Hoorah! Our favourite from this year’s Eurovision Song Contest have just won the national final. The Ark came first with “The Worrying Kind”, a typical Glam-Pop song, which could go either way in the international arena, but we are very glad that the Swedish population think as we do.

The Eurovision Song Contest has changed over the last few years, with very different styles of music being accepted and winning (Finland’s Lordi being a case in point), so it just remains to be seen how The Ark fare this year. I think, regardless the result, that The Ark have extremely good stage presence, and will not be easily forgotten.

Here’s hoping for a Swedish win, then.

We arose this morning to eat breakfast in time for the half-day excursion to The Great Wall we’d booked yesterday. As it’s early on in the tourist season we were the only ones who had booked, which meant a day with our personal guide, Peter.

Whilst Peter may not sound very Chinese, he assured us he was, unlike 90% of the tour guides in Beijing, born and raised in the city. He was able to talk in broken English about all manner of things on the way to The Wall. We covered Confucious and Chinese society.

To get a wife, one apparently needs the 3 A’s: account (bank), apartment and a car (well, it sounds better than the 2 A’s and a C, I suppose, even if it is stretching it a bit).

Things have really changed here. In the beginning of the 80s the three necessary household items were a TV, a washing machine and a sewing machine.

Our first stop, after listening to Peter talk freely (and a lot), was at a factory, where we were given a guided tour of a somewhat vulgar, dilapidated working areas, and thereafter ushered into the more modernized (and warmer) shop, which housed hundreds upon hundreds of purchasable pieces, ranging from 100 – 40000 crowns and upwards.

We settled for two very small monkeys and a rat (Freya’s/my and Jo’s Chinese signs respectively). It seemed impolite to do otherwise, since we were the only visitors there. They must do a fair amount of trade during the peak months, though.

Soon after we arrived at The Great Wall just in time for the fog to obscure distances of more than 50 metres. We were led past the now obligatory row of vendors that appear anywhere tourists do, to the cable car, which took us to the top of tower 14. From there we had a leisurely stroll to tower 19 and back.

The whole visit was, paradoxically, both interesting and quite dull. It was undeniably a lifetime experience being atop the battlements of the world’s longest wall, but (and especially due to the lack of view) it was just a wall. I know such an understatement should not be taken lightly, though the dampness of the wall gave off a pleasant smell, and we were pretty much alone there, so it was a peaceful, fragrant wall, if nothing else.

Having a few hours over, after descending the wall and making our way back to the minibus, Peter suggested we go to a natural medicine centre, to be given a foot massage and pulse reading. This is something I had never heard of, and is carried out with, not one but, three fingers resting on the wrist. With different pressure being applied from each of the digits, a diagnosis of the body’s main organs can be attained, and thus which medicine we should buy.

While all this sounds intriguing, the proof is in two puddings: Jo and me. To be suitably impressed I would require a reasonably accurate diagnosis for both of us. After the “Professor” had given us information about our problems (he tells us, not the other way round), along with leading questions which fitted our self-perceived problems well, we were extremely impressed.

There were problems that I have (stress, back problems, bad memory) that could have applied to anyone, but along with Jo’s diagnosis, they seemed uncannily near the mark. We went away happy, without buying any of the prescribed medicine (but who knows) and with happy feet (a minimum “tip” of 10 crowns/person was expected), to be taken to our last port of call, another veggie restaurant.

This restaurant was down a grubby side-road, and, although the facade looked nice, the inside was very pleasant. A buffet for 65 crowns/person was on offer, and since we had forgotten our vegan passport (a lifesaver) we did our best by cautiously tasting anything that looked potentialy non-vegan in our eyes and accepting any mistakes we made.

There were many, many interesting dishes to try, and only one or two items of confectionery tasted strange (though maybe still vegan). The majority of dishes were edible and very tasty. We have once again been surprised by the quality and diversity of tastes to be found in the Chinese cuisine.

That night ended by taking the subway home (3 crowns/ticket) and relaxing in bed with a few beers and two English TV channels, one of which being CNN.

We both had difficulty getting to sleep last night, constant thoughts of The Pearl Market buzzing round our heads; we awoke just before breakfast stopped being served. One hurried breakfast later and we were off for round 2 of shopping in the place that had kept us from slumber.

Armed with the previous day’s knowledge we set out to buy a few of the things we’d been having on our list of things to buy, but never got round to it in Stockholm. Despite an aversion to buying clothes I succeeded in purchasing a number of items, with an overall feeling of getting quite a bargain for most of them: 240 crowns for a Peak Performance jacket being the best buy. I’ll not mention the underwear, but Jo amazed herself by buying two different sized purses.

If we go to the Silk Market on Tuesday I’ll do my best to get her to splash out on herself.

It was up at 6.30 today, to do the only thing planned for the day: go and watch some early morning Tai-Chi.

We were told that Beihai Park would be a good place, so we took a taxi and paid the 80p admission fee, in the hope of seeing some local culture.

