I worked Friday, so Somchai was on his own for the day. Beijing is not a tourist friendly city at the best of times, and in the summer, the city is extremely hot and humid. But the real deterrent is that for the middle seven months of the year, the air is mud brown, a combination of smoke, sand from the nearby Gobi desert, and huge amounts of pollution. So it's hard to breathe, and depressing to be outside, since the sun can't poke through the soup. An added issue for this trip is that a US spy jet just collided with a Chinese plane over Chinese airspace, and the Chinese are pissed. It's actually hard to tell when they're mad or happy, because everyone is generally dour, but there were lots of protests and a couple of US consulates were burned down. So, understandably, Somchai stayed around the hotel, doing some shopping and got a massage at the hotel. The massage technique here is quite different from in Thailand, which is mostly about sex. Here, the masseurs are decked out in surgeon gowns, with rubber gloves and hair caps, for reasons completely unknown to me.

After work, we went to the hotel's gym, which is actually very good, but housed in the basement in a really ugly room (since much improved in the renovation). We then went to a nearby art gallery, and bought one of my favorite paintings. It's hard to describe, but it's basically a series of grave rubbings, plus some printing plates from a Qing dynasty book called "I'm here, but lost, which way do I turn now?", which I think is a very existential title for an old book. Then there's lots of red and gold paint lashings to tie it all together, anyway I like it. Somchai hated the owner, a pushy woman who kept giving us discounts because we were her special friends, even though we had never met. So we actually didn't buy it until the day we left because he just wanted to be difficult with her.

Had dinner at the hotel's Italian restaurant, Aria. Nice design, average to tasteless food, poor service of course (11-15-8). Main reason I'm mentioning it is I need a photo for this post, and fortunately I've got one of the China World website. Fortunately, in the next post we'll actually leave the hotel.

We arrived in hot, filthy Beijing and got a car to the China World Hotel, the Island Shangri-La's sister property in Beijing. It is even more soulless than its Hong Kong counterpart, which benefited for years from being the only luxury property in the city. Now new hotels sprout up every week and China World has struggled to keep up. They're easy to pick off, because they're stuck with a positively ugly building, a huge glass box that screams out two star, package tour. It's staffed with unfriendly, non-English speaking people, which used to be your only choice, but the newer hotels like the Hyatt and St. Regis have managed to find much more capable staff. And the huge size of the place, sitting in the middle of one of the world's most crowded cities, ensures that the lobby will be throbbing like a rave party 24/7, except the ravers will be Chinese businessmen rather than high teenagers. When we stayed there for this trip, the place hadn't been modernised at all, so the ugliness of the exterior permeated the interior as well. I continue to stay there for business, so I'm happy to report that the place has been modernised and is much fresher looking, though the staff is still miserable and the lobby still chaotic. China World (Room-4, Facilities-7, Service-1) The photos of the interior are post-renovation; I have no idea how they managed to clear the lobby for the photo.

83. Beijing, China June '01

Took a long weekend trip to Beijing. We met up late Thursday night in Hong Kong, where I was coming from Manila, Somchai from Bangkok, and stayed briefly at the Island Shangri-La before catching an early morning Dragonair flight to Beijing. The Island Shang is where I always stay in Hong Kong, although the Peninsula is considered the best hotel. The Peninsula is the only Grand Dame in Hong Kong, but it's in Kowloon across the harbor so not convenient. The Mandarin Oriental is also popular and located in the central business district. I've stayed there a few times, but it's very fusty and really needs a makeover (which in fact it just had, and I haven't been back yet to check it out). Which leaves the Island Shang, very conveniently located, excellent service and very soulless, basically a big office tower on top of a shopping mall. But that's basically what Hong Kong is anyway, office towers and shopping malls, so for Hong Kong this is actually an authentic place to stay. (Room-6, Facilities-7, Service-8, Wow-2, great harbor views, but only from some of the rooms. But the other rooms have interesting city views as well). By the way, if you're ever in the same situation, this is a stupid plan, since it's an hour each way into the city from the airport, so for the few hours we were actually in Hong Kong, it makes much more sense to stay at the (admittedly not very pleasant) airport hotel. Dragonair is one of about a half dozen Chinese airlines, and definitely the best.

The boring room and office tower photo is of the Island Shangri-La, the other photos are of Hong Kong's dazzling skyline at night, which surrounds you if you stay here.

Our last photo of Tuscany, which I'm ending with not because of the beautiful buildings, but because I think Somchai looks like a movie star here. Isn't he adorable?



Well, to finish up the trip, Somchai left to visit some friends in Vancouver very early the next day, while I had to go later that day for a business trip to New York. Unfortunately, a nearly perfect trip ended badly due to Lufthansa, the world's surliest airline (excluding the US airlines of course). The Lufthansa flight from Rome left a couple hours late, but I ran through the Frankfurt airport to get my connecting flight, which I missed by about a minute. I was greeted by a nasty Lufthansa employee who shook her head and gave me a tsk, tsk, tsk, like it was my fault their flight was late. She then informed me that the connecting flight had told them I was coming, but they couldn't hold the plane for connecting passengers. This is strange, because I've been on at least 14,000 flights that have been delayed for late connections, but the one time I needed a one minute delay, I got a reprimand instead. So I got to spend the night at a godawful airport hotel in Frankfurt, and headed to New York the following day.

