Beijing

I've spent the last two days wandering the streets of Beijing. I haven't seen any sights, unless you count the Mongolian Embassy, but I have done what I love best - seen everyday life, navigating my way semi-randomly from one corner of the city to another.

I love the way that life is lived out on the streets - men hunched over games of Chinese chess on tiny stools on the pavements, old ladies in slightly saggy pyjamas and slightly saggy bodies taking their morning exercise, street vendors sizzling up more things on skewers than you could, well, shake a skewer at.

My essential Mandarin phrasebook has not been able to have me living up to the promise on it's cover of 'chatting away like a local'. Even pinyin is devillishly hard to get right and I still have to look up every letter and vowel combination before trying out the simplest phrase. And I still receive blank looks 95% of the time. Generally sign-language is more successful, but in trickier situations I can always point to the Chinese characters in the book. Some friendly shopkeepers have helped me practise my numbers, but even this can be tricky as some think I am questioning the price when I ask them to repeat a number or two. But all my attempts are greeted with appreciation and a huge amount of humour. I think the staff at the noodle shop near my guesthouse are probably still clutching their sides.