Under Construction

I always make fun of my mother whenever she goes on holidays for her famous remark on the Eiffel Tower: we I asked her after she came back from Paris what she thought of it, she replied that it was nice but "it'll be even better when they finish it off and take down all the scaffolding" :-) Well, these days you could pretty much say the same thing about Beijing. Seems most of the city is under construction, either building new stuff or repairing old stuff for the 2008 Olympics. If you go somewhere touristy, Chances are part of it will be fenced off and covered in scaffolding, like the pagoda at the top of the hill in Jingshang park, the Arrow Tower in Tian'anmen, the main hall in the Forbidden City, or the Hall of Prayer in Tiantan park.

Yesterday took the cake tho in terms of having things fenced off. I decided to go up and take a look at Beihai lake, just to the northwest of the Forbidden City. So, I got off the metro at tiananamen west, walked the half an hour or so up Nanchangjie (did I mention before that beijing is BIG?), paid my ¥5 to go into the park, and then discovered as soon as I got across the bridge onto Jade Island that 3/4 of it is fenced off and under construction! I wouldn't mind but it's the 3/4 that has all of the interesting stuff on it, like the Dagobah Temple and the Hall of Ripples! So, all that was left to me was a nice leisurely walk around the lake to see the Five Dragon pavilions or the Hall of Celestial Kings, but that was about a 1km walk and from a distance I could see hints of scaffolding on them too, so I gave it up as a bad job and went shopping down in Dazhalan Hutong instead!

So, if you're coming to beijing on holidays and want to see everything there is to see, I'd almost suggest waiting until September 2008 to come. By then everything will be all ship-shape, the olympics will be over and the prices of everything should maybe be starting to come back to normal after everyone has had their fill of gouging the olympic tourists!