Walking around the town, it looked like lots of the houses were missing their facades as well, so maybe it was considered fashionable back in the day. I actually like the look on the houses, but it's very depressing on a cathedral.



Montepulciano is also famous for its wine, which sits between brunello di Montalcino and Chianti in terms of prestige. There's certainly a lot more of it than of brunello, judging by the prevalence of wine shops. But the wine shops we visited was quite attractive, and the owner very knowledgeable about all the reasons that montepulciano actually makes the best wine in the world.

The town served as something like a summer home for Florence's noble families, and their grand palaces line the city and seem disproportionate to the rest of the working village. The city's cathedral sits on the main piazza, and again, is unfinished. There must be something in the water here. Actually, not finishing San Biagio makes sense, since it looks beautiful on the outside and it's sitting in the middle of nowhere. But it does take a very strong disregard for civic pride to have your cathedral, sitting smack dab in the middle of the city, go without a facade for six hundred years. You would think someone in the dozens of generations of people who walked through this mud wall every week would have thought to make some improvements, but you'd be wrong.

I'm sure you're tired of hearing this, but the views up on the walk were stunning, pure Tuscany. Here are the last photos of the Tuscan hills I'll be inflicting on you.

82. Montepulciano

Montepulciano is the largest town in the area, and situated on the biggest hill as well. We started our visit outside the town at the base of the hill, where the quite stunning church of San Biagio is for some reason located. This was a high renaissance church, but was unfortunately never finished. We then walked up the steep hill and through the gate into the bustling town.

We dipped into the village and found a nice restaurant specializing in cacio, the local sheep's cheese, which was used liberally on all dishes, in every course. We then walked off all that cheese along the town wall, then hit the van for our last stop.

The piazza contains what is supposed to be the perfect Renaissance cathedral, decorated with the pope's family's coat of arms, plus a palace for the pope next door for his visits to his pet project. It may be very nice artistically but it wasn't designed well. It's built on an eroding cliff so there are cracks all over the walls that have to constantly be patched up, and there's a strong sulfur stench that comes up from the ground occassionally. The palace was closed the day we were visiting, so we had a shorter than usual visit.

81. Pienza

Next stop was Pienza, a small town made disproportionately famous by Pope Pius II, who was born here when it was called Corsignano. In 1460, he decreed that he would remake the village as a world capital of art, and also renamed it after himself. He only made it through redesigning the main piazza, so now it's a quiet little village with a regal piazza and not much else.

Montalcino is the producer of the world famous brunello di Montalcino wine, definitely Tuscany's best and among the top two or three in Italy. We bought a few bottles from the wine shop set up for tourists inside the castle, so I'm sure we got a very competitive price. We then walked around the nooks and crannies of this hilly town for a while, and headed for our next town.

We climbed to the top of the castle for absolutely stunning views of the town and the surrounding hills, still wrapped in morning mist. It was a long climb, and when we got to the top, Somchai realized he had left the camera in the car and couldn't decide if he should go back and get it. So I pleaded, "but what about the blog?!" so he went back down and up again for the blog's sake. (And yes, that is what we all learned in high school english class was an anachronism.)

80. Montalcino

Our last day in Tuscany, and also one of the best. Met up with Sylvio and his van in the morning, and drove southeast to Montalcino, probably my favorite town in Tuscany. The town was annexed by Siena in the thirteenth century, and this formidable fortress was built to defend the town. When Siena fell to Florence in 1552, the Sienese nobles fled here, and governed a make believe Siena in Exile for a few more years until Florence finally annexed Montalcino, its last conquest.

From the back and inside the cathedral looks more typically Italian. It's a big barnlike structure that was tinkered with over six hundred years, so it doesn't really look like any particular style. We then walked back to the train station, and headed back to Florence.

The city, like Volterra, was run by a warrior bishop, but was annexed by Florence in the 14th century. The Medici then plopped a big fortress across from the cathedral to keep things under control. Strangely, this nexus of political and religious power is at the edge of the city, on the crest of the cliff. The area has now been turned into a very English looking park, and the cathedral has even been given an English belltower, although I don't think there's any connection to England. The park provides expansive views, and apparently only one bench for four strangers to share uncomfortably.

We had lunch at a nice outdoor cafe, with a memorably friendly waiter,then climbed around the city's medieval streets. Most of them were pedestrian only, and lined with lots of antique shops.

79. Arezzo

Today, Sunday, didn't go as planned as well. We were planning on hanging around Florence, cafe hopping, shopping, generally living La Dolce Vita. Unfortunately, it was raining and everything's closed on Sunday, so we reverted to Plan B, a train trip to Arezzo. Arezzo is about 1 1/2 hours east of Florence, our only foray into eastern Tuscany. It was surprisingly lively for a provincial town, especially on a Sunday. The entire town is built on a slope, with the train station at the bottom, the main piazza pictured here in the middle, and the cathedral and castle at top, whereupon it falls off a cliff. The piazza is sloped as well, and surrounded by elegant 15th century buildings.