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Published: July 10th 2006
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So, now I've been to Beijing twice, and I can picture myself living there. It ranks right up there with Buenos Aires. We took a bus from Tianjin on Saturday afternoon, which cost about US $4 and took about two hours. We checked into our hostel (the Red Lantern Hostel), and made our way over to the Sanlitun foreign bar district for dinner. We ate at the Hidden Tree (the salad and pizza were an amazing and much needed change from the same old Chinese food), and then basically stayed up until 8 in the morning watching the World Cup games in which England lost to Portugal and Brazil lost to France. We went to some really expensive bar on the main bar street that I didn't like, and then we went to Pure Girl Bar which is actually just a bar with cheap drinks. That was awesome- and then we spent the rest of the night at The Top, which was an amazing bar on the top of a four story building. We saw the sun rise (at four in the morning), well as much as the sun ever comes out in China, and then we found ourselves a little
stuck because of course the day we are in Beijing is when the cabs are on strike. We finally got a cab back to our hostel, talked to a couple who teach the children of people who work in embassies and they have lived in the coolest places for the last ten years. Right now they are stationed in Myanmar (Burma) and they made it sound like paradise, so that is now on my list of places to go when I am in Singapore. We then got to sleep for about four hours until we had to check out, and then we actually made it to one place. We went to Dongyue Temple, a Daoist temple that was a little (okay really) creepy. There were little departments with life-size statues of people in them (about three hundred departments), and you could put your prayers on the fence in front of the department. For example, one was entitled "Department of 15 Ways of Violent Death". The plaque in front describes all the ways of violent death, and the statues inside depict them. One had no head and was dripping blood. We were exhausted, so we went to the Foreign Languages Bookstore
to pick up some reading materials and Mandarin learning tools. Oh, and the train station in Beijing is an absolute nightmare. We missed the last bus home, so we had to make it onto the last train, and we had to wait in line for about an hour for tickets. It would have been much easier just to take the bus.
The second time to Beijing we had much more time. We took the bus there after class on Friday and stayed until Sunday afternoon. We stayed at the You Yi International Youth Hostel or the Poacher's Inn House, which was awesome, had free laundry service, and was right in the middle of all the bars. On the way to Beijing we hit traffic, literally hitting a taxi. The funny thing was that our driver was actually mad that the taxi let himself get hit by us- not even stopping or anything. BUT... we hit rush hour and it took us about three and a half hours to get there (normally one to two hours). We went to dinner at Pizza Hut and then Jessica and I (the third person that went with us just complained the entire time
and it was like we were babysitting her- I definitely don't recommend just trying to be nice and include everyone when you are doing once in a lifetime things like going to the Forbidden City) went out for a couple drinks. We went back to the Top, which was still wonderful, and it was two for one martinis until eleven. We went to bed, and woke up early to go to the Forbidden City, which was a little out of control. It was like Disneyland, except more hot, more humid, and more people. A lot of it was under restoration too, but come on, its the Forbidden City and Tianamen Square, so quit complaining. I would go again. We then went to the Pearl Market, which was awesome and definitely drained my wallet. Twice. Then we dropped off complainer and went over to the silk market which was also awesome. The one thing I will say about shopping in Beijing is that you have to be really on your toes. The sellers in Beijing think that all foreigners are stupid and will spend outrageous (for China) amounts of money on junk. But you have to use every ounce of Chinese
you have, and stand strong, because they will give in. We would just always tell them that we were unemployed students, tell them where we were studying, and then we would usually get the price down to about a sixth of the original quote. We went to Hidden Tree for dinner again, which was awesome, and then off to bed early. The next day, we woke up way too early for me to make it to the much hyped about Dirt Market. That was a waste of time. Don't go. There is almost nothing there that they don't have everywhere else, everything is extremely overquoted, and the merchants aren't very friendly. I didn't buy a single thing. We then made our way to the Hutong, or the old streets of Beijing. They are being crushed to prepare for the Olympics, so we decided we better see them before they are gone. They were beautiful, and hopefully they will still be around the next time I go to Beijing so that I can spend more time there.
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Your pictures are beautiful Kenny!!!!