in london they say that you're only a true londoner if you regularly use the bus service. an even higher accolade goes to anyone who actually commutes on a bus every day.
today we commuted (sort of) with the beijing masses. in the morning rush hour we forced our way onto a bus with about 200 other beijingers and endured mental traffic and crowded streets with the best of them. buses here have a driver & conductor. the driver just drove. the conductor on the other hand wailed constantly into a microphone and all anyone could hear was her whiny irritating voice, piercing through any thoughts that you might be attempting to have. it was so loud even the limiter kicked in a few times and cut her out. not enough times to be honest. the same couple of phrases were repeated to infinity. i imagine she was wailing something like, "I AM THE QUEEN OF THE BUS, I HATE MY JOB, YOU WILL ALL SUFFER MY DISCONTENT!" or similar. god she was annoying. i'm surprised nobody decked her. with decking.
the purpose of the journey was to get to the summer palace, way up in north beijing. the palace is basically a pretty version of alton towers for the ancient royals of older dynasties. but without any roller-coasters. it was a tranquil place today (for a place that contained approximately a gerzillion tourists).
however i am getting to the point of thinking 'once you've seen one beautifully crafted, expertly carved, intricately painted pagoda - you've seen them all.' the wizard looking man made our day. and the guy ambidextrously painting mirrored water calligraphy on the pathway round the lake was blimmin' impressive.the afternoon was devoted to meandering slowly amongst the street markets and hutongs of downtown beijing. the marketeers are insane and desperate and literally grab your clothing to try and drag you into their shop. i played with many different ways of saying 'no,' at one point i wondered what would happen if i threatened to punch one of them, but was moderately frightened of potential stealthy kung fu magic.
(that kid ran full pelt to get up there)
this evening was where the real excitement of the day happened. the wan sheng theatre is where many of the amazing acrobats in the famous chinese state circus begin their training. we saw a bunch of kids put on a show that literally astounded me and had my jaw involuntarily drop open repeatedly throughout. no normal circus performer will impress me now. for example, to give you a level of skill please now attempt the following:
- ride an 8ft unicycle.
- now, do it balancing a bowl on your head.
- now, balance a few bowls on your head; let's say eight.
- now, do all of that one-footed.
- now, balance a bowl on your foot and without missing a beat kick the bowl from your foot and catch it on your head.
- now.... seriously... while riding a unicycle with one foot, balance 6 bowls on your other foot and in time to music kick all the bowls in the air, catch them all piled up on top of your head, the whole time synchronised with 7 other people doing the same thing.
- and make it look really easy.
that wasn't even the finale. that was only half way in.
i did actually get to a point where i went way past marvel and astonishment and simply gave up my entire belief structure. the natural laws of physics had been made null & void, gravity was a fallacy, newton a madman. i have no idea why hollywood wasted millions of dollars on special effects for The Matrix and Spiderman, they could've just got these kids to do all the stunts for real. although even after seeing it for real today in front of my very eyes, i don't think the audience would've been convinced. it was far too surreal to be real. utterly amazing.- two vertical poles.
- climb one one-handed.
- jump off it.
- double somersault and land on the other one about 20 feet up.
- jump again, flip, land on the same pole, back-flip off it, bounce from the other pole and back onto the first one grabbing hold with your feet, upside down.
- now, three of you do it together on alternating poles a few times before simultaneously sliding head-first down to the stage with your arms outstretched, plunging at breakneck speed and slowing only just before death using only the grip of your toes.
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