The Trip So Far

Greetings from  Beijing! This is my third day here and what an adventure it's been so far (and we haven't even made our way to Tibet!).

Ching and I met early Friday morning to head to the airport for our 6 hour flight to Beijing. The plan was to arrive at 3ish, make our way to the hotel by 5ish and then maybe head on to town and try the famous Peking duck (yeah, even though they are only 12 days old and chock full of steroids). We also wanted to walk around town and try some of the local foods.

Plane ride was pretty smooth- lots of Chinese people going back home. An hour to landing at Beijing, the flight captain comes on the speaker and announces that there is a thunderstorm at Beijing and that he was unable to land there and that we had to land in Wuhan "for an hour or so". WTF?! Ching and I laughed out loud though, Wuhan happens to be the hometown of our massaeuse. LOL.

Anyway, one hour turned to six and it was amazing how much patience we had. Perhaps it was because we were together, and that we were in a holiday mood. We finally made it to Beijing, landed at 10pm and arrived at the hotel at 10.30pm or so. Was too tired to do anything so we showered and slept.

Woke up the next morning and had breakfast at the hotel. This hotel caters to local people and the food was so unappetising. We headed out to see the Great Wall (we went to huang hua chang cheng) and then to the Summer Palace (yi hua yuan). I had a horrible heat headache at the end of the day, but I think it was quite worth it. The portion of the wall that we went to was unrestored, so everything was in its original form and all crumbling, but so beautiful.

Checked out of the hotel (it was too far from anything) and checked in to a hotel nearer to town. Had dinner at a restaurant within walking distance and then went back to sleep. Now it's time to head out for breakfast (dou jiang and you tiao!) and then we'll go to the Temple of Heaven (tian tan), Tiananmen square and the Forbidden City. Then we will go to the train station tonight and then 2 days on the train. Whee! Oh man, the getting the train tickets in itself was such a nightmare. Wen had to call and call and call and call, a million times, before we could get our train tickets.

Anyways, time to leave. Will probably check back in when I'm back in Singapore. Taa!