5 days in Beijing part 1

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Beijing was wonderful. We had so many special experiences as a group, it's going to be hard to choose which ones to write about. But I'll try. I will have to do 2 posts to cover the 5 days we spent in Beijing.
I liked Beijing. People were very nice to us, we met a lot of interesting people, and we had some fabulous weather--which always helps. Our last day it did snow a bit--just a few flakes. No big thing. It was actually fun to have that change of weather after some nice warm days all week. We had a lot of coughing and sniffling and sneezing in our party but people were in good spirits and didn't let the colds hold them back. I felt so lucky to be with such good traveling companions.

Some observations about Beijing--just as we'd heard, the traffic and driving is WAY less crazy than in Shanghai. I almost never feared for my life while in taxis there and the drivers were more skilled (or less insane) because we didn't have any (well maybe 1) almost accidents or screeching halts while driving places. The traffic cops seemed to have a better handle on the traffic control and cars mostly stopped at red lights and bikes mostly didn't run all lights. Plus, there were considerably less bikes on the road than we have in Shanghai. Less bikes means less potential accidents when crossing the street.

Food, taxis, just as cheap as Shanghai. We had some good bargaining experiences and some less good ones but overall, it was a similar scene to Shanghai. Okay, on with the stories.

Home Base

We stayed at the Park Plaza--Eileen's find--and a great location/hotel for our stay in Beijing. We could walk to the Forbidden City (which we did) and also to some fun shopping areas which included a nice foreign language bookstore. Most importantly, it was across the street from Starbucks so my dad could get his coffee fix asap each day since he is always the first one to get up in the morning.

Wednesday evening (3/25/09)

We arrived in the evening and got ourselves out to the taxi area. We made a vital travel error by not knowing the average cost of a taxi from the airport to the city center. This resulted in us getting a little bit taken. Live and learn. The good news is we had a van and were all able to travel together to the hotel. The bad news is it was about $20USD more than it should have been. Growl. It's all relative to be sure but Mark and I pride ourselves in not being suckers when it comes to such things. We've lived in China long enough to know how to get fair prices. Letting it go....

Got to the hotel at about 8:30pm and then headed across the street to a Hot Pot restaurant. Dad and Eileen hadn't ever had hot pot, so it was a new experience for them. We got our own room and lots of attention from the staff. The place was not crowded, and by the time we left, it was about to close. We were entertainment for the staff, it seemed. We ordered tons of veggies and some meat and apparently a chicken--which none of us remembered asking for. In China, they use all parts of the Chicken. So when the chicken came to the table and was about to go into the big pot of boiling broth, the head, feet, etc. were with it. We opted out of the head, but the rest went into the pot. We had a waitress who cooked and served us our food. Usually, at hot pot places it's cook it yourself. But being a big group and being foreigners, we got special help.

Thursday (3/26/09)
We decided not to have a car the first full day in Beijing. Rather, we used that day as an explore by foot day, and made plans to have a driver the second full day. This worked out very nicely. We paced our trip to have planned days and less planned days. The first full day, Thursday, we spent exploring Beijing. We walked from the hotel to the Forbidden City. It was a pretty day with blue skies and not too cold temperatures. Perfect walking around weather. Once again, Emily was not 100% so Mark and I burned off some of the daily hotel breakfast buffet by carrying her a lot.

Forbidden City was insanely crowded. I was overwhelmed but also amazed by the huge number of people walking around and attempting to see the same sights as we were. I say attempt because it was really a matter of getting through the crowds and often I forgot to look around. Just trying not to lose the kids or anyone else was a challenge. There were mostly Chinese tour groups following leaders and wearing matching hats. It was still worth it, crowds and all, and we made it through unscathed.

Tired and hungry, we haggled with some guy who approached us and next thing we knew, we were squeezing ourselves into those bike/cart deals 3 to a cart. We should have taken 3! We took a tour through a hutong (traditional courtyard neighborhoods) and ended up at Hou Hai Lake. Mark had been there before on his previous trip to Beijing and knew it was a good spot for lunch. The lake is surrounded by restaurants, bars and shops. We walked a bit and came to a somewhat crowded restaurant with outdoor seating. We settled in and ordered yet another feast. Delicious dishes with fresh bamboo shoots, spicy eggplant and noodles, to name a few.

I don't think we had a bad meal in Beijing or Xi'an or Shanghai for that matter. We didn't always know where we were going but we ordered well and had so many different foods on our trip.

After lunch we went to a park and after about 5 minutes, Emily was done. She was coughing a lot and needed a break, so she and I headed back to the hotel while the rest of the group explored the park. They came back and we had a pretty quiet night.

We were all looking forward to the Great Wall on Friday. I have some more fun stories from the end of the trip, so come back and read part 2 after I finish writing it.

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Photos

no pictures!
the parents of these 2 wanted to do pics with E&N. No luck.

shhh we went to McDonalds
I caved. The kids first McD food in China.

Emily reading her new book
a good habit to feed. no matter the price.