Well, after having our 1am flight out of Bangkok cancelled (seriously, enough with the cancelling), we made it to downtown Beijing last night. We’re at the palatial Capital Hotel and upon our arrival we were treated to a lovely night of smog. A lot of smog. So much that you couldn’t see farther than 2 blocks from our 11th floor window. So much that you could taste it.
We ventured out to the streets to find something to eat and boy did we pick the restaurant we were hoping we wouldn’t pick. The engrish was spectacular. Such awesome dishes as “Pig bowel stirs the broccoli in the hot bowl” and “Seared beans fry the duck chin”. Lorraine ordered a bowl of sweet and sour tofu soup and it was at least a gallon pot they brought out. Holy shit, let’s finish these huge Tsingtao’s and get the fuck out of here.
It just seemed that yesterday was angry day in China. Maybe we are too used to the “Land of Smiles”, but no one was happy, everyone was short and unwelcoming. Meh.
This morning everything turned around. The sun was out, the smog was gone and it was turning out to be a beautiful day. We befriended a wonderfully pleasant chinese dude while walking down to Tiananmen Square. He was excited to talk with us and share the walk down Qian Men West. This was a most needed turnaround from last night’s experience. From that moment on, our time in Beijing was only going to get better.
We then bumped into a very pleasant girl who escorted us to the beginning of Tiananmen Square and directed us to the ZhengYang Gate (of course, for 10 yuan we entered in through the gate and through the museum).
From there it’s through Chairman Mao’s mausoleum and the People’s Hero grounds before finally coming up to the Forbidden City. Not much can be said about Forbidden City other than you find yourself thinking “holy shit, I’m in the Forbidden City!”.
After exhausting ourselves from the 3 hours of walking and taking in everything there is to see we hopped on a rickshaw which took us as far as he could through the sidestreets and back alleys of Beijing only to stop short of bringing us back to our hotel due to it being rush hour and “no rickshaw rush hour!”. The funniest part of that experience is we walked from the Forbidden City to his house about 5 minutes away. No better way than to see how the people of Beijing live but to go to their neighborhood’s outside of the tourist areas. And, we were fortunate enough to have been dropped off in the most picturesque neighborhood.
We found a killer restaurant which seemed to be in the hip part of town. Picture Elmwood village but in Beijing. Long story short, we attempted to walk and wing our way back to the hotel and of course, became a bit disoriented and had to ask for some direction back. No problem, follow the Mao picture in the distance and you’re on your way.
A short moment or two back at the hotel, some espresso and we were back out on the street. This time we opted for a taxi. We just arrived back after heading to Old Beijing Street and the Wangfujing shopping district. Picked up some very cool gifts and some stuff for around the house. This area was so awesome that we think we’re going to go back tomorrow night.
Time for sleep now, the Great Wall and the Ming Tomb’s are bright and early tomorrow morning. Pics and more stories afta-afta!
Posted by 
sdfsdf
