Final thoughts on China...off to Vietnam!

My last two days in the city were great.  I met up with Joe again to go see the Summer Palace - the vacation home of the emperors and another great Chinese meal.  Later that night, I met up with a friend of a friend, Maggie, and she brought me to a dinner and drinks with a bunch of her Chinese school friends - the place definitely reminded me of NYC - there was no menu, you pay a flat fee plus drinks and they just bring you whatever they were serving that night.  Delicious!!  The coolest part, however, was that both the restaurant and bar were tucked away in the quiet little Hutongs, so unsuspecting but awesome!

The Summer Palace from across the lake

Clearly the lake is a hazard - no romping!

MN in Beijing!

After a bit more wandering around some of the Hutongs the next morning, it was time to say goodbye to China for now and hello to lovely Vietnam.  Luckily, 3 years  of consultant travel are also still paying off because the airline I flew is part of the Sky Team Alliance with Delta, so I got access to the lounge which was an amazing recharger - they served a full-on hot meal and endless amounts of free snacks, drinks and wine :) (Yes OW people, think delta lounge x3)!  I think my fellow loungers were a bit confused as to why this backpacker chic was a) allowed entrance and b) hoarding the food to bring with me on the plane since I clearly didn't look malnourished...

My final thoughts on Beijing - Overall, it was a great experience. I definitely appreciate the bustle and energy of the city as an honorary New Yorker.  It's also incredibly easy to get around on public transit, even as a foreigner with no Chinese skills!  One of my favorite parts was exploring the Hutongs, the traditional Chinese neighborhoods were 20% of the Beijing population lives.  These still have traditional architecture and are a great way to get a feel for the culture. The pollution, however, is terrible and very real - there is a constant foggy haze that covers the city - as Joe said, it looks a bit post apocalyptic.  Before I got to Beijing, some people asked me if I had a mask to wear around.  I was a little surprised at this, but after 2.5 days of solid walking, I definitely felt it in my lungs.  By the time I left, I would start feeling very tired and a bit ill after walking around for just an hour.  This was really surprising, but as the Brits and I were thinking it through in the huge hostel, we decided that it was basically like walking around with constant mild carbon monoxide posioning.  The city and the general standard of living is much different than anything I've seen before...men and women spit everywhere, toilets are just holes in the ground and my personal favorite, babies and toddles wear assless chap style pants with open holes in the crotch so they can just go to the bathroom, whenever and wherever they want!!

Assless chap pants - yes I of course I captured this

One word on being a blond in china, especially one that towers over 95% of the population...people stare and take pictures all the time.  I was totally fine with people who asked to take pictures with me or those who tried to be stealth and hide it (clearly not successfully), but it was a bit weird when some people would just run up to you and grab your arm while their friend snapped away.  That's all I've got on China, stay tuned for scenes from Vietnam.

Favorite packed items so far: Purell!! Hiking boots and my ever so fashion forward hiking pants :)

Hitting all the sights....

My second full day in Beijing was action packed.  I woke up early to go to the forbidden city which was the home to 24 Chinese emperors.  It's a massive complex with over 800 different buildings and is supposed to be one of the must-sees in Beijing.  Overall it was great - the sheer size and grandeur of the buildings coupled with the ornate detail was a really interesting combination.  While the big, more famous spaces were impressive, I actually enjoyed exploring more of the smaller side areas where no one else was around and you could really appreciate the beauty of the space because it was so much closer to you.

Different scences from the Forbidden City

Once I left the forbidden city, I ventured to the Jingshan park which has "highest hill in Beijing," giving you a  birds eye view of the forbidden city and the surrounding area.  I was originally just going for the quick look, but I ended up spending a lot more time the than I originally planned.  First, it was just a lovely place to be.  They had flower gardens in bloom everywhere that were still covered with water droplets from the rain a few hours earlier.  Second, when I got to the top of the hill, there was a temple building  that housed a gigantic gold Buddha where all of the Chinese visitors were praying....very cool to see.

View of the Forbidden City from Jingshan park

After a quick lunch, I headed out to meet a Minnesotan family friend, Joe, at the 2008 Beijing Olympic facilities.  The facilities were cool but there's also this massive beautiful park that was built as a haven for the games, so we walked around the area for a few hours and caught up on life and had Joe tell me more about his time living in china.
Finally, I ended my day some of the famous Beijing Peking duck at dinner with some Brits from my hostel at one of the highly recommended spots for locals.  As the Brits would say, "it was a very nice spread!"

First 36 hours in Beijing!

Sorry for the delay!  I wasn't smart enough to set up my blogsplot workaround before I left for China, but here's what's been going on.  First, my awesome uncle Scott, the one who got me the flight pass, just so happened to be flying through Newark the morning of my flight to Beijing so we got breakfast and he saw me off.  The flight was totally fine, lots of sleep and movie watching - I didn't quite know what to do with myself without my work email and an endless to do Iist.  It was also lucky that I made it out - apparently ~20 minutes after my flight took off, my uncle said that they closed down Newark for the next half day because they discovered a crack in the runway.

So I arrived in Beijing on Tuesday afternoon and made my way to the hostel.  Even though I was exhausted, I went to the outdoor food market (like Chinese schmorgasburg for my New Yorkers) with 4 Europeans from my hostel where there was a huge assortment of delicious eats from things like mushu
pork and dumplings to super bizarre foods like starfish, pigeon and scorpion.  We also walked to see Tiananmen Square which is actually way cooler at night because it's a massive lit up picture of Mao Zedong!

One of the night market vendors

The next morning, I woke up early for my Great Wall hike - my primary motivation for coming to Beijing.  The Great Wall is actually not that close to the city- it ended up being a 3 hour drive from my hostel.  Of course, I had been chugging water all morning to prep for the hike.  Turns out Chinese highways don't have rest stops, instead, the dudes just get out and pee on the side of the highway.  Awesome.  While I assured my guide that I could manage with some of the small shrubbery by the side of the road, I think they were mildly appalled by the idea so we stopped off at one of the more rural farming communities so if could use their public facilities.

Now onto the real fun - when I was planning my Great Wall hike, I obviously chose the most aggressive version possible to maximize my "fitness."  I don't know if it was the snake I had eaten the prior night, the fact that my body thought it was supposed to be sleeping or a whole host of other excuses, but it kicked my butt.   The Great Wall is incredibly hilly with ups and downs on steep stairways and oftentimes quite narrow paths.  I'm so glad I chose the hike I did because it was on a much less popular part of the wall.  What that meant is that we saw no one else out there that day and most of wall had not be restored for tourist use.

The farmer's house where we started our hike

Just climbin' some big stairs!

Later that night, I was planning on eating a small dinner and going to bed early but I ended up going out for dinner and beers with one of my fellow countrymen (aka another tall blond Scandinavian guy) from the hostel who insisted on paying for everything because he needed to use up all of his yen before he left the next day.  Not a bad start to the trip...

And I'm off!

Today's the big day!  The two backpacks are full and the visas are ready but it still doesn't feel real.  It all starts with a long flight from NYC to Beijing where I'll be spending two months in China, SE Asia and Australia.  Hopefully the sleeping pills on the plane do the trick so that the 12 hour time change doesn't feel so weird when I arrive.

I'll post updates as much as I can...we'll see if China blocks blogspot :)