Beijing, China

China, woo hoo! When we left India the Chennai Airport's computer system had crashed so the workers at the check-in counter in Chennai had to manually write the destination airport for our luggage. When you have all of your clothes and items you need for three months in your luggage and you are travelling from India to Beijing with a changover in Kuala Lumpur having the check-in worker scribble the destination airport isn't very comforting. So when our bags arrived in Beijing with us we were thrilled. The arrival of our bags also meant that we had officially survived India with everything intact.

Because we didn't know the language, culture, transportation, etc. and we wanted to see lots of sights in China we hired a tour company to take us around. We also booked our flights so that we arrived a day before the rest of the tour group and left a day after the tour group so that we could have an extra day to ourselves in Beijing and Shanghai. When we walked out of the Beijing Internaitional Airport (which is a great airport) we were immediatly greeted by our local guide Wen. Wen and the driver drove us to our hotel in downtown Beijing and got us setup. She also went off on the government owning all the cell phone companies and having high cell prices, so we knew she wasn't going to bull shit us like our Mumbai guide. Lara and I spent the rest of the evening walking around the mall that the hotel was attached to and the nearby streets.

The following day, our first full day in Beijing, we went on a laundry hunt. You might be wondering what exactly a laundry hunt is. Well, when you are backpacking around the world with only a week's worth of clothing doing your laundry becomes imperative. Unfortunately, most of the world has not caught up to the West in laundromat technology or prices. As I mentioned in an earlier post, laundry in India is done in rivers next to water buffalos or in mass laundry areas in Mumbai, we never saw where laundry was done in Turkey. The other option with laundry is to pay the hotel to do the laundry. The typical price for a hotel to do laundry in India was ~80 rupees an article. At 40 rupees to $1, the prospect of paying $50 for a load of laundry is a real possibility. Thus, when we arrived in Beijing we figured that in a city of 14 million people there has to be one laundromat. We did some searching and it appeared that a laundromat in Peking University was the only one in the city. So away to Peking University we went. As we discovered, most cab drivers don't know English, so when you tell them Peking Univesity, you don't go very far. Luckily, we were able to tell one cab driver where we wanted to go on a map. As we requested, he dropped us off in the area we requested, unfortunately, the map we had was in Chinese, all the signs are in Chinese, and all the people only speak Chinese, so we struggled a little bit. After asking a few dozen people where Peking University we arrived at our destination. Once on the campus of Peking University we were lost again. How do you find a small laundromat in a large, urban college campus with everything in Chinese? Our solution, ask the white people. We bumped into a nice British college student who guided us to our end destination.Next problem, how do you tell someone how to wash you clothes? You're starting to notice a trend I'm sure. In the end we were able to get our clothes washed.... but not dried. The dryer has yet to make it to China apparently.

What's Peking University like you ask? It's a lot like UC Berkeley, lots of Asians. The campus is as bland as a rice on noodles. All of the buildings look the same. There are very few postings on walls advertising furniture for sale, or tutoring services, or strippers needed like on American college campuses. We also didn't see anything related to sports or activities. We tried grabbing a bite to eat in the main congregation area, but you can only buy food on campus with a special debit card, so the all important food review could not be performed. When we got our clothes back, sopping, we grabbed another cab back to our hotel.

That night we explored more of the neighborhood our hotel is in. Beijing is a completely different city than any city I've been in. Nearly every building we saw was no more than 10 years old, the same could be said about the roads and infrastructure. The city is also designed differently. The streets are incredibly wide, 5 lanes in each direction in many places, and the buildings are very squat. Most of the buildings are huge, but very rarely more than 25 stories. We both thought it was odd that this huge metropolis wasn't building more skyscrapers. We also noticed that entire buildings were vacant. The visibility in the city was also horrible. We couldn't see more than 2 blocks away. The Chinese all called it fog. I'd like to think I know a little bit about fog since I lived in San Francisco for 5 years, but this wasn't like the fog I'm used to.

