Saturday, September 15, 2007

More Beijing

After the Forbidden city, we got a bit overambitious, and we walked to the famous temple of heaven park, which was ...quite... far... Fortunately, the park was still open. Due to our infamous no-preparation syndrome, we looked for the Temple of Heaven among all the paths, squares and halls, only to find ot somewhat later that there is no one temple building. The whole complex is called the Temple of Heaven. During our walk we also saw our first sexshops (not that we were looking for them, but a LonelyPlanet author mentioned that Chinese cities were being saturated with them (which isn't true(only where he hangs out ;)), as 70% of ALL sextoys are manufactured in China(70%!!!!!!!!!!!!)).*
We took a taxi to the hostel, had a beer (we deserved it, as we were exhausted), and met back up with Igor, the Russian dance teacher who had judged an international Walz contest in Macau, and he invited us to the European Championships he organises in Omsk next year.
Beijing Duck is probably China's most well known dish, next to Babi Pangang, kroupouk and numbers 12, 45 and 78 on the chinese restaurant menus. So we had to try it, which was an experience. The duck was nice, although I had expected more of it (Eline loved it though). During our meal, Suddenly the waiter put 4 bowls of cabbage on some tables, and we didn't know whom they were meant for (maybe for the next morning...), after half an hour, we knew: personnel of course! 25 chinese people came out of the kitchen with a piece of bread and started eating. The restaurant had about 50 places, and 20 people where in there when we came in. The same remark goes for the shops. There's always at least 5 people working in every shop. How will they do it if China ever modernizes its infrastructure and gets more efficient, like we had in the West during the later 20th century? How many jobs will their communist system have to create?
Afterwards, we had more beer, and went to sleep. Unfortunately, the duck made a casualty: my intestinal flora...

*More percentages: At the moment China absorbs 50% of the world's concrete and 33% of its steel production.

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