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Published: November 4th 2007
Tiananmen Square
Looking north towards the entrance to the Forbidden City.Day 1 - Arrival in Beijing
On Saturday morning, October 6th, USA time, I lifted off the ground in Columbia, SC en route to Washington Dulles, where I connected with my United Airlines 747 13 hour nonstop flight to Beijing. Everything went well. No delays, no problems, a smooth flight. I had stayed up all night to maximize my chances of sleeping on this flight. I was lucky to have no one in the middle seat next to me, which allowed me a little more room. With my head on a pillow, earplugs installed, visor in place, and a Benadryl in my system, I was able to sleep for over half the flight. We descended into Beijing on Sunday afternoon, October 7th, China time. Nothing eventful at the airport, going through customs/getting my bags and getting some Chinese money, called yuan or RMB, went fine. I was met as expected at the airport by our Chinese tour guide, whose English name was Kevin. He led me to a bus that took me to my hotel, the Traders. As expected, Beijing looked like a big city with lots of people. I checked into the hotel. It was late afternoon/early evening. I walked
around outside a little, then walked through a mall which was next to the hotel.
I found a fairly nice restaurant next to an indoor ice skating rink. This was the first time of having to be careful about what I consumed during my time in China. Here's the story...I made arrangements to take this trip back in early August through a local travel agent. I didn't think to check to see if I needed any immunizations or anything like that. I don't know why, I just didn't. To make a long story short, about a week before departure, I checked out the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website. There were no required vaccinations for China. However, among MANY other things, it was strongly recommended that I get a Hepatitis vaccine. Hepatitis vaccines need 4 weeks to become effective, and here it was less than one week from departure. I was livid. Anyway, I looked into precautionary measures I could take. First of all, don't drink the tap water in China. So, beverages must be limited to bottled water or beer, and canned Coke, with no ice. Hot tea is ok. I avoided anything uncooked, seafood, and even salads
Tiananmen
Looking west towards the "Great Hall of the People" since the lettuce was probably rinsed with tap water. It was even advised that you use bottled water to brush your teeth! I carried around hand sanitizer at all times, and kept my hands as clean as possible. The information on the CDC website sounded pretty ominous to me, so I was careful.
Meanwhile, back to my first night in Beijing. These two young people came up to me in the mall, speaking in English. They seemed very nice. I had read that there is a local scheme you may encounter, where locals will go up to Americans saying that they want to practice their English or invite you to tea or whatever. (Our tour guide Kevin had reiterated the same thing). If you go, they try to get you to buy expensive stuff, or something like that, I can't remember exactly what. They wanted me to go with them somewhere so they could "show me how to sign my name in Chinese calligraphy" or something like that. Even though they seemed sincere and very nice, I politely declined, and explained to them why. I didn't know if they were legit or not.
Day 2 - Beijing
I
woke up and had a pretty good breakfast at the hotel. The tour group met in the lobby. There were 13 people in my group, plus our tour guide Kevin. There were two couples from Minnesota along with two adult daughters of one of the couples. There were two ladies who had met on a previous trip and had become friends, one from Michigan, and one from New York. There were two retired couples from Chile. The group was great. Everyone was really nice. Our tour guide, Kevin, was great. He could speak English very well, and was very helpful.
We went to Tiananmen Square, the "largest open-urban square in the world". It is a major landmark and probably best known in the US for the protests in June 1989. Remember the guy walking out in front of the tank?
From there, a pedestrian tunnel leads you under a road and into the entrance to the Forbidden City. Built from 1406 to 1420, this served as the home of the Emperor and his household, and the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government. It was off-limits to the general public for centuries, before being opened to everyone in
Tiananmen
Looking south towards the "Monument to the People's Heroes". the early 1900's. We walked through there. It was quite a maze of gates and buildings and courtyards.
We went to lunch. Most of our lunches were provided as part of the tour and were generally in the same format. They sat us down at tables with large glass lazy susans on them, and they would bring out numerous dishes. I thought the quality of the food was good, and there was usually quite a bit to choose from, including fruit, rice, meat and vegetables. Hot tea was always available.
Anyway, we then headed out to the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace has a long history. Today, it is a public park, and a very nice area.
It was getting close to dusk when we left the Summer Palace. We then went to a restaurant somewhere in Beijing, where we had a Peking Duck dinner. Along the way, we briefly stopped and looked at the Olympic Stadium, still under construction.
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Leonard
non-member comment
Amazing
Dan you did an awesome job describing in detail each day that you spent in China. The pictures, show how beautiful the country truly is. I also enjoyed your candidness about those that you met in your travels. I look forward to more blogs from your trips in the future!