It's like one giant Chinatown!

First things first: living without my computer - not too bad so far. We'll see how this continues to go.

 

So, I've been in Beijing a few days now. We got in on Friday afternoon, and went right to the hotel. I showered, took a little nap, and mostly just hung out in my sweats for the evening. The flight over wasn't too bad, I was lucky enough to be upgraded to business, which was about half full. I even managed to sleep for a good part of the flight, inbetween meals and reading a couple books.

 

Saturday I was up bright and early, around 6:30 I think. I hadn't done much research into touristy stuff to do in Beijing, aside from the obvious places, so I was pretty open to ideas. One of the maps at the hotel highlighted a couple places as 'must see,' so I've pretty much used that. I decided to spend the first day, or morning, at the Beijing Zoo. The most popular animals to see there are the Giant Pandas. Lazy buggers were all pretty much sleeping, but I did get some pictures of them, and the lions and tigers and bears...oh my! I also saw elephants, giraffes, zebras, rhinos...all the typical zoo creatures. I spent the morning wandering around, snapping pictures, and had a cornetto. The weather has been cooler than I expected, and I've found I've needed a long sleeve cardigan most days.

 

I also had my first experience trying to communicate with the taxi driver. When we got close to the zoo, there was a road closed and we couldn't go down it. Through many pantomines, I figured out that he wanted me to walk the rest of the way, and that it wasn't a long walk. Thing was, I couldn't figure out which road to walk down. The road opened up after a few minutes though, and he was able to get me about a block from the zoo. While walking around the block to avoid the road block, I started to think that maybe something was going on...the signs were all in Chinese, but numbers are the same, and I quickly guessed it was the 60th anniversary of something. Sorry, but 20th Century history isn't my strongest.

 

By Sunday, I was a bit more rested, and feeling a bit more adventurous. I hopped in another taxi (I only discovered last night how close the subway was to the hotel. I don't think the stop is on the map I have), and headed down to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. We hit some traffic, but eventually it started moving...I started to add up the things I'd noticed - the traffic, and the 60th anniversary signs - and guessed that maybe I shouldn't try to go to Tiananmen today. Well, yes, it appeared there was something going on in the square, that involved a lot of people and a lot of police. Hmm, not what I was looking for. I got out of the taxi, and headed down the block away from the square, figuring I could loop back towards the Forbidden City side of things. That was easier, but then where did I get in? I just headed in the first entrance, which ended up being a garden alongside the Forbidden City. It was a nice park, with some buildings in it. I couldn't figure out how to get to the actual Forbidden City though.Well I'm smarter than I look, and I eventually got in the place. It is huge! Once inside, it's like a series of buildings, all in a row one after the other, and you just keep walking and walking. At one point, I was going through one of the buildings and could see through to the rest of them, and all the way at the end, was one smaller temple, at the top of this hill. And it looked really, really far away and I thought, crap, I have to start walking faster! It ended up being close than it looked and I eventually made it all the way to the end...and found that the temple on the hill was across the street, and not part of it!

 

Despite the fact that I had been walking for over 3 hours by now, and there was still a hill to climb, I pushed onwards. I headed in to Jingshan Park and found my way to a path up the hill. The stairs were steep, and the last flight or so weren't actually stairs, but rocks fashioned in to stairs. Of course, I got up there and noticed another set of stairs on the other side, that were nice and even and shallow. Durr. Still, it was worth it, because I now realized I was on the highest point of the city and could see everything - at least, what could be seen through the haze.

 

After I caught my breath, I sat and had a granola bar and took some pictures of the view. I headed back down, on the easy stairs, and went back to the hotel. After over 4 hours of pretty much non-stop walking I was ready for a rest!