The story begins

Ah, now where was I? Beijing, that's it. Not having blogged for a while one gets a bit rusty. But I'll start at the beginning, which seems sensible. It was in Heathrow Departure Lounge that I saw the news on the BBC that crocodile hunter Steve Irwin was dead. Poor Steve. One of those larger than life figures, who succumbed not to one croc too many, but the stingray barb that sadly unerringly found his heart. I'll always remember the time from one of his outakes where he cradles a koala which starts to punch him in the face, quite rapid-fire and refuses to desist.
I flew with Austrain airlines. The benefit of flying with an airline from a permanently neutralised state is that one gets metal cutlery (as we flew out of Vienna after a refuelling stop), though this was not replicated for breakfast, with plastic to the fore once more. At Beijing International Airport, I went to relieve myself of a number 2 job only to find, incongruously in this shiny, modern airport, a hole in the floor; a rather nice design and all ceramics, but still a hole in the floor. I nipped in the disabled toilet for comfort, but how will athletes react at the 2008 Olympics when shown the crapper?
As time ran out to my Far Eastern Departure, I decided to buy my Beijing guide in the city itself. Unfortunately, it was the Lonely Planet 2005 version which got crap reviews on Amazon, not LP's updated 2006 copy. Still, it was amusing to find 'politically unacceptable' passages excised with a dense, white sticker pasted over it. Any reference to the Tiananmen Square Massacre or the Falum Gong movement was slapped with the faceless stamp. The sticker-slappers did not leave no page unturned as I eventually found an ambiguous footnote on Tiananmen buried deep elsewhere from the general info that had not been seen. I don't know if the bookshop indulged self-censorship or if it really was officialdom, but, dissident that I am, I easily peeled away the stickers. Whoever did it even took umbrage at a tiny vignette of the author's sarcasm where "Bicycles cannot be ridden across Tiananmen Square (apparently tanks are OK)", that in brackets getting a tiny little sticker of its own. Aside from that, on a legend for a map of an outlying district, LP has listed the Wankelong Supermarket as one of the "Sights and Activities." Hmmm. Even with all this, the book turned out invaluable for navigation around Beijing and what kind of places might be worth visiting and how to go about doing so.
So with all the background out of the way, my true Beijing blog will begin in the next instalment.

Mongolian time 1.55pm
BST 5.55am