Solipsism Gradient

The train ride to Datong was a little long but we met some nice Chinese folks on board, and chatted with them the whole time.

Datong is an industrial city, 3M people (small by Chinese standards), now beginning to be rebuilt for tourism. Most in-city attractions are closed for that, but the Buddhist grotto outside town is open and very interesting – unfortunately the relics are not in good condition.

Foreign tourists in Datong are still very few and neither the hotel nor the city have useful non-Chinese signage; almost nobody speaks more than a few words of English. Still, it was fun.

Today we go on to Wutaishan.

The great wall section we saw was all restored recently, but even so it was impressive. We went to a section about 130Km outside of Beijing that is seldom visited by foreign tourists. Then to the imperial tombs nearby, which are also supposed to be better than the ones nearer Beijing.

After several hours of traffic jams we also had the famous Beijing Duck, which was indeed excellent. Today we had a visit to the Summer Palace in the morning, and then took a train to Datong, arriving very late in the evening.

Full day today: Tian’an-men Square, the Imperial Palace, lunch with a “traditional Chinese family”, a trishaw tour through the old (and quite poor) Hutong quarter, the Lama (Tibetan Buddhist) Temple, then dinner at the Beijing Qianmen Jianguo Hotel, imediately followed by the Chinese Opera at their Liyuan Theater. Whew.

Tomorrow, to the Great Wall.

We’ve just arrived at Wangfujing Grand Hotel in Beijing, China. Tired but all went very well; we’re off to get some tourism done, more later.

Update: the CocoaHeads Beijing talk went quite well.

Now at my cousin’s house near Frankfurt (Germany). All’s well and we’ll leave for Beijing the day after tomorrow. Today we visited Aschaffenburg, mainly the Pompejanum and the museum in the old castle.

So, I’m typing this from the VIP lounge at the GRU (Guarulhos/São Paulo) airport. In a few hours we’ll fly to Frankfurt over Paris, and a few days later, Beijing.

Must get busy preparing my talk for Cocoaheads Beijing, was too busy to do anything before our departure. More as it happens!