Aloft Beijing Haidian

... the
booth on the pavement before departure. We stopped at four different
sections of the wall, Badaling the most popular, commercial and
crowded, and three others where we were the only people we could see.Note:
Ensure that you get back to the minibus on time or the driver will
leave you. Times will be shouted out in Chinese so clarify with the
driver. One of the tricks I use while traveling in non-English speaking
Beijing, Beijing, China swatbolish

First impression of Beijing is a mix of rebuilt ancient monuments, actual ancient ones, more recent communist-style colossal squared buildings aligned along huge and straight avenues. All under a thick grey sky.
In 1215 the city was razed by Genghis Khan which paradoxically helped transform it into a huge capital city. Current development of the city ...

... a.m. and after dropping our stuff in our hotel room we were off. We had a 1-1/2 hour drive out to the village, a suburb of Xin Xiang. Feng's brother is a driver so we all piled in his van for the trip. The area of Feng's village is close to the Yellow River. The ground close to the river has clay in it suitable for making bricks, hence there are several brick factories. We stopped at one to see the process from start to finish. Most of ...

... i byen fredag aften. Der var 70/80'er-fest på et diskotek i Sanlitun, så endnu en gang var der en undskyldning for at iklæde sig glimmer og sølv. Efter et par timer fik vi nok af 80'erne, men så var det så heldigt, at der 15 meter derfra var en pladereleasefest for en tysk DJ. Det var en helt anden type fest, meget international og cool på den europæiske made. Jeg holdt ikke ud hele natten men tog en taxi hjem ved 2-3-tiden og glædede mig over, at mine taxi ...

... near Beijing's southern suburbs, more than 100 cars lined up Wednesday afternoon at the entrance to National Highway 107, awaiting a security check. The checkpoint was staffed by a dozen men in police and camouflage uniforms, several carrying weapons. Drivers and their passengers were asked to produce identification while security agents searched underneath the cars and opened suitcases. Foreign passport holders were singled out for extra scrutiny, and their IDs were checked ...

After a nice kip and hot shower we headed off to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China. There were five others on our little tour. Definitely good practice for Machu Pichuu. Bob had his first photo op, hopefully I'll be able to download the photos soon. On the 13th we mooched into town had a wander around Tian'namen Square, pondered on what the Palace Museum was ...

... walking for over an hour we realised it was no longer where the guidebook said it was. We gave up and headed to the nearest restaurant which was an interesting experience! A huge dish of tomato soup was placed in front of us and heated up on the table, to that was added yam, beancurd and spinach which we had to wait for to cook and be served out to us. Liv decided hiding the beancurd in napkins was a good idea whilst I tried to force it down my throat. We ran away as quickly as possible!

i'm finally starting to get used to hearing chinese all the time. before it seemed like i didn't understand a thing but now i'm starting to get the hang of it. Qi Long (the boy I'm living with) is pretty good about explaining stuff when I don't understand. This family's had a boy from Turkey live with them for a year I think, so they know what they're doing. I've had my first 'ke kou ke le' (coca cola) and ...

... whole city, this from a former communist country (in comparison Moscow has about 10)! Though, I must admit it is cheap (50 cents), clean and they are building more for the Olympics/future. We later found out that people rely more heavily on buses than the subway. We met up under the picture of Mao and began to have a look around and like moths to a candle, it started - "Do you speak English"? "I am a student, I have an free exhibition, please come and ...

... new. Old shops and markets with thousands of cyclists and pedestrians everywhere in the shadows of large, modern commercial office buildings. During the 15 hour train ride to Beijing, Jamie and I met a Chinese woman named Liu Yan, her mother and her baby Jiang Zi yu. She gave me a few tips about places to visit and things to see. This was a huge help considering Jamie and I come to China completely unprepared! We didn't have any books, guides ...