If I had a very short amount of time to show someone Beijing, I wouldn’t take them to the Forbidden City. Nor the Great Wall. I wouldn’t even feed them Peking Duck, much less Peking Opera. And not beer by Houhai, either.
I’d put them in a midnight taxi with the craziest driver I could find, and instructions to build up speed along the east side of the second ring road, cruise past Yonghegong through to Jishuitan, and come off at Xizhimen, through the Tron-tunnel at full speed while the driver fumbles for his pack of cigarettes from under the brake pedal.
And while they’re doing that, I’d go for beer. At Houhai.
I’m sitting in a web cafe, playing games and the part about the guy fumbling for his smokes under the brake pedal got me laughing so hard I got a few quizzical chinese glances. Great line ! Actually I was in a Passat taxi the other day and he wound it up to 105 kph. A speed like that will suck your lungs out in Suzhou. I kept the receipt as proof of speed. 17 minutes to cover 13.4 km. Astounding, about 46 kph average. Mind if I link to your site ?
Comment by Zak — 11/22/2004 @ 5:01 pm