Beijing

The Beijing airport is UNREAL! They must have completely redone the place for the Olympics. Not only is it massive but it is also clean and architecturally interesting. When we got our bags we had to figure out how to get to the hostel. We had two options… one was to take busses from the airport using the instructions we had from the hostel’s website or two, take a cab. We decided to do the latter because China is so cheap and we thought it would be more convenient. Well we quickly realized that the address we had for the hostel was in English and we didn’t know how to convey the location in Chinese to the driver. We knew what district it was in so we asked that he head that direction. This was less than a great situation because not only are Chinese cab drivers known for scamming, and we are both obviously “rich” Americans, but that we also didn’t know exactly where the hell we were going. All I have to say is thank god for blackberrys and googlemaps because without these two amazing resources for use throughout the trip, well who knows where we would end up.

We made it to our hostel which I would describe as a hotel with terrible beds making it a bad hotel but also making it an amazing hostel. To make things even better, our hostel was located in a great area with tons of stores, restaurants, cafes, and parks to walk around and the staff was wonderful. Once we checked in and got cleaned up it was about 4 o’clock so we headed out and checked out the area. We walked to an awesome lake that was frozen over and packed with people ice skating and ice biking? We walked past tons of stores and restaurants noticing that there wasn’t a single chain in sight. Everything in Beijing is mom and pop with the exception of a few McDonalds, KFC’s and a Starbucks here and there. Either way, far less than Japan or Taiwan. We grabbed dinner at a place up the street that served Sichuan food which is a province in western China known for using chilies, peppers, and garlic. After, we grabbed a beer at a pool bar and I had a Chinese beer called Tsingtao. It frankly tasted like Keystone (piss water) but the price was right!

We woke up the next morning and had a free breakfast at the café next door compliments of the hostel. Have I mentioned I love this hostel? It was then off to the Birds Nest or for those who don’t know the sight of the 2008 Beijing summer Olympics. The place is HUGE with music playing everywhere. It was a very cool experience. We took some pictures and asked someone to take a picture of Wang and I together. He was happy to do so but after he took out picture he told Wang that his young son wanted to take a picture with me. It was hilarious too because they didn’t really know how to ask if it was alright with my but I quickly understood their intentions and I took a picture with this little Asian kid.

After we took in the sights at the Birds Nest we headed south to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square is huge and surrounded by some very cool buildings including the Chinese National museum, the Great Hall of the People, and the largest monument in China called the Monument of the People’s Heroes.

We were a little hungry after Tiananmen Square so we found a place to eat the served dumplings. We ordered 30 dumplings, fifteen a piece. We each had a drink and ate all of the dumplings and our total bill was 7 US dollars. You have to love the food prices in China.
To call the Forbidden City massive would be a gross understatement. It was the Chinese Imperial Palace from the Ming to the Qing Dynasty. It was built in the very early 1400’s and has over 900 buildings with over 8,500 rooms. This place was huge and I really enjoyed walking through but by the end I was ready to go.

On the way back to the Hostel we walked up a near street with tons of shopping, again no chains. In China haggling is a must so in every store someone is there to sell you something and negotiate a “special price” for you. This was very irritating for me who just likes to shop and know the price of an item and whether not it’s worth it to me. This way if you actually want something you need to spend the next 3 minutes debating about how you only want to spend X and they can offer Y and so on a so forth. It just gives me a damn headache. We then caught the train back to the hostel.

I had gotten used to the polite and proper style of the Japanese as compared to the Taiwanese but now in China was like Taiwan again. The people have a complete lack of respect for personal space. It is very interesting to be bumped around all the time and cut in front of in lines when you don’t expect it.

We were heading back to the Hostel so we could be there in time for the Kung fu show we had purchased tickets for. The show was great with stunts, acrobatics and breaking of objects over bodies. After the show we got to bed early so we could get even more in the next day.
Day two came and went very quickly with three things on the agenda; the Beijing Zoo/Aquarium, the Great Wall, and Peking duck dinner, a Beijing specialty! We again grabbed some free breakfast and headed to the zoo via train. We actually had to take a public bus from the train station to the zoo and that was a very interesting experience. There is no English on local bus and apparently not a square inch of free floor space either. We got on the bus and packed in like sardines. It was a little uncomfortable but it was only a very short ride. We got to the zoo and saw the pandas, lions, tigers, elephants, and the aquarium display. The zoo was great and the aquarium was even better. We grabbed a delicious, quick lunch at the zoo and took a cab to the bus stop for the Great Wall buses.

We knew which bus number to take but the whole bus stop was so unorganized and not American friendly with little to no English. Wang did his best to communicate but it was a difficult trying to determine who was actually working there and who was just trying to hassle us for money. We got on the cramped bus and headed 2 hours down the road to the Wall. The bus ride there was less than two US dollars which is not bad for a 2 hour bus ride. The Great Wall is exactly as I expected… long and impressive. We spent a couple of hours hiking up and down the wall taking tons of pictures along the way. There were even two little Asian boys who saw me and said hello in English all excited and so I smiled and greeted them back. His mom then told Wang that they would like to take a picture with me. I of course did and appreciated how they help solidified my theory that young Asian children see me as a zoo animal over here. We grabbed a bus back to Beijing and took a taxi back to the Hostel.

Peking Duck was made famous in Beijing so we decided that we would have to try some out for dinner. We received a recommendation from Apple(the very nice girl at the front desk) at the hostel for the most popular roasted duck place in Beijing. The likes of Fidel Castro and George Bush have had Beijing’s famous roasted duck at this place so we figured why not? The food was UNREAL and being that it’s China, the bill was comparable to an expensive lunch in the states. We were tired after dinner so we headed back to pack our bags for the morning to leave for Shanghai.