in five mintutes it was pouring and flooding. The newspaper said it was the worst flood in Beijing in decades. So that hour and a half wasted at that silly tourist place nobody wanted to go to could've been spent driving into Beijing, and instead, we spent FOUR FREAKING HOURS stuck in a traffic jam during the thunderstorm. Finally got back to the bus depot at Tiananmen Square at 9:10pm and it was partly underwater.
It hasn't been all bad. I love those glued-back-together chopsticks restaurants have that pretend to be new ones, and a McDonalds cone is only 25 cents US. I bought a new pair of jeans today, and yesterday I got myself a Chairman Mao alarm clock and an "Engrish" T-shirt covered with words that make no sense in English (something to the effect of "Every gompany in public election like a girl with a lost kitten"). Yesterday I got to see the Forbidden City and today I saw the Temple of Heaven and went back to Tiananmen Square for one last time. Tomorrow I fly out to Xian and then I'm going out to the Gobi Desert for three long days.
I've been taking lots of pictures, but I don't have the time here to put them up yet. Look for them some time in this thread....