Yes I know its been a very long time since I began writing this series, and we've been back from Beijing for about a month now. Better late then never right? Should I try to put as many clichés in this blog as possible? No that would take way too much effort. On to the BLOG!!!!
Part 3: Beijing – Can't think of another catchy title including three main topics like the last ones, so I write nothing, or maybe just a long explanation explaining nothing.
We find our heroes on their way to Beijing. Tired from their mad search for taxis in hectic Hangzhou, and then fighting off the taxi drivers at the bus station trying to trick them, saying that its cheaper to take a taxi than the shuttle buses, Liars!!!!! Tired though they may be, they are excited for what is in store for them in the historic city of Beijing. (Note: I bought a travel book called Lonely Planet for China before I left from the states, it become one of our greatest tools on our trip in Beijing. I suggest it to anyone traveling out of the country, they have it for pretty much any country. To save time, except for this long note, I will from now on refer to the book as LP).
Now we really didn't have much of our trip planned out or know anything about Beijing except we had one night reserved at a hostel since we arrived a little before midnight. The other nights we thought we might stay with friends of friends of friends that we knew or continue at the hostel, either way. After comparing notes from the hostel website and LP, they told us to take the C shuttle bus from the airport and get off at the last stop. Well after searching for a while and avoiding any airport workers who would help us (for a little tip – read the second blog written way back in August for more on that), we found some busses numbered 1 through 5. Well, we took number 3, seeing something that looked like our destination of the train station on there. After about a 45 minute drive I saw the signs for the train station and we got off, and began the fight of telling all the pedi-cab drivers we didn't need a ride, while they follow us for the next 100 yards, not giving up.
My directions from the Hostel said something about go to the west side of the Beijing International Business Hotel. So, we did. And there some workers brought out a card from the hostel. It was about 12 30 now, and they told us we had about a 4 block walk. Not too bad, but not exactly what all of us wanted to do while carrying our bags. We finally arrived at the hostel, and I showed my passport and gave my name. "Here's your room…" were not the words we heard, but instead, "We're full." At this time, I'm raging. I had called the company earlier because my friend who booked the rooms said she was getting weird calls and didn't know if it was the hostel place. They said my rooms were good. The hostel needed my confirmation which I of course foolishly forgot to write down. But all hostels have internet, so we just had to wait until a computer opened up. While we waited, we got to chat with some good folks from France. We all took part in giving the nice girl working the snack shop a hard time, and I even taught them some Chinese, "too expensive" tai qua la".
The computer finally opened up and it only took another 20 minutes to bring up my email on their terrible connection. And while the nice lady from the desk was looking over my shoulder she asked, "What's the name of your hostel?" And I said "The Central City Youth Hostel." The same name I gave to the guys at the hotel, who gave me directions to this place! Well of course this was the wrong place, same company, same logo, but this was the Saga something something Youth Hostel. They showed us where we needed to go, and wrote the name in Chinese so we could give it to a taxi driver. Even though it wasn't too far away, it was getting near 2 am now.
The hostel was very clean and located in a perfect spot. The subway station was a quick dash from the front door, on the same corner. There were plenty of busses coming in and out as the Railway station was right across the road. And we couldn't get much more "central city," unless our hostel was located in the Forbidden City. (Beijing is in rings, with the Forbidden City directly in the middle. It makes things look very easy to get around, until you find out that street names change about 17 times within 2 miles, not to mention that the streets aren't exactly all named after trees or states in the United States, and well if they were named after trees, I wouldn't know, they're in Chinese).
You can not explain how big and magnificent the Forbidden City is, so I will not attempt. I will just tell you that its HUGE! and I'll let the pictures do the talking. There's a ton of them. There's so many temples and palaces that you almost get tired of seeing them though. One big disappoint was that the biggest of the halls was under construction. They have to get ready for the Olympics! It was still quite amazing. When we were ready to go, they wouldn't let us go through the front door. It seemed like they were going to make us head all the way to the back again! We decided to pay 3 yuan (35 cents) and hope one of the parks would take us out the front.
It did and we came out where we wanted. However things were closed off here in front too, in Tiananmen Square. (Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City are pretty much connected, making it by far the biggest tourist attraction in Beijing). We could tell people were gathering but had no idea what for. James and I "talked"
to a girl selling us a little Chinese flag. I looked at where she was pointing and James attempted to use his Chinese. Together we figured out people were waiting to see the soldiers come out and take down the flag. (Not your average boy scout group, trained to march at 190 paces a minute.) We figured how many times are you in Beijing able to see this happen, even though we were dead tired from all our walking. After a very anti-climactic taking down of the flag we headed back and stopped at a whole in the wall to eat some dumplings and some fried rice. A very delicious meal all for less than 4 American Dollars for the four of us together.
This blog has gotten to long. I will continue with more tomorrow. I would like a little feed back both on the blogs and the pictures. Are there too many pictures? Would you like to see only my favorites or are the plethora of pictures ok? What about the blogs? Too long? Ok, that’s all, until tomorrow.
Part 4: Non existent subways , Jingle Bells in the park, and Party at the Summer house, woo hooo!!!!
Part 3: Beijing – Can't think of another catchy title including three main topics like the last ones, so I write nothing, or maybe just a long explanation explaining nothing.
