China is NOT Asia. At least not the Asia as I've come to know it. Forget about running around in sandals. Forget about wearing shorts and a shirt. The temperatures are mediocre at best. Even the chaos on the roads is modest, the honking negligible. Where have I ended up? Maybe it's just Beijing. This city; hell city, I'm better off calling it a metropolis. 16mln inhabitants. Whip out the city map. Try going from the Olympic area to the centre. A taxi takes, even under the best of circumstances about half an hour, the display brightly showing 21.6kms. Subway? Nearing the hour. Incredible. High-rise, offices, hotels, parks all the way. No suburb stuff. I've walked three centimetres on the map - just two blocks - and that alone took me twenty minutes. Mind-gobbling.

Spending all day inside there hasn't been a lot of time to do anything in town. And how I would've loved to do so! Tuesday through Thursday the clear blue sky greeted my every glimpse and the sun sent its welcoming warmth down to earth. The evenings were clear, the full moon shining down from the sky. I don't know what this smog is people are talking about all the time.

Every moment I spend outside, shuttling back-and forth the conference building and the hotel I've tried to do so in the sun. The shadows are filled with a chilling cold. Especially at night when the darkness engulfs everything. I definitely need to go shopping for some warm clothes. On Tuesday evening I walk down to reception to ask where I can buy some clothes nearby. The concierge points to some place two blocks away, and assures me the mall has a middle price range. I should've known better than to trust the "middle range" term of our hotel. As I walk in I know instantly this isn't my place. Gucci, Diesel, Armani, Lacoste, Polo, all brand names. The cheapest sweater I could find that resembled something that I wanted to wear was 900 Yuan. After looking around a bit more in the neighbourhood I walked back home shivering.

Wednesday we tried a different approach. Me and Denis took the elevator up to the executive lounge on the 16th floor the day before and chatted for a few hours with the receptionist girl there. It felt more like an interrogation, we firing a dozen questions at her about Beijing, shopping, places to visit, work, boyfriends, girlfriends, etc. etc. I don't think she really minded and we even got free Chinese lessons. Taking the subway towards Xi'dan we finally found normal shops. 150 Yuan for a sweater. That's more like it. We had dinner in a sushi place that day. It's brilliant. The trays are snaking around in circles, chefs wearing masks prepare the meals in the middle and you just grab whatever you want. The price is determined by the colour of the plate, going from 10 Yuan up to 29. Not a cheap business sushi is. At least the tea is free, and you can tap hot water right in front of you from the wall. Some tourists came up to us to ask how this works, and after hearing that two pieces of sushi can cost up to 4 euros hurried away to McD next door. Don't come here if you're hungry. We weren't really, having stuffed ourselves with four meals a day :)

The night continues in luxury. A few minutes' walk from CNCC is Pangu 7 Star Hotel. There is a lounge on the sixteenth floor which the two of us (Denis) decide to visit. Mostly for the view, trying to recapture the gorgeous pictures taken from the Sirocco sky bar in Bangkok. That doesn't really work out, but we are treated to something much, much more! The ambience of the lounge is fantastic. Sitting behind a classy piano engulfed in purple lights is a black pianist and singer for our entertainment. The interior is stylishly designed, coloured lamps animate the walls, the ceiling. We even have our own 'Happiness Lounge Manager' to answer our every question. Brilliant. We sit there for hours, talking, sipping our one horribly expensive cocktail.

Saturday. Freedom. The rush of holiday starts again. Get up before seven, rush down for the final breakfast - so I eat an extra humongous portion - and hop onto the tour bus which arrives a few minutes later. About seventeen of us organised a tour to the Great Wall of China. The Mutan'jin section, about 90km's north of Beijing is probably not the nicest part one can visit, but it'll do as a first impression. At least it's not as horribly touristy as 'Badalung'. Although there is a cable car going up, and I've even seen people on high heels. And me; in sandals.

Get off the bus, make your way through throngs of hawkers selling every kind of crap, buy tickets, spend twenty or so minutes on stairs leading up to the mountain ridge before finally ascending the wall itself. Unfortunately the weather is pretty foggy this morning, but even so the views are gorgeous. Following the mountain lines you can see the wall snaking off into the distance, a never-ending fine line. Every once in a while interrupted with a lonely watch tower and disappearing into the mist. trying to reach the end is useless. There are always higher tops, more wall, more steps. Really impressive what the Chinese have achieved here. Using so much resources, manpower, money to build something like this. And then ironically its original purpose as line of defence was utterly useless. By the time it was finished the Mongols were no longer a threat, and in the meantime they just went around the wall in the east. Heh. At least it now is getting some return on investments through the millions of tourists visiting every year.

That evening we are feasting again. Some people would like to taste the real Chinese hotpot. So we flag down a couple of taxis and head off to the centre. Once whisked inside, we are seated at a huge table seating thirteen. There are three holes in the table in total in which the buckets of soy-milk or spicy red sauce will boil everything that is chucked into it. I won't elaborate but it was pretty tasty!

The night has us visit the - also - five star Shangri-La hotel in the centre they city's highest point. On its 80th floor is a lounge just like in the Pangu hotel, but offering much better views. The skies are clear and as Beijing spreads out below you can only marvel at all the pretty lights. The cube-like CCTV building is in front of us, the closer high-rise is blinking epileptically in all the colours one can imagine, headlights speeding at the bottom. I was hoping for the same brilliant pictures as in Bangkok, but there is no open terrace/bar and the windows are pretty dirty. You must go there to see the beauty anyways, pictures can only give back so much. The atmosphere inside is excellent, live music, a huge wine-bar and definitely cheaper prices than at Pangu. We have a drink and chat away the night. It's been an excellent day!

Puppies! For every day spent at the CNCC Grand Hotel a colourful puppy appears on the bed. I have six in total, tie them to my daypack and together we made our first ever visit to the Great Wall. Sadly I had to give away two already... the female charm is a very dangerous thing. But what can one answer when one is getting married in two weeks, and the other girl is pregnant? I know; I'm soft :)