Welcome to Beijing

We arrived in Beijing - Pudong International airport at around 2:25 and after clearing customs we were picked up by a trusty looking guy, who I assume to be the hostel owner in a VW. We proceeded to drive straight towards the hostel. Beijing drivers are a bit on the aggressive side and tend to make heavy use of the horn. And you can expect them to attempt to pass the car in front of them at least 2 times a minute. A lot of Beijing is under construction in preperation for the Olympics and it is really amazing how much the city grows every day. There are rows upon rows of planted bushes lining the highway. And aparently city planning has made no subtle efforts to flaunt everybody with signs of famous Chinese athletes and people giving a thumbs up on the hundreds of 2008 Beijing Olympic signs.

A view from the doorstep of our hostel. This picture serves no justice of the liveliness of the area.

Our hostel is located in the Hutong area, which is a very traditional neighborhood setting. The streets there are pretty narrow compared to the other parts of Beijing and are paved with tile. All the buildings are at least 200 years old and it seems like a very friendly area. Its not that close to the main road so the sounds of traffic will not agitate. I've found that Hutong is a kind of place that really comes alive at night. There are a lot of foreigners of all ages here who eat at the various restaurants and bars that line the street

Right after we got here we went to the grocery store to shop for water and other various snacks. The food here is surprisingly cheap. A half liter, or a poland spring sized water bottle costs only .60 RMB, which is literally about 6 cents. An iPod shuffle goes for about 25 US dollars, a third of the cost back in the states. We got at least 6 bags worth of drinks and food for around 20 US dollars.

We've all been eating well and getting food is definitely not a problem. I've found out that Ben Will and Jesse havea low tolerance for spicy food. The first night we had dinner at a Szechuan resteraunt that was capped with a live performance by what can be best described as a firebreathing kung fu magic artist, seriously.

The performer. He somehow is abled to change the mask on his face without us noticing.

The hike can get really steep at points and sometimes, when the tiling is flat and not stepped it can feel somewhat like a slide. It's very tiring.

There's a lot of walking involved in Beijing. And today (June 13) we went to the Simatai section of the Great Wall. Its remarkably in good condition and all day starting from about 10:30 to 2:15, we hiked up a winding 9 kilometers. Its basically just a really old and really long stairmaster circuit, once again you can find pictures on the blog. Simatai is less crowded than the more popular Badaling section and that has its pros and cons. For starters there are less tourists, so the hawker to tourist ratio is much higher that means they have more time to bug you into buying a t-shirt or a picture book. I mean honestly, who would buy a picture book about a place we are at, especially if we're taking pictures right in front of them? The best way is to shake your head and say no.

the suspension bridge over the river

At the end of the hike there's a paraglide station where you can zip over the river. None of us were brave enough to do it.

The car ride back was about 3 hours long and we passed by a lot of farm land and rural houses. There are a lot of wild dogs running around. It really feels like the countryside. It's located outside of the Beijing municipality so technically we were in Hebei, a Chinese province. From time to time we'll see flocks of sheep walking around the forest. We'll also see a bunch of cattle in a truck. I have a complaint about Beijing and that is that there is a constant smog in the skyline. This is because of the massive amounts of air polution coupled with the seasonal dust storms. Air humidity doesn't help either. You will never actually be able to see the sun because the smog is so heavy. However the smog adds as a filter and allows for a relatively even backlighting.

After we got back at around 6:00 we went for a walk. Originally we thought that we would just get a bunch of meat skewered on a stick, roasted over a flame of course. Its pretty cool how they do it. There is just a hole in the wall where they light a fire and then stick the meat over the gril.Then we thought we would go for some fabled Peking Duck. Parts of Beijing certainly feels third-world but somehow we wound up at Wangfujin, an shopping area full of neon lights and modern looking signs.

Wangfujin, and its only just starting to crowd.

Inside the shopping center where we ate.

We wound up eating at a Sushi bar, where they place sushi on a conveyer belt and you can just pick at your leisure as the sushi swings around before your eyes (Will has pictures but he went to sleep). Originally we only went inside the shopping center where it was located because we wanted to go to bathrooms which had toilet paper. But then we were enticed by the conveyer belt. It took about 50 minutes to walk to there and on the way we walked around the Forbidden City by mistake you can see the Forbidden City pictures later, when we actually go inside it. It takes a lot longer than it looks. We took a taxi back to the hostel where I conversed with the driver in Mandarin. The language barrier is there, but its easily crossable even if you don't speak the language.

The internet here is pretty slow and its a pain to upload pictures. Hopefully Shanghai's internet will be faster.