Wednesday 12 November 2008

as sick as a parrot

Last night just as I was putting finishing touches to a compendious account of our stay in Beijing thus far, it vanished into thin air! A gremlin? Perhaps someone from the 'Philatelic Society' wielding the stick. I went to bed as sick as a.........

( note to Oiuna: hello! in future I'm not going to alert you anymore to English idiom. Your English is very good, and if you don't understand what I'm writing about the chances are I am using idiom; if you have a butcher's {this is in Cockney rhyming slang which is different from idiom, and means 'to have a look', as it rhymes with ' butcher's hook' etc. etc. etc.......who said English is easy?} in your new Oxford English-Mongolian dictionary you may find it explained; if not just email me; lots of love to you and Elisa!)

So just some vignettes; besides I can't, and won't even try to, do verbal justice to this magnificent megalopolis.

Even after several days here it still seems strange to see dogs. I don't mean the feral canines that have dogged our steps from Moscow to UB, either cowering against walls expecting the boot rather than caresses, or like the overbearing Mongolian hounds trying to make love to us as we peed in the snow and ice. I mean the boulevard dogs - the primped Pekinese, perky poodles, intolerable chihuahuas and spoilt pooches of all types, taking their owners for walks through park and down avenue, quite oblivious to travellers' tales of dogs being served up for dinner.

Today we walked sections of the Great Wall (what the Rough Guide calls 'that pointless product of state paranoia'), about 50 kilometers north of the city. We got there by bus and taxi and cable-car, and finally Shank's pony. Pointless or not, it was an eerie experience following it as it melted into the November mists.

Enough; time to turn in and hit the sack