Our second full day in Beijing was our first day with our tour. We met the rest of the group in front of the hotel and we quickly realized this was going to be a good group. There were 10 other people besides us plus two guides. There was a good variety in ages as well. The first stop in our tour was the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace was home of the emperor of China during the Summer (obviously). It's a large walled palace with a lake inside. There are pagodas galore at the Summer Palace. There is also the longest corridor in the world connecting many of the pagodas. On the lake is the world's largest marble boat. It doesn't float, but it looks cool. After traveling the world for a month and a half, we've seen a lot of palaces. The Summer Palace was the first 'Oriental' styled palace and very cool.

Following the Summer Palace we were taken to Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City. Tian'anmen Square actually wasn't as big as I was expecting, but it was very cool to be there. The square was very well guarded with metal detectors and x-ray screening. It goes without saying that there were lots of security personel there as well; police, security gaurds, and military. We were also told by our tour guide that there are lots of secret police in civilian clothes. Some of the guards are standing at attention in the square with fire extinguishers at their feet. We obviously thought it was weird, but our guide informed us that they do this because some protestors will burn themselves with gasoline in the square and the gaurds are there to prevent them. Totally crazy. We didn't get a chance to see Chairman Mao in his pickled state in the basement, but his oversized picture was very prominant.

That night Lara and I and two other people from the tour, Tim and Chloe, hit up the town. Tim and Chloe are our age, really cool, and like to party. Our tour guide gave us a suggestion on an area in Beijing with lots of bars, Hutong District. The bar scene in Beijing is different. The location looked cool, lots of music playing, lights shining and people everywhere. However, on closer inspection every bar is a karaoke type bar with a person or band singing. Of all the bars like this, probably 20, not a single person sang well. In fact, most sang horrendously. We spent most of our time finding a bar that didn't sound like it had a cat dying in it. Another thing different about the bars in Beijing is that you are supposed to negotiate the price of beers before you go in. At one location the promoter/bouncer decided negotiations had stalled so he dragged me into the bar, half joking.

For our third day in Beijing we toured the Great Wall, visited the Olympic sites, and took a bicycle rickshaw ride of the Hutong District. Seeing the Great Wall was awesome. But, in a reoccurring theme in China, it wasn't real. The wall we were taken to, just outside of Beijing, was reconstructed just one mile in each direction from the freeway. For most people it looks real and it's a great sight. However, if you climb it for the 1 mile or so, you come to the end. Apparently I ate something bad the day before and my stomach wasn't having any climbing the Great Wall, but Lara, Tim and Chloe climbed the wall. When I say climb, I really mean do mean climb. Each step was about 8 inches wide and 14 inches high, try doing that for 1 mile.

As I mentioned, I had a little upset stomach in Beijing. Having an upset stomach in China is absolutley horrible. Most of the bathrooms I visited weren't 'western', i.e. they were holes in the ground with no toilet paper, heat, or soap. The time I spent in the bathroom at the tourist restaurant near the Great Wall was the worst bathroom experience I've ever had, I'll leave it at that.

The Olympic area (Bird's Nest Stadium, Watercube, National Indoor Arena, and Fencing Stadium) is really cool. We all remember the great show that China put on in 2008. But get this, since the Olympics the Bird's Nest stadium has been used only twice. The Watercube is almost never used. And I can't imagine an arena used simply for fencing gets much use as well. Next to the Olympic venue is a series of high rises shaped like a dragon. I'm sure everyone saw them, one of the buildings has a huge screen in the middle of it. Almost all of the space inside the buildings looked empty. It really felt like China put on the most expensive and spectacular dog and ponny show in the world.

After the Olymipc venue we went back to the hotel. We got up early the next day and visited the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. Unfortunately, the weather was anything but heavenly. About 10 minutes into our tour of the Temple it started to snow. It goes without saying that it was very, very cold. The Temple of Heaven is a large temple built centuries ago with a tower pagoda in the middle and large, cavernous buildings surrounding it. Not a single building had heat and all of them were freezing. We took some pictures of the Temple, saw everything there, and got out quick. Our final stop in Beijing was the Beijing Domestic Airport. We had a the staple Chinese lunch in the Beijing Airport, Kentucky Fried Chicken. I don't know why, but the Chinese love the Colonel. We saw more pictures of Colonel Sanders than we did Chairman Mao, currency aside. I also have to say, the Beijing Airport is the nicest airport I have ever been in, it was also well heated.

Xi'an, China......