Home Inn Dahuisi Beijing

... were totally
messed up and we were up at 2am on the first night and 4.30am on the
second. Not good!

On Monday, we checked out of the hostel and met up with Stu (Drew's
friend). He was the BEST host ever... He took us to a wicked Irish Bar
(Danger Doyles) where he got us very drunk and introduced me to Mango
Martinis (the best drink ever!). He sorted out our trip to the Great
Wall which was awesome. Absolutely breath-taking! The Wall was followed
by ...

... dancing. The atmosphere was joyous and it was a great cultural experience. I could have sat in the Long Corridor people-watching for hours.
Walking around the Temple of Heaven offered many secluded areas nice for resting under the shade trees. There were flower gardens, fountains, and various temples hidden around the park. Jake also discovered his favorite bird - what he describes as looking like a flying-penguin. We tried to get a picture of it ...

... and we probably went around five of the stories, wandering around the stores, appreciating the weird Asian fashions. Around 4, our fatigue was starting to catch up with us. It hit hard and it hit fast. We found a Starbucks that we visited. One tall black coffee was 15 RMB, which is about $2.10 I don't know if that is how much it is at home, because I never order plain black coffee, and if I do I get a Vente iced Black Americano which is $2.50 ...

... back, trying to make you feel bad for offering too low of an amount for such "quality." We had a great time haggling and got a couple steals- i bought a really nice jacket for RMB90 and a pair of UGGS for RMB160 which is around $23. We coincidentally ran into another Drake grad there- he was with one of his friends that had been working in China for 11 years. He was telling us it's best to go to the silk market at night, during the week or a ...

Whew! We're exhausted! Last night, just before bedtime, a power surge went through our apartment and took out the voltage transformer/converter that I was using to charge our computer. The computer was spared, however, I will have to find another way to charge it in order to pull our photos into this blog. We slept very well last night, and got up early for a full day of gymnastics ...

... You would think finding a bicycle in Beijing would be very easy, and it is...do a degree. You see, everywhere you look, you'll find bicycle shops. In fact, on just about every corner of the city there is a grisly old bicycle repairman. He has a pump and patch kits, and a rolling repair shop with nuts, bolts, chains and anything else related to the bicycle family of vehicles. There he will sit all day, everyday, just in case somebody rolls ...

I'm almost on holidays! 4 exams and 44 hours from now (not that I'm counting down or anything...) I'll be starting my 5 and half weeks of vacation! Everyone here's getting a little burned out from school, so it will be a much appreciated bit of time off for sure. I've been planning a trip to Harbin in northeastern China with a few friends for a little while, so this weekend we finally had to go buy ...

... means there are beds on it, or just seats. They assured us beds, but the woman at the travel desk at the hostel seemed to not know anything, or maybe she did but she didn't give any of it away! As expected, and cos we gave ourselves plenty of time, we were late leaving for the bus station. We took a taxi, hoping he understood when we tried to explain by what time we had to be there. But all was fine, we got there with time to spare. I'll tell more in the next entry!

... to our hostel, which was a lot farther than we thought it was, and carrying all of our bags around was not fun. But it was a relief to get there. The hostel costed us about 8 US dollars a night per person. It was just basic, we had a room to ourselves with three bunk beds. I chose to sleep on the bottom that time. We figured out the subway system, and that was how we got around in Beijing. It was really cheap and very fast. That first night there, we went to this marketplace ...

... kan bare ikke rigtig sige nej, selvom det er lidt irriterende i laengden. Vi overvejede ogsaa at saette en lille forretning op paa muren, hvor folk kunne faa taget et foto sammen med mig - kun 20 Yuan! :) Kort oversigt over hvad vi har set og lavet: Tiananmen Square: Verdens stoerste plads, nok bedst kendt for massakren i 89, hvor statens tanks koerte over en masse pro-socialisme demonstranter. Hmm, den var ret stor, lidt kedelig og fyldt med mennesker. Men herfra kunne man se The ...