Day 1
Trip Start
Dec 27, 2005
1
2
20
Trip End
Jan 15, 2006
Beijing,
China
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
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The hotel is very luxurious and in a great part of town. The one thing I noticed immediately is how modern the city looks. You can tell that everything had been built up in the past 5-10 years. The negative part is you do not get a feel for how the ordinary people live.
The People
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So far the one thing that stands out is the outlook of the people. The Chinese young people that I have thus far encountered seem very confident & optimistic. Unlike the people in Japan (on another trip), the average person has no qualms about speaking to you in broken English. The street merchants have no qualms about grabbing you by the hand to force you to slow down & look at their "souvenirs"
3
. The "madams" on the street have no issues w/grabbing foreign looking individuals to ask if they would like to visit their "full-service" KTV w/lots of pretty girls. I guess despite being ethnically Chinese, the way I look, the way I dress, gives away that I am from the U.S. the fact that my friend Samir is traveling w/me only makes us stand out more. He is probably one of a handful of Indians that we've seen so far.I also have noticed that the locals are surprised by my Mandarin language skills. They've commented that my Chinese is surprisingly good. I can also feel that my brain is slowing adjusting to processing primarily in Mandarin. This immersion into a Mandarin speaking area has started to covert many of my thoughts to Mandarin.
Architecture
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New construction is everywhere. New skyscrapers are being built at every corner of the city. The cab driver mentioned that the city he knows has changed dramatically at a breakneck pace. Road construction is everywhere. New expressways & freeways are built seemingly overnight. It seems that the 2008 Olympics is really a huge driving force for "modernization"!
4
This is not to say that the city is completely a modern city. The outskirts of Beijing may still be rundown and not as glitzy as the city center. It seems that there is an effort to hide the ugly parts of town by building expressways over these areas. The best example is the airport expressway. At a 100 RMB toll, I highly doubt any locals use the road. Since it was dark when we got into town, I wonder what was along the side of the expressway for the 20km we traveled...
Dinner/Drinks
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Went for dinner @ MHH (My Humble House). The name in English is Horrible but I think the Chinese name is probably decent. It's just a case of bad translation. Food was excellent as we had a set meal. Light & tasty. The set we got was the cheapest one @ 380 RMB, but probably the most similar to stuff we have in S.F. The expensive stuff is mostly abalone or shark fin or some other weird seafood. We had a 5- course meal set. Appetizers were some sort of lamb shank stew served in a Martini glass. Next was some curry prawns (excellent, esp. since I don't like prawns in general). The winter melon soup was a great palate cleanser. Next came the peppered beef w/noodles. Spicy & very tasty. Finally had some sort of dark/white chocolate mousse cake
Hotel 1
. Also I got to try the local beer, Beijing Beer. Terrible as it is bland and flat.Since we were still jet-lagged, we just ended up chilling at the hotel bar the "Red Moon". It had very luxurious furniture & decorations. Ultra modern look to the bar. The layout was very narrow & long with cigar rooms all along the side. Drinks prices were comparable to the U.S. (Johnnie Walker Blue is ~$12). Live music here was pretty different. It was a group of 4-girls playing Motown & pop US classics. The unique part was that 2 of the band members were playing traditional Chinese instruments. Can't remember what they were called but it was a lute-like thing & 1-sting violin thing.
The bar patrons were stereotypical patrons you'd expect to find in Asia: Brit-looking expats, Taiwanese businessmen, Hong Kong businessmen, ABCs, & newly rich mainlanders. Nothing spectacular or interesting about the clientele. Basically old rich guys w/young women wait staff. Typical flirting between the wait staff and business men. I have to say, the mainland women aren't shy...
