I actually did something in Beijing that had nothing to do with sports. Which is the upside to staying here one full day after the torch was doused.

Slept semi-late, which was a pleasure. Had breakfast at the hotel, and marveled again at how nice the grounds are.

Came down to the Main Press Center, and went over to the subway.

You may have read elsewhere about how nice the Beijing subway system is. And it is. The new lines, anyway. I rode on three of them, from the newest (the spur to the Olympic Green) to the oldest (Line 1, through center-city) … and it got crowded and hot by the end. But it compares favorably with Paris’ Metro or London’s Underground.

I came out at the stop between the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square.

Went over and “admired” the huge mug of Mao Zedong over the entrance to the Forbidden City. Went in a bit, and poked around, and it seemed a little cheesy and Disneyland-esque … and it was already hot and humid, and I wanted to see Tiananmen Square, across the street.

So, over to the square, billed as the “largest public square in the world,” or somesuch, but better known in the West for the government’s murderous quashing of protests by Chinese activists in 1989.
I tried to picture where things happened. Where was the “Goddess of Democracy” located? From which direction did the tanks come?

I looked around and tired to picture it. And I wondered where those brave students, so ruthlessly crushed by the “People’s” Liberation Army … are today. The ones who survived.

Then I hiked toward the Monument to the People’s Heroes, almost in the center of the square, and just south of that Mao’s mausoleum, where the corrupt remains of a corrupt and evil man lie in state. Gladly, the place closes at noon, so I wasn’t tempted to get in the (typically) long line to see whatever remains of the tyrant.

I admired the “socialist realism” statuary outside Mao’s tomb. It’s so cliche that it’s almost fun. All those heavily muscled peasants and soldiers looking defiant, etc. (It must be hell, to be an artist living in an authoritarian regime, told what constitutes art and what does not.)

By then, I was already beginning to flag. The heat and the humidity … so a cab ride back to the Main Press Center, which was almost empty.

I then took advantage of two of the services here I’d never quite had time for.

–I got a massage. Organizers have been offering free massages (maybe 15 minutes, shoulders and neck, basically) for journalists since at least Sydney 2000. It can be a great relief. Here, however, they wanted people to make appointments a day ahead of time, and who could be sure where he would be a day before?

–I got a haircut. This actually cost money, unlike the massage. A 25-ish guy very carefully cut my hair and did it for 50 yuan — $7.50.

Soon, I’m going to go out and see if I can find some Peking Duck in Peking/Beijing. Have to eat that here, right? But this will be only my second restaurant meal. Assuming it works out.

And in the early morning (like, 5 a.m.) … out to the bus for the airport, and the trip back to the Occident.