Crowne Plaza Beijing

Aft** the first leg *f the flight (12-**********ing-h*urs sitting in a small chair), I had a night's st*p *v** in Beijing. Little did I kn*w, China was/is a little bit *f a h*le. Well.. the part I was in anyway.. I had a shuttle awaiting my grand arrival at the Airp*rt and we then dr*ve (*n the wr*ng/*th** side *f the r*ad) thr*ugh what appeared t* be the aft**math *f an at*mic b*mbing t* the H*tel... Dirt r*ads, cars driving wh**ev**/whenev**, n* street lights, real h*t and p*lluted. Pe*ple ...

We're out of Xi’an early and en route to Beijing. Xi’an has constructed a new airport, but our flight left from the old section, a large, dimly lit room with an overabundance of cheap electronic toys and an underwhelming selection of food. The effect of the mostly empty room, the early hour, and the beeping and buzzing of hundreds of the same toy was eerie. Our flight into Beijing was thankfully uneventful.

We’re staying at the Crowne Royal here in the country’s...

This was a day in which we were forced to eat at McDonalds, were stood up for dinner, subjected to a form of aural torture, and got caught in a torrential downpour. This was also my favorite day in China, and one of the highlights of our vacation.

In the morning, we struck out in the direction of a mall we'd passed several times thinking there would be a variety of breakfast options to fortify us for our trip to the Great Wall. Time was short (our driver was to meet us at 9am), and by...

At my first job out of college I had this fantastically eccentric boss who would occasionally approach me and say, "MB, I think this day started without me, it's already in progress. Should we pretend it's 10AM and catch up?" She also didn't use a computer and wore the same purple suit from Lord & Taylor every day, but I took that little pearl with me and feel it's appropriate for our last full day in Beijing.

We slept way beyond the dreaded automatic voice urging us that "this was our...

I arrived in China on March 14, 2007. I stayed at the Crowne Plaza on Wangfujing Avenue. It is a very good hotel and a good location. The next morning I took a flight to Jinan on Shandong Airlines. As seems typical for a Beijing airport, the flight was delayed one hour leaving due to congestion or too much air traffic.

Since I have more time to spend on the Internet I would like to switch gears and go back to how this trip first started. Originally, I had planned to teach for four weeks in Beijing during the summer. But before my assignment started, I wanted to see other major cities of China. My good friend Dan and his younger brother David and I decided to go on a 10-day tour of china. Dan is one of the teachers that I work with back in San Jose. Our journey began on a 747 jumbo jet flying out of SF to Be...

Hello all - well we made it........flights were great but long and we arrived on time at 3:45pm local time.... 21 Celsius and smoggy.....very heavy pollution !!!! We were greeted by Harry - our guide for the next few days - a nice young man with excellent English....taken to our Hotel and checked into a small but comfortable room.....dropped off the bags and off to explore the area. About 5 minutes after leaving the hotel en route for a Park next to the Forbidden City - we got lost in a maze ...

Met our Guide Miao Na at the Airport. She gave us a break down of our visit to Beijing and took us to our hotel, where we passed out until the next morning.

Today is China's National Holiday, which means 4.6 million people are here visiting Beijing. It also means there is some parade/national event at Tiananmen Square. So we have changed our tour a bit and we visited the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven.

The City is still full of people, so we are going to the majestic Mutianyu Great Wall to avoid the crowds at the end of the day. First we will go to the Sacred Way and the Ming Tomb. On our way we tried to see the Birds Nest (Olympic National Stadium) and the Water Cube (Olympic Aquatic Center) but again the crowds did not let us get close enough. We had lunch at the great local Sichuan restaurant, which had a great magician act on stage. At night we went to a famous Cantonese cuisine restaur...