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China Journal
Tuesday, October 31st
A nice normal day at the office. Same old routine-returning call and emails, checking interest rates, making sure my last closing is done. The phone rings. It’s Mike asking if I’m free for the next two weeks and if I can leave in a couple of hours for China. I check my schedule, move things around and head out the door to pack. By 5 pm, I’m on a plane to New York to hopefully connect to Beijing the next day.
Wednesday, November 1st
Because of a connection in Houston, we don’t get into the New York till 2 am. Since it’s so late, we decide to sleep in the crew room and get up around 6 am to go to the Chinese Consulate in New York so we can get our visas right away and catch the next flight to Beijing or Hong Kong. Unfortunately, when we get to the consulate, they inform us that the visas won’t be ready till 4 pm so we will miss the flight to Beijing and our back up to Hong Kong. More bad news, somehow I lost my brand new BlackBerry on the way to the consulate. And we left our bags in the crew room so we have to go all the way back to the airport to get them since we are now spending the night in New York. Rough start.
So we back track all the way to Newark Airport checking every nook and cranny for my BlackBerry on the way back. Finally make it back, pick up our bags and make a reservation at a hotel near Time Square. We head back to the city and check into the hotel. From the hotel, I call my BlackBerry about a bagillion times hoping someone will answer. No one does so I finally decide I might as well check voicemail. Amazing, there is a message from the person who found it with his number. I call him to find out he is only about 3 blocks from where I am staying. What are the odds of that? I run down the street to his office and pick it up thanking him profusely the entire time.
Things are looking up. I found my phone, the visas are ready and we have a comfortable place to sleep for the night. That night, we head out to check out the city but things are very quite since it’s the night after Halloween.
Thursday, November 2nd
We wake up in the morning and head to the airport to catch the flight to Beijing. The flight is overbooked and it looks unlikely that we will get on since we are flying stand by. Over the years, I have nicknamed myself the “Standby Kid” because no matter how crowded the flight, somehow/someway I always make it on. The Standby Kid strikes again and we get on the flight. A mere 14 hours from landing in China.
Friday, November 3rd
In flight movie is “Talladega Nights”. Problem with this is that we are now going to be screaming “Shake and Bake” all the way through China.
We finally get to Beijing and make it through customs and dig around our bags for Lonely Planet China. For those of you that don’t know. Lonely Planet is the source of all my powers when I travel. This is how I find all the cool places to stay, the local sights and restaurants, what to buy, history, everything. Without it, Id be a pathetic tourist who would just book week long all inclusives in Cancun once a year. The problem is the Lonely Planet isn’t in either one of our bags and we are pretty sure we left it at the hotel in New York. This just sucks! Our only alternative is to go online at the airport internet café and see if we can find a room. Using my Sheraton Card points, I’m able to book a room at the Westin in the Financial District of Beijing.
When we get to the hotel, we are blown away. It is NICE! A full 5 star hotel that just opened a few days ago. We are among the first guest. Normally, I don’t travel like this. I like to stay where the locals stay and eat at the dive restaurants but I have to admit, I can live with this. Especially when I find out the roof top restaurant has free food and drinks for breakfast, happy hour and dinner. And this is not your cheesy hotel buffet, this is full out gourmet food and anything you can imagine to drink.
My points were only supposed to pay for one night but we decide to stay for three.
Saturday, Sunday and Monday
We venture out from the hotel to check out a few shops, Forbidden City and a few more sites. It’s nice but we feel very isolated from the real China because of the hotel. Once we get back to our room, we might as well be in Austin. After three days, we are actually happy to be moving to a hostel in the middle of a cool Chinese neighborhood.
Tuesday
We pack our bags and take a taxi across town. The place we were staying was probably around $400/night. Now, we are checking into a place that is $30/night for both of us. When we walk into the lobby, we are pleasantly surprised. The hostel is spotless with a great restaurant and travel center. Our room is a cute, clean double with a private bath. Believe it or not, both of us are actually happier here than the fancy hotel. Especially after we hit the streets. Unlike the Financial District which is cold and very western, this neighborhood has everything; cool parks, shops, restaurants, people, traffic. It’s alive and definitely nothing that you would see in Austin. We spend the rest of the day exploring this area and just wandering around.
