Blogs from Beijing, China, Asia - page 489

For some reason I popped up around 7:30pm and figured I’d try the hostel’s free breakfast for the first time. It was inside the Poacher’s bar where I’d been only a few hours earlier, and you could smell the beer on the walls still. I sat down with an Italian couple and chatted briefly. Then since I was still hungry I went to my daily breakfast café for my regular tofu soup. Then I went back for a nap and woke up a few hours later. After I organized my stuff I cabbed over to the internet café where the shit had flowed a few days earlier. As I walked in I met a friendly French Canadian girl named Sarah. We chatted only briefly and then she left only to return a few minutes later to ... read more

Beijing, a city of legend, myth, magic, confusion, and millions of people. We have been here for about a week now and have stayed in two different locations, the first of which was horrible. It was four stories under ground, similar to a dungeon, and the shared bathroom and shower area was, well lets say less than clean. Even though the living conditions were not so good we were in a pretty good location. Beijing is probably the largest city that we have visited on this trip. Everything is very spread out. There is a subway and it is somewhat crowded but we have been on worse. It is quite hot though, since it is not air conditioned like most that we have experienced. We do use it often but if you have to wait in ... read more

Everybody has heard of the upcoming 2008 Beijing Olympics (with presaling of T-shirts everywhere one goes in China, who can forget?). Well, I think finding and arranging travel/hotel in Beijing at the start of the school holidays should qualify as an Olympic event, as it certainly is a test of human endurance. I prebooked my hostel for Beijing on hostel.com, so I thought it'd be a piece of cake. WRONG! I got to the Beijing Airport, which is very nice (but they would not exchange my Korean wons, so I traded in my few US dollars ratehr than using the ATM). But once you get beyond the customs, it's haggling and hawker hell. The ladies at the info center all work for a travel company, so every question is answered with, "yes we can arrange it, ... read more

Got up really-diculous early since I had to persuade a taxi driver to take me to Swissotel without Fred's chinese skills. He didn't know Swissotel. But we muddled through and I think he even eventually understood my mispronouced cries of xiexie. Met Fred, our tour guide, a lovely couple from New Zealand and the rest of our tour. Visted the Ming Tombs the epitomy of Feng Shui, with Tiger hill and Dragon hill either side, hill of heavenly peace behind, open to the south winds and with water flowing through. Blimy did those emperors have a lot of money and labour. Despite lonely planet saying Panda tours were reputable and didn't take you to jade and enamel shops, they did. But we didn't spend any money and learnt how to tell what is real jade for ... read more

Apart from minor hiccups with the seventy two glasses of water i had on the plane to ward off dvt, and deciding that I needed to declare a radio, I arrived in Beijing and met Fred and my driver. The Lante Hotel where I'm staying is in the back of beyond but some very nice girls with pink umbrellas (everyone has umbrellas) showed us to the bus to Tian'anmen square. After a brief detour to an 'art gallery' went and sat in the square. The sheer vast emptiness is amazing. Mao's tomb was closed but we occupied ourselves being asked to be in family pictures as the only caucasians around. We quickly decided that we have to do the victory sign in all our photos because everyone else did! I also managed to make a big ... read more