Himalaya Hotel Beijing

... and I was very quickly out the door and over to the international arrivals exit. I checked the board and Luke’s plane from Toronto had landed. Now I just had to wait for him to get through customs and gather his luggage. I found an out of the way place near the entry for the rail link where I could still enjoy the benefit of air conditioning. This day in Beijing was insanely humid and the haze mixed with smog was so heavy that you could barely make out the ...

... Hut is close so it should be fine on that front. Fortunately I've met these people so the time will go faster. We also have a mini bar that is free and gets refilled every day so I have all the drinks I need to stay hydrated and such. It shouldn't be a terrible time, I actually think it'll be fun.

Now it's time to close up shop for the night...I'll keep in touch.

... Steen told us he ran tours to a completely empty part of the wall, we wouldn't see anyone and could hike for as long as we wanted. It was also about half the price of the other trips. This is classic tourist trap territory, you go on the tour, get in a minibus and get carted around gem shops and markets that you don't want to see, spend a few minutes where you want to be and probably get over-charged for the privelidge. But sometimes you just get a feeling to ...

... USA didn't play very well- they were giving away points on missed serves, etc. left and right. They ended up losing pretty badly 3-0. The one positive note was that I ended up getting a sweet seat at mid court near the front. Turns out, a guy's friend hadn't shown up for the event so he had the ticket for the seat next to him. Good thing too, because the seat nazis had that section on lock down. My plan B would have been to just jump the railing and ...

... I never knew: The chinese will often tell you that no one died when the police forcefully removed the student protesters from Tian'anmen Square. It turns out they're right. The massacres actually happened later that day in various sidestreets where the protests continued. A moot point really, but there you go. I met up with Dave and Jing (who's wedding it was in Sanya) and went out for a meal one night. We ...

... Sim Cards just before :-) At the hotel the English service wasn't much better, they could speak only 3 English words; hello,thank you and bye bye. My hotel (Master Inn) wasn't a western hotel and was 95% of the guest were Chinese. After a successful checking in, i finally arrived at my room, took a shower and went for a nap.

... caffeine I could once not live without and conersation is also nice. His flight was set to leave a half hour before mine so soon enough he was off to frankfurt and I was on the plane ready for a 7 hour flight home. This time I was not so lucky with the seats. I was in a middle seat between two really old english ladies. Don't get me wrong I have nothing against old people, it's just that their age and life experience (aka frustration) became a factor after a baby started crying ...

... the day before, and didn't look at the date the ticket was for. I asked it to be at the 23nd. but they gave me one for the same day i booked it; the 22nd... When i tried to get on they said i was one day late. Had to think fast, cause i really wanted to go on this train, and it was about to leave. So walked away from this ticket controlling guy, made a loop, ran past another controller at a different carriage, waving my ticket shouting ...

... at the home of these 2 yao ladies that we met along the way. they had approached us to take photos with them and thereafter followed us to their village called zhong liu, which was located at the jin ke rice terraces. it was really nice to visit the house of a local farmer and observed how the yao women cooked. lunch was simple but extremely filling with steamed rice, sweet potato ...

... not be a good time to come and visit China. (I'm just guessing) We hear from our hosts that breathing Beijing's air is equivalent to smoking 80 cigarettes a day, and I doubt that's too far off. Buildings disappear into the haze when you get about a block away, and it was a depressing view when we climbed the hill behind the Forbidden City to get an overall picture. All we could see was the first of twelve or so rows of buildings before ...