Blogs from Beijing, China, Asia - page 457

China Itinerary · 06/27/2006 - 07/02/2006: Beijing · 07/02/2006 - 07/04/2006: Xian · 07/04/2006 - 07/06/2006: Suzhou · 07/06/2006 - 07/08/2006: Shanghai · 07/08/2006 - 07/12/2006 Hong Kong · 07/12/2006 - Los Angeles ... read more

So today was my day of rest. The only place I went to was church, but even that was adventure enough to write about. It started out with one of the girls from another China Abroad group that had been going to a church since she got here and wanted to know if anyone from our group wanted to join her. It ended up that five of us piled into a cab and took a 15 minute ride to this nondenominational church. Apparently, due to governmental laws in China, the only people who can openly practice Christianity, are those who are foreign. As a result the church was underground, below an office building with no signs signaling that there was any type of religious facility in the area. Then at the door of the room ... read more

From Shanghai we headed straight to Beijing. By this stage, our travels in China were starting to feel like a city tour as all we seemed to be seeing was congestion and high rise buildings. Beijing is huge and already undergoing a lot of contruction and maintence in preparation for the 2008 Olympics. In fact, we even saw a massive coundown clock, counting the years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds until the olympics starts! It was great to see Thomas again and he was very hospitable. I would also count Beijing to be one of the main highlights for me for the number of historical and world renowned places there are to visit. We only had four days... but then we only had a month in China. Will have to go again for sure. I ... read more

Today we toured the city of Beijing. All ten of us students, plus our guide, and the driver piled into a 12 seater van this morning. The ride alone was an adventure, there do not seem to be too many rules to the driving game on Beijing's streets. There is no such thing as "pedestrians always have the right of way", it's more like "travel at your own risk" no matter if you are a pedestrian, bicycler, or automotive operator. Our first stop was HouHai park. Here we walked around the lake. It was very much a tourist destination with lots of bars all around the water and little boats in which people could take a ride. Here we saw old men playing mahjong, a game that kind of looks like dominoes. Then we walked ... read more

I don't like to be negative in my blogs, especially not at the beginning of an entry but we didn't exactly have the best of starts to our time in Beijing. Are you sitting comfortably? Let me begin... First off, our flight out of Hong Kong wasn't until nearly 5pm but we had to check out of the hostel by 10am. We were both quite happy to go as we'd spent enough time looking at the inside our our room while I was recovering from my bout of flu. Thankfully the medicine was doing it's thing and I was feeling far better though still not quite up to my usual standards. As a result, we decline the hostel's offer to mind our bags so we could spend some last minute time enjoying Hong Kong, and instead ... read more