Zhaojialou Hotel Beijing

... and outwardly pretending to be horrified by its subpar quality, the lady took out a lighter, lit it and set it to my bag. I recoiled, ready run should the whole place go up in smoke, but it turns out that you can prove real leather to a resistant buyer (and their shrewd Chinese guide) by holding a flame to it. Later, as I was dithering over whether to buy a rather more expensive silk scarf, the saleslady did the same thing, but the scarf actually burned.
Xinghuo, Beijing, China marymc21

... him to it. So after dinner with YiMing and his friends, I had to get to the train station quickly because I was running late, boy was that a mistake. There was no line at the train station which was good. I was also able to find my platform relatively easily, which was better. The bad part was that YiMing was only able to get seats, instead of sleeper tickets. This means that I would be sitting all 8 hours to Qingdao. Not too bad when I first thought about this. But then when I actually ...

... br>
We walked to the Bird’s Nest, then had Italian in Sanlitun. Nice, but way pricier than imagined. Perhaps it was our comeuppance for not tipping the door guy after he kidnapped our bags earlier in the day. The next day we went to the Temple of Heaven and shopped a lot for tacky souvenirs.

After three visits to Beijing, I’ve become quite fond of it. In fact I would give it a thumbs up. Just don’t put your bags down…

Democracy banned in China1 That could be the headline, but in fact there is some level of grassroots democracy in China that most Westerners aren't aware of. We tend to think of China as ruled by the Communist Party but in reality the country is quite large and ***********trol, and there is a level of local autonomy, with elected village heads and local officials (admittedly sometimes ...

... night we went to The Bird's Nest with several other of Brian's colleagues. We saw the women's hammer throw....cool! Lets just say the women were handsome. Pole vault & track...saw a World Record happen. We sat in the NBC box...far away but comfy! First impressions: Brian looks fantastic..a sight for sore eyes! Love the Games and the sporting arenas. Love the dumplings, the beer, the people are very friendly and working so hard to be ...

... nationalism has often been a problem for the Chinese government. So officials are understandably wary when young people start to toss about nationalist slogans on the Internet and sometimes act quickly to rein things in. For instance, in April 2005, when anti-Japanese protests broke out across China in response to debates over the content of Japanese history textbooks (and their portrayal of World War II events), internet censors quickly added the word "demonstration" to their ...

... us in a way that we should go. We had no idea, but we channelled our inner Aboriginal tracker, and after 20 minutes, we found the road. It took another half an hour walking through slush to get back to the bus. We were shivering, yet Jennifer would not let us enter the bus until we had shaken the water off. Lunch was next, and we ate at a restaurant that had three stories and doubled as a cloisonné shop. Lunch was provided, and Jennifer did not join us ...

Bob was in no fit state to do anything today. However we both needed to sort out the train tickets to Xian. We managed to somehow communicate with the ticket office lady at Guloudajie subway to give us tickets for the underground to get to the Military museum stop. Upon arrival we had to walk about twenty minutes down yang fang dian lu to get to Beijing west train station. The que for the English speaking counter was full of Chinese and surprise ...

... up and they unscrew one lot and screw on the next lot. So next is the Mongolian side at 23:40 for their passport & visa check and this takes about 2 hours where you can be in bed (so you really need pyjama's) but cannot be asleep as the officials come into your cabin to deal with you and finally after what seems like ages they finish and let you sleep (doing nothing all day except socialising is really very tiring :)).

... luch breaks, and I just loooove these potatoes. I have also become strangely addicted to ginger candy, as I now crave for a bit of spice in my food. I cannot seem to find low fat milk, and i found it very strange in the beginning that they DRINK yogurt, instead of eating it. Beijing nightlife: Well..THAT i didnt expect. It is mad out here. Clubs/bars/live bands...everything you might want, they've got it. Something opens up every other week ...