The first three days

The last three days have been a crazy blur. The flight was long but made tolerable by wine and lots of catching up with Pan-Pan. The night we got to Beijing was a culture shock. Our hotel is on a great street that's sort of like Queen's St. West of Beijing (or so it seems to me). The city is a huge bustle, definitely a thriving metropolis. We walked down neon alleyways, past hole-in-the-wall food stands and all sorts of wild looking stores with names that I obviously couldn't read. It's interesting being a minority! I get a lot of looks, and it will be moreso in the countryside.

Yesterday we had a FULL day. Since we're so jet-lagged, we woke up at 5:30, had breakfast in the hotel, and then went to Tien anmen square. It was quite something standing there and looking at that giant Mao poster. Then we went to the Forbidden City. It's spectacular, even though a couple of the main buildings were being renovated. When we were leaving, a man hawked us a cycle rickshaw tour of the old Hutongs. That was really awesome, being cycled through all these really old neighborhoods and courtyards.

He dropped us off Hou Lake, which is North of the Forbidden City. It's a really scenic lake surrounded by cafes and restaurants. Very beautiful. And then we saw tandem bikes for rent and we got one and rode around the lake! It made Pan-Pan very happy. And I also had a lot of fun.

After a seriously deep two hour nap, we met Pan-Pan's cousin for the most delicious dinner ever! She took us to a nice hotel and we experienced the famous Peking Duck. You add onion to it and wrap it in a flour shell and it was delicious. We also had a chicken dish and string beans with pork. Fantastic. Then we went to this supermarket in the lower level of a shopping mall, and it was a really fascinating and strange experience. A lot of products have a superficial resemblance to their Western counterparts, but then, like in a dream, when you look at the text, you can't make sense of the script at all. So it's very dream-like, and indeed I felt like I was in some sort of surreal dream.

All in all it was a great day.

Today, the 19th, we went to the Temple of Heaven on the city bus. We had some more great food. Huge feasts for a couple of bucks--it's so amazingly cheap and delicious.

We're still really jet-lagged and tired so we probably will take it easy tonight, but we might see an acrobatic show. Tomorrow we're going to the Great Wall and we're leaving Beijing on Monday night, taking an overnight train.

Beijing is a really beautiful, verdant city. Amazingly clean, overall. The huge amount of pedestrian traffic (and bikes!) can be overwhelming until you get used to how things work. There are no needless rules protecting the weak--you learn to see opportunities and make your move--you need to be sharp. This goes for traffic as well as many other things, it seems. The people are very nice, always eager to make me feel good and generous and forgiving about my attempts at Chinese. They are very interesting though. I will write more when I have more time.