We spent three days in
Beijing, China at the beginning of our trip. Beijing feels like a
bit of a second world country. It is very polluted, with people
still burning coal in their homes for heat. Most of the streets are
lined with stores that look run-down, and in one we noted that on every
counter was an abacus, presumably in place of a cash register.
Eating in Beijing was a
little bit unsatisfying. They don't use spices (not even salt) and
we didn't see soy sauce once while we were there. We were served
beef in a skillet shaped like a cow, which made us more skeptical about
what we were eating. But our Peking Duck was delicious and Matt
tried Sharks Fin Soup.
Getting around Beijing was
relatively easy, if just a little bit dangerous. There are now
more cars than bikes on the road in Beijing, but it is clear that cars,
bikes and pedestrians all share the road with equal right of way.
In fact, in some places people were driving on the wrong side of the
road with cars coming at them on the left and the right.
We went on a couple of tours
that were guided by women in the tourist industry who spoke English very
well. Outside of our tour guides and the hotel staff, however,
very few people spoke English. We had to carry around the written
name of our hotel so if we got into a cab we could tell them where we
were going.
Our first stop was The Great
Wall of China.