So, to continue: Altaa came at 5.50am on my third day in Beijing. I had been worried that she might not make it since the last time I phoned her she was having trouble at the border over a signature. We took it pretty easy for the morning. Later on, we went to Qianhai Lake and after a big lunch of delicious fish and fried rice (the fish came in square pieces in a clear container holding several hot stones), we rented a pedalo to go on the lake and we messed about romanticallly. There was a tiny rundown island on the lake with willow trees and dilapidated pagoda-sheds, I secured our mooring and we ventured in, but barely a minute later, the lake authorities turned up in a speedboat to tell us to leave the island. We then walked into Beihai Park with it's massive North Sea Lake and crowning glory of a gigantic Buddhist stupa/dagoba on a big island (for a lake), the Jade Islet. We leisurely walked through the park though our legs were quite tired, having been walking most of the time since we had left the hotel. On the stupa island we walked up many steps and through many halls and temples to get near the base, but it was closing time and we weren't allowed to see the elevated Buddhist sanctuary nearby, so we went around the other side, scaled the barrier and walked up the other steps. Altaa was caught and taken away, but she at least saw in the sanctuary; I hid at the back, safe, but all I could do was appreciate the tiles with Buddha carvings on the wall and the smoggy skyline of the city, before going down surreptitiously.
At night we explored the business and commercial district that I had done previously by myself. One of the sights was Hongmen night market, a row of stalls, several dozen in number, lined up along an effectively pedestrianised street, offering such goodies as impaled squid like toffee apples! One would not think Beijing was the capital of a communist country, for, in addition to all the big Western/international brands festooning the buildings, the commercial district really lives up to its distinction with plenty of homegrown large companies operating out of here.
Along the ordinary streets there were plenty of itinerant hawkers, but one of the things about China that badly irritated me were the hawkers of the spitting variety, who seemed to take casual pleasure in raising to a near artform how disgusting they could be.
Walking back roughly the same route as before, I was again, like the previous night, offered a woman. This time the pimp was a woman herself. To add insult to injury, it happened near the grounds of a church. The first time this happened as I walked by myself, I shot back indignantly to the offer, "I have a girlfriend." This time I just needed to glance towards Altaa, who was a little ahead of me, to make them back off.
Walking around central Beijing was seriously tiring and henceforth we made great use of the subway.