Tour de Beijing: Day One in the City

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I made it here all in one piece! Got to my hotel about 10:30 pm local time last night (July 3rd locally).

I met up with some of my classmates this morning at breakfast and we got some bikes from the hotel to ride around the city this morning. We went to the Forbidden City, Tienammen Square, and a local park. That took about 3 hours and the bikes were a great idea. It was so much cooler while we were riding than while walking around. It was 93 degrees with about 80% humidity today. Pretty miserable.

We came back to our hotel, freshened up, picked up another classmate and her boyfriend and jumped in to taxis to go to a local restaurant recommended by the concierge. We were the only Westerners in the place so it felt authentic. It was really good and very cheap. Lunch for the 6 of us with beers was about $40!

We then went to a crazy market/bazaar that had everything from fake Prada handbags to very expensive jewlery. You had to haggle for everything and we were constantly harassed by vendors wherever we walked. It was an experience! After an hour or so we headed back to the hotel. We decided to check out the therapeutic massage center down the street from the hotel and were glad we did. For less than $30 we each had a 70 minute shoulder/neck/head/foot massage. Unbelievable! We left feeling very rejuevenated.

We went to a tea shop and sampled all sorts of Chinese teas and made some purchases as well. Finally we headed back to our hotel. We got some dinner and called it a night. Everyone was exhausted.

It rained this afternoon and actually made it stickier and more uncomfortable. No one wanted to venture far afield this evening so we cleaned up, had a drink at the hotel bar, grabbed a quick bite to eat at the restaurant and called it a night.

We've rented a car and a driver for tomorrow to take us to a less touristy part of the Great Wall. It's about a 2.5 hour ride there and we get to hike to the Wall. Should be a lot of fun.

My pictures from today got posted on yesterday's entry. Still figuring out the blogging technology.

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Photos

Pearl Market
Craxy market place where you could get everything from fake Prada handbags and fake Nike shoes (with a backwards swoosh) to real jewlery and pearls. All the sales ladies hassled the hell out of you. If you talked to them and walked away they would chase you down trying to get you to buy!