Beijing - Welcome to China - Beijing, China
Beijing, China
Where I stayed
Sketchy Hotel
What I did
Forbidden City (Imperial Palace) Beijing
Great Wall at Badaling (Badaling Chancheng) Beijing
Ming Tombs (Ming Sishan Ling) Beijing
Olympic Park Beijing
Tiananmen Square (Tiananmen Guangchang) Beijing
Day 1 (Oct. 19) - Arrival
- arrived in Airport to meet Claire :)
- took taxi to sketch hotel where they barely let us stay in the room because of some outdated foreigner practice
- dinner with friends Justin and Lin
Day 2 (Oct. 20) - Tour of Beijing
- woke up super early and took a cab ride to pick up another couple and start our BUS TOUR
- did a driveby on Tiananmen Square during the flag rise
- bus tour out of the city to a section of the Great Wall of China where I came across the worst Public Ground toilet on the planet
- Great Wall was AMAZING.. ended up feeling like a celebrity with all of the Chinese people wanting to take photos with me
- Toured the Ming Tombs and a Jade Museum... had a free for all lunch which was interesting
- Visited a never-ending food market of tasty treats
- When leaving the Ming Tomb area I was the only one on the bus not to yell "I will come back" in Chinese, which means I am to be haunted for the rest of my life :(
- Toured an amazingly large and detailed wax museum of the Qing Dynasty
- BUS TOUR concluded with us being dropped off at Olympic Park where Claire and I had a nice time walking around the Olympic Stadium and Pool for a while before taking a taxi back to hotel for the night
Day 3 (Oct. 21) - Tienamen Square and Area
- Took a moxi (motorcycle taxi) downtown to the Forbidden City and cut through traffic like nothing
- Explored the Forbidden City... it is HUGE!!
- Met Justin for lunch at Jin Shan mountain and then went to the top for pictures and tried on Emporer attire
- Rented a small motorboat and had a few pints while touring around JS mountain
- Explored downtown Beijing on foot and ended up back at Tiananmen Square for the flag lowering
- Met Claire's friends for dinner at a nice restaurant
- Out for KTV (private karaoke) and had a really fun time... discovered a new drinking game that involves doing math
- Thai food and drinks after KTV near hotel
Day 4 (Oct. 22) - Tiananmen Square, Old Town, Flight to Chongqing
- woke up early and took a taxi back to Tiananmen Square
- toured the Chinese National Museum after going through an intense security check where we were made to drink the beverages we were carrying around (later found out that it is a test administered to see if you are carrying poison or acid)
- hopped on a 2 hour private bicycle tour of the Liqun Alley slums and we got to see a part of Beijing that is pretty well hidden (slum alleys where tenants have refused to move)
- ate lunch at a world famous Peking Duck restaurant in the slums where celebrities and world figures such as Jackie Chan and Al Gore have eaten
- 2.5 hour Flight from Beijing to Chongqing
- met Claire's parents for the first time and it was a little awkward at first but we eventually hit it off pretty well