Wednesday
Ok, we’ve been in China for 4 days now and honestly, we really haven’t seen anything. We’re starting to feel a little guilty. Normally, I’m running around like crazy on one of my trips and I’m a little disappointed with the pace of this one. Loosing the book set me back a little but we found one on Tuesday so that is no longer an excuse. Time to make up for lost time…
Tian-an-men Square
Temple of Heaven
Electronics Market
Clothing Market
Pearl Market
Hutongs (traditional Chinese Neighborhoods)
In one day, we manage to see almost all the sights in Beijing. After a traditional Chinese dinner, we head back to the hostel since we have to wake up early to see…
Thursday
The Great Wall
We wake up at 6 am to catch a bus to the Great Wall at 7:30. It’s a long three hour bus drive that concludes with the song “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver as we pull up to the section of the wall that we decide to see . For some reason, this song is HUGE in China. We heard in constantly, in the bus, at the restaurants and bars, in the stores. They must really love West Virginia, that mountain mama. The section of the wall we go to is basically 4 miles uphill all the way. Some of the grades are 70% or more. You almost have to crawl up. But the views and geography are spectacular. The Great Wall is 1500 miles long and built to keep the Mongols out. Didn’t really work but it makes for one hell of a tourist destination now. After a four hour climb, I decide to take a zip line down to the little town where the bus will pick us up. This is relatively easy and fun and I’m back down in a matter of minutes.
Friday
Our last day in Beijing. For our last day in Beijing, we decide to rent bicycles and experience the town like the locals do. We pay our $1.50 rental fee and we’re off. Unfortunately, we get separated almost right away so we end up pedaling our separate ways for a couple of hours. This gives me a little time to find some good street food which I love and Mike hates. I buy a couple of puffy rolls with chicken inside. Mmm, mmm good. Slowly, I head back to the hostel around noon and meet up with Mike at the internet café.
We head back out and explore all over Beijing. By this point, my legs are in pain from the day before and I can barely peddle because the seat on this damn bike was designed by a sadist. Somehow I manage to keep going and slowly we make it to the night market where a variety of foods are being offered up for sale. Crickets, grasshoppers, starfish, sea horse, etc. While I love street food, I decide to pass on most of this stuff take pictures of it in lieu of eating it.
After a day of pedaling, we go back to the hostel to clean up a little for out last night in Beijing. Yada, Yada, Yada, the next morning we wake up and catch a flight back home.
A few things I forgot to mention:
The People
Every single person we met in Beijing was incredibly nice and sweet. From the shopkeepers, hotel clerks, people on the street, everyone. This may be one of the friendliest places I have ever visited.
The Food
Every now and then, we would get something a little funky. Like the time we ordered garnished chicken and got a bowl of chicken bones. But for the most part, the food was good, if not a little oily. Sure you could find places that served snakes, starfish, seahorse, crickets, roaches and other unusual foods but for the most part, your basic stir fried chicken was available everywhere.
Peking Duck: Everyone know Beijing’s most famous dish is Peking Duck. One evening, Mike and I decided to head to one of Beijing’s most famous/oldest restaurant’s to try this well known local delicacy. The duck came out and looked beautiful. It was a nice duck breast with skin, some flour “tortillas”, plum sauce and chives. We rolled up some duck like you would a fajita, put the garnishings on it and gave it a try. It really wasn’t very good. We did our best to make it look like we ate a lot of it by moving it around the plate ( a technique I perfected as a kid) and hoped our waiter wasn’t offended by our simple western taste as we left the restaurant.
Shopping
It’s overwhelming. Way too much of everything. People always talk about how cheap China is but it’s really hard to buy anything because the stores have so much going on. There are a million salespeople, a billion products and a trillion places to buy it. It makes it hard for a simple man like me to focus.
Despite the slow start, this was a good trip. I’m forgetting a million details but it’s hard to type everything we saw. I think I’m going to go back sometime soon.
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