We find our heroes on their way to Beijing. Tired from their mad search for taxis in hectic Hangzhou, and then fighting off the taxi drivers at the bus station trying to trick them, saying that its cheaper to take a taxi than the shuttle buses, Liars!!!!! Tired though they may be, they are excited for what is in store for them in the historic city of Beijing. (Note: I bought a travel book called Lonely Planet for China before I left from the states, it become one of our greatest tools on our trip in Beijing. I suggest it to anyone traveling out of the country, they have it for pretty much any country. To save time, except for this long note, I will from now on refer to the book as LP).
Now we really didn't have much of our trip planned out or know anything about Beijing except we had one night reserved at a hostel since we arrived a little before midnight. The other nights we thought we might stay with friends of friends of friends that we knew or continue at the hostel, either way. After comparing notes from the hostel website and LP, they told us to take the C shuttle bus from the airport and get off at the last stop. Well after searching for a while and avoiding any airport workers who would help us (for a little tip – read the second blog written way back in August for more on that), we found some busses numbered 1 through 5. Well, we took number 3, seeing something that looked like our destination of the train station on there. After about a 45 minute drive I saw the signs for the train station and we got off, and began the fight of telling all the pedi-cab drivers we didn't need a ride, while they follow us for the next 100 yards, not giving up.
My directions from the Hostel said something about go to the west side of the Beijing International Business Hotel. So, we did. And there some workers brought out a card from the hostel. It was about 12 30 now, and they told us we had about a 4 block walk. Not too bad, but not exactly what all of us wanted to do while carrying our bags. We finally arrived at the hostel, and I showed my passport and gave my name. "Here's your room…" were not the words we heard, but instead, "We're full." At this time, I'm raging. I had called the company earlier because my friend who booked the rooms said she was getting weird calls and didn't know if it was the hostel place. They said my rooms were good. The hostel needed my confirmation which I of course foolishly forgot to write down. But all hostels have internet, so we just had to wait until a computer opened up. While we waited, we got to chat with some good folks from France. We all took part in giving the nice girl working the snack shop a hard time, and I even taught them some Chinese, "too expensive" tai qua la".
The computer finally opened up and it only took another 20 minutes to bring up my email on their terrible connection. And while the nice lady from the desk was looking over my shoulder she asked, "What's the name of your hostel?" And I said "The Central City Youth Hostel." The same name I gave to the guys at the hotel, who gave me directions to this place! Well of course this was the wrong place, same company, same logo, but this was the Saga something something Youth Hostel. They showed us where we needed to go, and wrote the name in Chinese so we could give it to a taxi driver. Even though it wasn't too far away, it was getting near 2 am now.
The hostel was very clean and located in a perfect spot. The subway station was a quick dash from the front door, on the same corner. There were plenty of busses coming in and out as the Railway station was right across the road. And we couldn't get much more "central city," unless our hostel was located in the Forbidden City. (Beijing is in rings, with the Forbidden City directly in the middle. It makes things look very easy to get around, until you find out that street names change about 17 times within 2 miles, not to mention that the streets aren't exactly all named after trees or states in the United States, and well if they were named after trees, I wouldn't know, they're in Chinese).
On our first day we took out our good friend LP and some maps and journeyed to the Forbidden City. Since yesterday was National Day (their 4th of July) and everyone had the entire week off… lets just say, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City seemed to have about as many people as our small town of Wenling approx. 1.5 million people. We had heard that there was a park behind the Forbidden City that gave you a great view of the entire thing. So we decided to walk around the outside of the Palace and go to the park first. Our 45 to 60 minute walk along one side of the City gave us a pretty good idea of how big the place was.
We finally arrive to Jingshan Park and made our way up the hill to the pagoda where you could see everything. The rest of Beijing is very flat
. This park and hill were created from rubble after rebuilding the Forbidden City during its many years. Tabitha got one of her most exciting finds here. I CUTE tiny baby cat. Nothing could make her more happy than something cute. We reached the top and got a look at the giant complex we hoped to conquer in the next few hours. The day as foggy so the view was quiet mystical. The fog gave it a very interesting view and I didn't mind it as long as the pollution in it didn't kill me too fast.
. This park and hill were created from rubble after rebuilding the Forbidden City during its many years. Tabitha got one of her most exciting finds here. I CUTE tiny baby cat. Nothing could make her more happy than something cute. We reached the top and got a look at the giant complex we hoped to conquer in the next few hours. The day as foggy so the view was quiet mystical. The fog gave it a very interesting view and I didn't mind it as long as the pollution in it didn't kill me too fast.
It did and we came out where we wanted. However things were closed off here in front too, in Tiananmen Square. (Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City are pretty much connected, making it by far the biggest tourist attraction in Beijing). We could tell people were gathering but had no idea what for. James and I "talked"
to a girl selling us a little Chinese flag. I looked at where she was pointing and James attempted to use his Chinese. Together we figured out people were waiting to see the soldiers come out and take down the flag. (Not your average boy scout group, trained to march at 190 paces a minute.) We figured how many times are you in Beijing able to see this happen, even though we were dead tired from all our walking. After a very anti-climactic taking down of the flag we headed back and stopped at a whole in the wall to eat some dumplings and some fried rice. A very delicious meal all for less than 4 American Dollars for the four of us together.This blog has gotten to long. I will continue with more tomorrow. I would like a little feed back both on the blogs and the pictures. Are there too many pictures? Would you like to see only my favorites or are the plethora of pictures ok? What about the blogs? Too long? Ok, that’s all, until tomorrow.
Part 4: Non existent subways , Jingle Bells in the park, and Party at the Summer house, woo hooo!!!!
