Upon arriving in Beijing, I was greeted with the usual noise, pollution, pissed off cab drivers, and...a nice clean air conditioned car. The hostel I was staying at arranged to ahve me picked up by the Chinese version of Bob Hope. The Far East-Beijing Hostel was actually a hutong, a traditinal courtyard home in an old back alley. The house over 300 years old, was divided up into dorms, which I was surprsed to find clean and comfortable. The main theme of my two days in Beijing so far has been one of surprise: that the people here are really making an effort to clean up the city, and that the city still smells like rotting cabbage in a pit full of smelly socks. You are now asking yourself: why is she there? Why is anyone
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