leg #2: travel China, Beijing

After Haikou, we flew up north to Beijing to see the Great Wall. I hadn't seen it yet, after nearly seven months in China, so I was definitely due, and it was on my friend's "must" list.

There are a few different places near Beijing to see the Wall. We didn't really care where we went as long as we saw the thing, so we just asked the front desk at our hotel if we should go in a tour group or just go by ourselves. They didn't speak great English, but they gave us directions by city bus (only one transfer!) and told us it would take an hour. And then they wished us good luck. Never a good sign...

We actually made it there without any problems, though it took two hours instead of one. We ended up at Badaling and actually passed two other spots to get on the Wall on the way. We were talking to ourselves/the driver the whole time saying, "Sir? Um, sir? I think you missed our destination... sir?" I actually would have rather stopped at one of the other places, as they were significantly less crowded, but Badaling had both newly restored Wall and old, decrepit, no-tourists-allowed-Wall, so that was cool to see.

Soooo many people. And it was a Tuesday.

Someone should tell them that this probably makes most Americans WANT to commit a nuisance.

Like so many other things that are really hyped up, it was cool, but still just a wall. Probably don't need to ever see it again. It was a really good hike though. The inclines and steps and whatnot were ridiculous. I managed in flip flops, but sneakers would have been the smarter plan.

Doesn't this look a bit like a roller coaster just before a drop?

Aside from the Wall, we hit 798 (we stayed at the art hotel down the street that I always stay at) and that was our two days in Beijing!

So, bathroom space isn't the hotel's selling point...

798 & the art hotel

Beijing I am not sold on; I would never want to live here or even stay for an extended period of time. But I am so completely sold on 798, I think could live in this little area (which is actually much larger than I initially thought). I'd have to become an eccentric writer or something, but I could probably manage that.

I'm sitting in a little second story cafe writing this morning and the ambiance is phenomenal. There's beautiful and random art all over, there was Spanish lounge music playing earlier but it has switched to the Beatles and there are two really sweet dogs and a kitten wandering around. They had the animals locked up and they were whining and sounded so sad I convinced the staff to let them out and now they're hanging out with me. I dig it.

Last night, I stayed at an "art hotel" that is a 20 minute walk down the street from 798. I checked a couple different places for a reasonable hotel to stay in that was in the city but in the same general direction as the airport, and this fit the bill and sounded interesting. I found it on Priceline, it didn't even show up on any of the Chinese websites I was looking at.

 

The hotel has three classes of rooms. They have the tiny cubbyhole looking rooms you think of when you think of China, which I almost stayed in for the experience, but you do not get your own bathroom and seeing as how I am about to head stay with a friend and her boyfriend for a week I figured I should enjoy a private bathroom while I had the chance. The next class of room is what I chose, an art room. They all have some kind of art taking up a whole wall and are small interior rooms. I wasn't planning to be in my room much, so it worked out quite nicely for me. The next class of room is really heavily themed art rooms that looked very cool. The design of the whole space of these is beautiful and they are all different. All of the rooms are pretty reasonable; I was definitely happy with the place! Maybe not the closest to any crazy clubbing nightlife, but that wasn't part of my plan for this trip anyway. I would stay here again.

Duh?

another adventure in Beijing: pt 3

After the game last night I stayed at my friend's sister's awesome apartment in Beijing.

In the interest of only being a small creep (as opposed to a major creep posting pictures of the inside of the apartment of people I just met), I'll just post this picture of their view of the center courtyard of their complex.

Today his brother in law left on a trip to Hong Kong and his sister had class, so we were left to our own devices. We headed over to 798 to explore. Even though I'd been before, 798 is definitely a place I could spend weeks in and not get bored, or see everything.

 

This was awesome; it's a hologram maze of a city!!!

Wall from the left...

...same wall from the right!

end of the maze

Racist much?

Tonight my friend had family time with his sister, so I did dinner solo in 798 and then a Chinese friend that I met in Tanggu who lives in Beijing met me out. We grabbed a few drinks in 798, but everything shuts down pretty early, so in the interest of doing something interesting but not staying out all night at a club we went to play pool. We played in the second basement level of a mall at a super crazy place you would never find not living in Beijing, and they randomly brought us watermelon.

Tomorrow I'm headed back to 798 solo again for more art before my flight to Korea tomorrow evening!

slacking excuse #1: 798

As anyone keeping up with me daily knows, I haven't posted in a few days. I have had a friend from Songyuan visiting me in Tanggu and we have been going on adventures. It's been a crazy couple of days, during which nothing has worked out as planned, but everything has been awesome. He's leaving in the morning and I am gearing up for a really long weekend of teaching, which I am also very behind in lesson planning for, but I will share the first post about adventures tonight!

On Tuesday I met my friend in Beijing and we went to 798, which is a very cool little gallery district. We only had a few hours there and I could honestly spend a couple of days going through all of the little shops, galleries and cafes. 798 has been my favorite thing in China so far.