Welcome to Beijing

Mao is everywhere

I was super happy when we landed in Beijing. I went through passport on my own and Dad was a little behind me, separated by few people in the queue so that the customs police would not seen suspicious of all our camear gear. We got a taxi in which we saw little of the city of Beijing as we drove through. There are so many people; here, you can be sure of never feeling lonely. We arrive at the hotel that is in the old town filled with tourists. At the hotel, we had to sign the room keys, and yes, me too. I’m growing up. We got to our room, number 111; we watched some French TV and went to sleep. As I woke up, I learnt that Nicholas, my friend who I helped out before leaving Paris, has been accepted at high school he applied for. In the evening, Richard Stone, a friend of Dad who lives in Beijing and has traveled a lot through Asia in the past 20 years, his wife from Japan and their children came to pick us up for dinner in a Chinese restaurant. With their children, I read mangos and I played on computer games; it was fun. Leaving the place, we saw in great big letters “Muslim restaurant” I found this coincidence really amusing.
Afterwards, we went to a place a long a lake where some Chinese were dancing Western style. It reminded me of summer picnics along the Seine where Parisians dance the Tango and Samba. Some of the Chinese dancers were good, others a lot less, but it was funny. Then, we went to a street filled with bars; there were live bands playing different types of music in each bar. In one bar, there was a bubble machine, which I played with for a while. Dad bought me Mao’s Red book and said a sentence in Chinese on Mao to the shop vendor, who laughed a lot as he found it very amusing. I ate a caramelized fruit stick, which made me think of my grandfather Titou and his delicious caramel ice cream. I drank some fresh coconut, nice, it’s so good Dad saw a shop with old posters; I didn’t realize how present this guy still was in China! Dad was interested in the vintage factor of the posters. Afterwards, we took a taxi to go back to the hotel to rest.