The Pride
Yesterday I was talking to the security guard who works in our building. She had taken a few days off so I started to ask her if she went to somewhere during her holiday. Well, of course she did, she went to Fujian, which I actually went too back in April early this year. As the conversation flew, she asked if I had ever been to Beijing and, proudly, I said YES!
I was in Beijing for the national day even :) The trip was, well, not long enough, I didn’t really see much (I am very greedy)… I might go there again in the future, who knows?
I was in Beijing to see a friend. On the first day, we went to see the great wall. Now I can say I am a real woman,cockily :) The great wall was really great, it took my breath away. We didn’t go to the very touristic spot, therefore “my great wall” was more “original” than artificial. Actually we climbed some mountains, got us all bruised and bleeding before our arrival to the great wall… Well, it was a stupid story, I will just skip it here. The only thing that disappointed me about great wall was, I actually couldn’t see it from the plane, needless to say from the moon.
I went to the famous 798 art centre the next day, alone. It was so huge! It reminded me of our annual industrial estate workshops, which I went with Jan, my now-not-so-new German friend. This art centre in Beijing was far bigger and had more exhibitions. It opened my eyes and the artistic side of me was truly satisfied :) I hardly spent enough time in this huge art centre and I wasted some time at the beginning going to empty galleries inside those empty buildings. Worth going to another time, to at least spend a day!
What I didn’t expect was the couple who were taking wedding pictures in the art centre. Are they really THAT artistic? I am never ever going to take my wedding pictures in any art centres.
There were so many interesting exhibitions in the art centre…
I was even in time for a Cuba exhibition!
Though I went to Beijing alone, yet I wasn’t lonely, I managed at least to meet my friend in the evenings during my stay. I made quite a few friends and talked to many interesting people, as always, despite the fact that my Mandarin wasn’t as good as my English… I feel kind of stupid to admit this fact, but sometimes I find it so much easier to use English words to replace Chinese words - it’s a bad habit that most of us Hongkies have. I felt quite ‘handicapped’ because I couldn’t utter the right Chinese words, very strange feeling. May be one day I would go to Beijing to learn Chinese - like so many Japanese do these days - because it seemed to me that so many Beijingers loved me…
