Beijing Day 1

We arrived in Beijing on Sunday afternoon around 2:30. The flight out was HORRIBLE. The airline food was terrible and either that or a small stomach bug Maya had before we left introduced me to the air sickness bags. Yuck. So we spent Sunday evening recovering; once we checked into our room, we didn't leave until Monday morning.

We woke up early (thanks jet lag!) and grabbed breakfast in the hotel. They had traditional American fare as well as more adventurous Chinese selections. We stuck with the traditional fare for the first day. After gaining our stomachs, we headed down to the lobby to grab a taxi. The hotel staff (which was excellent) communicated our destination (the nearest subway station) to our driver, and we were off. We hadn't considered that it was rush hour, and we experienced literally packing into a subway train. We took the subway down to the city center, exited at the Tian'anmen Square station, and oriented ourselves. Throughout our trip, we used a GPS to track our movements, so you can follow our path below. We first saw the "Egg," Beijing's new theater complex. Then we headed into the Forbidden City. Outside, we met up with some Chinese tourists who thought we were so anomalous they wanted their picture taken with me (I'm a celebrity!). In truth, though we got some stares from time to time, the Chinese were very welcoming and lovely. We spent the morning wandering the Forbidden City, the huge imperial palace complex that centers downtown Beijing. There were impressive buildings, views, and artifacts within.

After finishing the Forbidden City (which I assume one "finishes" seeing in the way one finishes seeing the Louvre), we walked north to Qianhai lake. Our walk took us through a traditional Beijing hutong; a series of alleyways that many Beijing residents live in. This does highlight the changing Beijing landscape; many of these hutong are being reclaimed for massive luxury condominiums. Feelings are mixed on this; many are apparently disappointed to lose such a tradition, but others strongly believe this is greatly improving Beijing as a city. We had a lovely lunch at a Hunan restaurant on Qianhai lake. Then we followed a suggested walking tour around the lake and up to Beijing's Drum Tower and Bell Tower. We both climbed the Drum tower and witnessed a display of drum beating. Tim then climbed the Bell tower for a slightly different view.

From here, we headed back south to Beihai park. We intended to see the entire park that afternoon, but there were so many buildings and gardens, we got through only half of it before closing time. From the park, we wandered back across the city center to Tian'anmen Square, where we sat and watched for a while. Police (apparently unarmed) were everywhere. Plum tired, we caught a cab back to our hotel, where we had a lovely dinner in one of the hotel's 20 restaurants.

You'll notice quite a haze in these and many pictures. This was one major downside of the trip--the air quality in Beijing is as bad as advertised. While we didn't have that much trouble breathing, by the end of the day, we could tell that we'd been breathing bad air...

Beijing Day 1