Beijing and Shanghai...er

Lo all, I haven't posted in a while, so thought it time. We've been In China for around a week and a half at this stage, so I feel happy enough to talk about my impressions of the place at this stage I spose.

Beijing first. One of the weirdly cleanest city's I have ever been in. Largely spotless, and largely shiny too, the effort they've put in before the Olympics is immense, which very handily meant that getting around with English was a breeze. We had ten times the trouble in Russia than we had here. Also quite beautiful, especially their parks, of which they have a multitude dotted around the city, many containing temples and pavilions left over from Imperial times.
Walking through any time of the day we found people exercising, dancing together and choirs practising. Its also probably the largest city I've been in, so spread out, nothing is clustered together.

Shanghai, I think has left more of an impression on me though. The scale of the place is just amazing, and the architecture too. Art deco skyscrapers from the 20s and 30s sitting next to 50 story glass towers, stately looking art gallerys next to ultra modern theatres, walking around here is an activity all in itself. The have and have nots are much more obvious here too, much more people shoppinga nd lounding around in nice cafes, but also alot of beggars and homeless people.

Shanghai has also left a deeper impression because of the annoyances it has exposed though. People here have been very friendly, several people stopping when they could see we were lost, but unfortunately alot are also out to screw you over. In both Shanghai and Beijing youe're warned that people who just want to chat to you are scamming you, in several different schemes. About a dozen people wearing the fakest smiles I have ever seen have tried to stop us to 'just chat', the blatantness of it is just annoying.

Shanghai is also the first time I've read a newspaper, which turned out to be a mildly disturbing experience. We've noticed already that the internet is indeed heavily blocked; BBC news, wikipedia and, oddly, the philosoph website all wont work here, and we cant view blogs here. And that, I suppose, aint cool, but the newspapers just disturb me more. Taiwan is clearly part of the mainland, and authorities there are stirring up discord that none of the Taiwanese people support, the Dalai Lama is apparently posing as a Buddhist leader and no statement issued by the government is questioned. Editorials are also by Communist Party members. The internet, as the song goes, is just for porn, but newspapers defanged so much in any society affect me more, because newspapers are supposed to spend all of their time bitching about the government, its just the way they're supposed to work.

Don't get me wrong though, this is an amazing country and I definitely feel more comfortable here than I did in either Russia or Mongolia, the atmosphere is just nicer I think
and the place does have the energy of a country on the rise.

At the moment we're trying to sort out where to go next, Hong Kong seems like alot of hassle, and not the best for our budget, so we're thing ing of heading inland to Kunming, which is fairly close to the Vietnamese border. So that may turn out to be an interesting change, we shall have to see.

Pictures soon.