Blogs from Tian'anmen, Beijing, China, Asia - page 7

Day 3 - Beijing Weather in beijing is really good today. It was sunny and about 1 degree Celcius. Not the minus 6 Celcius that we expect :) The tour was smooth..even the tour manager (Beijing) commented that it was pretty good. He is very experienced n I really enjoyed the tour explanation ... It was the first time I set foot on Tian-an men square and we had a couple of group shots.The group was pretty cohesive. One thing that strike me was that everyone on the group was on the look-out for one another, and the spirit of serving was very very high...even our Tianjing tour guide, Xiao Niu acted as a photographer plus "bell-boy" :) The professionalism of the tour guides here never fail to impress me...they are knowledgeable and proud of their ... read more

Beijing China, Tian men square.... read more

After some final Japanese cuisine for breakfast we head to Narita airport set for Beijing. We had to fly in via Dalian, where we had to jump off then wait a little then jump back on. Stupidly I was still in Japanese weather mode. Dalian was COLD and I was in a t-shirt!! Laura was smug in her big warm coat and fleece!! Another hour on the plane and we were in Beijing. Beijing was busy, busy, busy. Multiple people trying to get me in their taxi to central Beijing, but instead we hopped on the shuttle bus. On setting foot outside of the airport I knew winter had begun, it was absolutely freezing and pitch black! The roads were an experience even just as a passenger, even more noticeable when we got a taxi to ... read more

Needless to say I only got to the airport 30minutes before my flight was due to take off so the China Air booking lady promptly told me I wouldn’t be getting on the flight bound for Beijing at 1:05 seeing some distress in my face she immediately started to check up on the later flight and not 5 minutes, after telling me I has in fact missed my flight, proceeded to inform me that in actual fact I was never booked on the 1:05 flight in the first place (contrary to my e-ticket) and that I was in actual fact only booked on the 6:30 flight......and so the mad travels began. It seems that no adventure that I embark on will ever just be smooth sailing but hey let’s be honest I think I thrive on ... read more

Last Friday the two of us boarded the overnight express train, Z29, from Yangzhou to Beijing. Around 6:30 a.m. we arrived to a beautiful, clear, crisp Beijing. The main objective of this trip north was to run in the Beijing International Marathon. Our traveling companions consisted of my running buddy Asunsun Halim, his wife, Gyu, their dangerously cute 19-month-old son Eugene, and four other co-teachers; four of which ran in either the half or full marathon. It was now the third weekend in October we had spent in the Northern Capital and we felt like we were returning to an old college campus or past neighborhood… except on a slightly different scale. On Saturday we visited a restaurant near the Beijing Drum and Bell Towers and had ourselves a pre-race pasta feed. China style. Anyone can ... read more