We made our way to the central (and only) island and, during the round tour, saw a myriad activities taking place. There was some kind of communal dance, a strange Tai-Chi/badminton hybrid, and calligraphy with water (painted with huge brushes on the stone-paved path). As we walked around the perimeter of the central temple (which stood prominently atop the island) we heard the strangled wails of early morning prayers/salutations, and the path would sometimes open up to reveal more small groups of people practicing Tai-Chi. It was almost like the Chinese Minister of Culture had ordered all these events to occur just then, because that is exactly what tourists expect. Hmm, come to think of it…

A better start to the morning I could never have hoped for, and it is without doubt one of the more prominent memories I have of our trip.

On exiting Beihai Park we found ourselves not far from The Forbidden City, so we took the chance and entered the northern gates. Apparently Beijing is built on the principle Feng Shui, which means important buildings have their main entrances on the south side, to protect them from evil spirits.

Despite its fame, there isn’t so much to say about it. It’s huge, Imperial, and a little bit boring after a while. The buildings are identical (as are the temples), though the wonderment came from thinking what it must have been like all those centuries ago. But then, isn’t that the case with a lot of monuments and ancient buildings. Stonehenge is nothing to write home about, aesthetically speaking.

As we exited the southern gate we realised we were only a minute’s walk from the restaurant we’d eatan at the previous evening. Even though it was only 10.30 we decided to go for a top up, and eat some dumplings and “beef”. The same situation arose as it had the night before, where we were surrounded by waiting staff, but we’d accustomed ourselves to the fierce service and enjoyed the crowd of employees posted nearby our table.

Fuelled up, we continued south and ended up at Tiananmen Square, which is the largest Square in the world. I have no idea if this statement is true, but on seeing it I can only concur this is a distinct possibility. We were recognised by a Chinese couple; recognised, of course, as being Westerners, which led to a group photo. We were thanked, we humbly returned the thanks, and parted ways, feeling a bit like film stars. Sort of.

From Tiananmen Square we continued southwards to The Temple of Heaven. We chose to walk, despite our tiredness, to see some of the back roads of Beijing, and were amazed by the contrast, and the proximity of the contrast of buildings. Right next to some super high-tech high school stood a shanti-town of diminutive shacks. This seems to be an ongoing theme in the city. Unlike most Western inner-cities, the difference in the standard of accommodation compared to the services offered in the high streets is elephantine.

Anyway, the Temple of Heaven was a serene park with suitably large temples and substructures dotted along its spine. We came away ready for a well-deserved nap, and astonished at how much we’d accomplished: all this sightseeing and it was only 14.30. After a short repose we’d be off to The Pearl Market, and our first shopping spree.

The Pearl Market is a huge department store, with different sections on each of the 7 floors. Pearls and jewelery, bags and purses, clothes, and electronic goods featured most prominently, and it was all a bit too much at first. It was like there were invisible triggers placed just before the innumerable stalls, which, when set off by walking over them, called forth an automatic response from the vendors, usually along the lines of “Lady, you wanna bag?” or “Come look at my shop!” It took time to get used to this aggressive sales technique, and prevented me from browsing as I’d liked to have done. The merest glance or the showing of interest in an item elicited a further offer of “good price” and personal attention that the waitresses in the restaurant we’d eaten at earlier would have been proud of. If one were actually interested in purchasing, a carefully initiated haggling process ensued, which normally came to a price where both parties had felt they had ripped off the other.

Jo ended up buying a Canada Goose jacket and 2 silk ties for 290 crowns (street value in Sweden? circa 3000 crowns) for a work colleague, which was okay considering she’d been given 500 crowns to barter with. She was even told to keep the change. CHA-CHING!

Ending the evening, we spent a lazy hour eating in the hotel’s Japanese restaurant. A vast selection of vegan food awaited us for a fairly good price. Time for a well-deserved sleep.

We’d decided, this being our first day, and it being late in the afternoon, to take it easy and find a suitable place to eat, with the intention of having an early night.

The restaurant we chose, with the help of the concierge, appeared to be a five minute walk from the hotel, according to the map we’d been given by the receptionist. In reality this turned out to be about 45 minutes; this included time getting slightly lost due to vague hand directions that seem endemic in Beijing.

When we first arrived we were sure our concierge had sent us to some tourist-trap that his friend owned. He had assures us the restaurant offered “vegetables, no meat”, and he was right: everything on the menu was veggie or vegan. (We later found out the establishment was situated right outside The Forbidden City, which explains its tourist look, though on further reflection nearly all the half-decent looking places had an outer facade of tackiness. I suppose this is just the style in Beijing.)

The first ten minutes were amongst the most uncomfortable we’d ever spent in our dining careers. We were the only customers there, and were immediately encircled by 6 or 7 staff, ready to be there for our merest whim. The unwritten rule of “unseen attendance” simply does not exist here.

The food was very nice, well presented, original and reasonably priced. We left with enough food in our stomachs for the journey home; a journey home which took longer than the journey there, because of an untraversable stretch of water that meant our walking a fair distance in the opposite direction to that which we wanted; a journey home which took in Tiananmen Square, and pompous building after pompous building stretched along a road that would have looked like Les Champs Elysee if Les Champs Elysee had eaten all its spinach as a child.