Marco Polo Parkside Beijing

... hotel with a few unexpected features. You do not put out the "Do Not Disturb" sign; instead you push a button & a small sign outside your door lights up. The room also has a doorbell so they staff do not knock, they ring the bell. Another surprising feature was the bathroom walls. So picture this.... there I am sitting on the throne & I flip on the light & the fan which are right beside the "throne". I see the light go on ...

... hip hop type<br>music), play a game similar to hackysack, play cards, sing and play<br>all sorts of games and gatherings. This was a special time for us<br>and we all had a great time. We wished we could have spent a few<br>hours there instead of one. The locals encouraged the girls to join<br>in and it was fun to watch. <br><br><br>After the Temple of Heaven we went to a<br>traditional Tea and then a silk plant. We saw how the silkworms<br>cocoon was ...

... close walking distance from here is Salitan Yashow Clothing Market. I had one thing on my mind when I went here- shoes. We both got a pair of All-Stars for $8 each. We had to bargain hard, but I saw them in a store for that cheap so I figured they would do it. Of course they start out saying "impossible" and then when you walk away they agree. It's not very fun shopping like that though.<br><br>I took Chris around town for ...

... all of them had a solar panel on the roof of the houses &amp; without fail everyone looked really happy. I didn't see any water on the way back into Beijing that wasn't thoroughly frozen. The land here is devoid of life at this time of year; even the evergreen trees had given up their green &amp; stood a freezing olive colour. Anything that wants to survive here must get itself well hidden deep underground. Aside from flying over Greenland &amp; Northern Canada I've never ...

........... to an amazing trip. Just walked in the door at the end of your basic 29-hour travel day. Got up at 5 a.m. Beijing time to catch 6 a.m. bus to airport. Cleverly left my wonderful little alarm clock in the hotel (old-fashioned non-digital Swiss Army knife variety that has been with me to Galapagos Islands, Israeli-occupied Egypt, Beijing and everywhere in between; a real tragedy to have lost it ...

Hello everyone, There are times when life seems too good to be true. I have at long last found an apartment, no, palace to stay in. For the next two-and-a-half months I will be staying with a very nice plastic surgeon and retired molecular biologist right beside the Summer Palace in north-western Beijing. Their daughter is on an exchange in Colorado but will be back at the end of the month and she is right around my age. I have only seen my wing (there are three) but it ...

On Tuesday of this week, a bunch of friends and I went out for a little bit of sightseeing after classes (it felt a bit like some sort of After School Adventure Club, although I'm sure we're much much cooler...maybe. ) to see the Beijing Underground City. The Beijing Underground City is a series of tunnels and rooms- a bomb shelter really- constructed by "volunteers" between 1969-1979, when Mao was afraid that the Soviets (or anyone) were going to drop a ...

... eagerly run up to us with their cameras in hands. There are a total of 120 students in the TBC (the Beijing Center) program which is section of the UIBE (University of International Business and Economics) a very prestigious school that the local Chinese students attend. In addition to the 120 students which are from the US, there are other international students from the world such as Denmark and Australia. The campus is so diverse its so ...

Finally, after routing through HK, we arrived at Beijing. Our contact arrived at the airport to pick us up. As expected, he was a tall, chubby guy and it was relatively easy to spot him at the airport. As we got our luggage, walking through the hall way to go through the Immigration, we noticed that there were quite a few booth selling SIM cards for travellers. It was quite convenient. Since we don't really know how ...