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Published: July 26th 2006
Am I really in China right now?
When I stepped out of the car yesterday, I looked around at the small alley-type street that we were staying at on a shady dirt road and experienced instant culture shock. I must admit that I was a little afraid at first. I couldn't help but think, where the hell am I and if something terrible happened to me here how would anyone even find out and would anyone here even care? The street was filled with locals many of which were working hard digging up the roads. ( The 2008 Olympics are being held here so the city is getting ready) It was completely random and nothing like I have ever experienced before. Exactly the kind of thing that I was hoping for on this little adventure. The hostel luckily turned out to be very nice and probably the best one we have stayed at yet. The people here are unbelievable and basically do everything for you.
This has actually so far been the best part of the trip. Beijing is a great city and it has a perfect balance of city life and cultural experience, not to mention the fact that it is sooo cheap here. Last night we went to a nice restaurant had some dinner and a couple of drinks and the bill was $8. Yes, 8 US dollars. Unbelievable.
It has only been our second day here and already I feel like we have done so much.
Yesterday we visited several Temples: The Confucious Temple, the Temple of Heaven and another Temple I cannot remember the name of. For dinner we attempted to try Duck which is a must have in Beijing. We went to this really nice restaurant where no one spoke English of course and ordered Duck but the crazy waitress didn't really get what we were trying to say so we wound up eating chicken instead. We are going to attempt this again before we leave.
Today I started off the day with a traditional Chinese breakfast at the hostel, dumplings and Pumkin porridge, Mmmm (well not really but hey, when in China.....) We went to Tienamin Square and the Forbidden City which were jam packed with tourists mostly from China. I was a little annoyed by the swarm of people, the constant pushing in line and the pouring rain but most of that went away when I saw how amazing this little "city" was.
We were approached by a couple tourists in the Square asking if they could take pictures with us which is always nice. We were also approached by many overly aggressive vendors trying to sell us post cards, umbrellas, rain coats (which really looked like plastic bags to me), rolexes, Gucci bags and other interesting things. I quickly learned that any form of eye contact or niceness is an invitation for these people to follow you and tell you how much you want to buy their stuff. The con-artists are the funniest, constantly hounding us trying to butter us up by speaking English and wanting to chit-chat. Luckily we were forewarned about these scams where they try to get you to go their tea-houses and then try to charge you a ridiculous amount of money. Tonight we went to see a Kung Fu show which was also great.
I love China!!!
Either today or tomorrow we are going to see "The Great Wall" a long anticipated highlight of our trip. Can't wait😊
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AnG
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I can't wait to see pics that you have taken there in China. Too bad they don't speak Cantonese or else I would tell you to say "nh-ahp". That's the best way I can pinyin it for you. Glad to hear you're having a blast there!