01/02

Today is a travel day for the company. 

An early breakfast is required as we leave the hotel at 08:00, it can be a hard journey to the Hongquao Station which is adjacent to the city's second airport. Sadly not the one served by MagLev or I would have loved another ride on the fab-u-lous "Fastest train in the world" but not today. Our crew had a very hard night as once the show went down they had to start the de-rigging of set, props, costumes and all equipment that makes Gatby come to life. They didn't finish until after 03:00. 

Fortunately the traffic is easy and we're in the departures hall by 09:00 and there's plenty of time to stock up on sandwiches and drinks for the journey. The hall is a modern equivalent of Beijing South but huge, so the masses of travellers seem more relaxed than was the case last week. Boarding the train was effortless because as a group we escaped the usual crushing ticket/passport procedure and went through a side gate. The journey is once again a blur of frozen countryside but with added sunshine today, the 1300 km / 800 miles pass quickly for most as they sleep soundly. 

This train is the "express" version which, although no faster that last week, takes an hour less because there is only a single stop in Nanjing, the former capital, still a huge and important city. Unfathomably it also made two unscheduled stops (no explain action was made in English) so it was actually half an hour late arriving. Leaving the station we had to drag our cases for ages along a roughly tiled pavement to find the buses to the hotel, a quick (for Beijing) half hour journey. Our hotel is the same Mercure as the 2010 tour so we recognise the area. 

A brisk stroll is called for so we walk the route to NCPA (National Centre for the Performing Arts) and remind ourselves where the underground stage door can be found. It's our third official visit so we quickly remember the layout but without passes we can't get in today. We continue on into Tian'anmen square although can only walk along the side of the Great Hall of the People as it is closed after dark (I think it usually is.) Tonight is very busy because there seems to be an event in the Hall. We continue past the hoards and return along Changan Street, the central axis that cuts Beijing in half West to East. 

We opt for dinner in the hotel's Chines restaurant - it's a very good meal, even though the order wasn't quite how we anticipated and our starter, soup and mains all appear at random times. One odd dish was Peking Duck. Most people know of Crispy Aromatic Duck, the Western equivalent of this famous recipe, in which the skin is dry and crispy, but this one was not so, thick fatty pieces of skin and almost no meat. The pancakes, spring onions, cucumber and sweet-bean sauce were the usual, and the taste was great once we'd acclimatised to eating whole lumps of fat. Curiously later in the meal all the meat and bones arrived having been deep fried with garlic - yummy!

We found a very odd pricing structure in the drinks department - water here was stupidly priced at over £10 for 750 ml of Evian, actually £12 with the 15% service added. Even in top London restaurants they don't charge much more than that. Conversely as you know I've been rather bemused by the huge overpricing of wines in Shanghai, yet here the hotel sells almost exclusively Chinese wines, from just two estates, and they start off very reasonable, admittedly heading off exponentially. So we test a £15 bottle and find it very acceptable, so much so that we feel obliged to test another one! Which may go some way to explain why today's blog is so very delayed.