went travelling today...well, in Beijing anyway. An AIESECer from Switzerland was passing through and i had a spare day so we queued for an hour to see Chairman Mao lying peacefully in a coffin (top off) guardde heavily and behing a bullet-proof screen. He looked a bit like a wax figure -maybe thats what happens when they douse you in chemicals to preserve you (or maybe he is a fake?).
it was only really worth it because we spent an hour queueing (building it up); although not many people have seen one of history's biggest ever murderers (Stalin is buried I think)! We then saw the 'parliament' bulding. Its called the NPC (National People's Congress) and meets for a month a year or so to ratify the decisions taken by the other political bodies (mostly CCP -communist party) and thus its not very pwerful and rarely used it seems (not much to see).
Then we headed off to the Beijing planning exhibition museum which was awesome with a movie of beijing's history, plus a 3D movie of its future (olympics related), a massive model (with funky lights) of Beijing and lots of stuff for Beijing resident geeks like me. Nice museum building (6 months old) with an english audio tour -highly recommended. As the day came to an end we hit the 'underground city' -the air raid sheltor built in teh 60s in case Beijing was attackeg, creating cinemas, exercise areas etc, and of course tunnels to walk between all the main areas in beijing undergorund. i had to translate for Carolyn (hmmm)!
last night went back to my old haunting ground (near old office/appartment) and ate at our favourite xinjiang restaurant (by Achim's place) .... aah memories. Right, off to watch (yet another!) DVD.
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