Beijing

Day 1 - Friday, 2/17

The day started with a 5am departure.  This meant that I had to wake up at 4:59am.  The only option to get to the airport at this time is a taxi because the airport express starts around 6am and hell if we try to mess with a bus.  The trip was pretty quick at about 40 minutes.  We got some McDonalds breakfast and got on our plane intending to pass out.  However, Hong Kong Airlines had to be awesome and have 30+ movies available!  I did not get any sleep but I did get to watch 50/50 and Moneyball.

How smart - a place to dump the water instead of just throwing it out

I think I eat more MCD in Asia than the US

A bun in my airplane food

Woah - that's a lot of apartment buildings

That's nice of them - too bad there aren't any available

The cab to the hostel was pretty ridiculous.  The city itself was massive with a lot of traffic, massive roads, and massive buildings.  The other part that made it ridiculous is that the cab driver wasn't able to find our hostel for a good 20 minutes.  He looked at our map, the directions we had in chinese, and even called the hostel twice.  However, going the last 100 meters took forever.

Walking down an alley to our hostel

Not trying to waste a moment, we decided to head out and check out the surrounding area.  We looked up a China Construction Bank ATM (because we are all Bank of America customers) and walked in that direction.  It turned out to be a good decision.  We came across a wide open walkway between shopping malls, a street market, and a dumpling place where we decided to eat.

Open Street between shops

Some poster in China Construction Bank

Street market

Does not look very appetizing

Bat?

Starfish?

Making our dumplings

Got the variety pack - it was aite

Where we ate

When we got back our attempts to make the most of our time fell flat on our face.  Without a plan, our early wake up, our attempt to keep moving, and a heavy lunch, we ALL fell asleep.  Miraculously, I woke up 2 hours later and saw that my friend had emailed me back with her contact information.  She invited all of us to join her "Welcome to Beijing" party and boy was it a party.

Getting Ready to Leave?

Getting to my friend's cousin's apartment was an adventure.  We had the directions in Chinese which helped a lot but we hit traffic and once we got to the complex it was also another issue.  I did not have a chinese sim card and.. I had no idea what the directions in chinese meant.  After 10 different conversations and a nice gentleman that let me use his cell phone, we were finally inside seeing familiar faces.

We were given seats at the table where they were having hot pot.  They also had about 40 big bottles of beer.  The dinner was amazing.

Feast!

Afterwards, they had a table reserved at Xiu.  We climbed into their cars and was treated to an extravagant night of live music and bottle service.  We closed the place down.

I wonder who parked next to who

Snacks

Snacks

Played some drinking games

I think we went through 7 bottles of Grey Goose and 2 bottles of Moet

Birthday Cake - we couldn't find the plates that were right next to us - you can imagine why

Day 2 - Saturday, 2/18

This was a rough day.  More for the three other than for me.  I think it took 2 hours for them to get ready.  We would have rested but it was our only day to see the Forbidden City.  How can you come to Beijing and not go to the Forbidden City?  3 of out of 4 of us got some Subway and explored the massive complex.

If anyone knows the significance of these things on the roof, please tell me.

A lot of money in a pit - not sure what's going on

Tiamen Square

Oven Mitts for driving in the cold

We got back and we were pretty hungry.  Although we had a dinner coming up, we decided to get a small snack at our hostel's restaurant.  Afterwards, we took a 10 minute nap.

So, we were supposed to meet my friend at Da Dong.  I thought I knew where it was because when I was looking up directions there was a big duck in front of the restaurant.  The same duck that I had seen earlier across the street from the dumpling place we went the day before. However, we ended up getting to the wrong chain of Peking Duck restaurants.  How many people use the same duck statue? (The mistake may also be due to my brain deteriorating very slowly from all the travel).  We ended up asking that restaurant directions to their competitor.  We ended up being 30 minutes late.  It was ok though, we were the first ones there. Lol.

We kind of didn't know what to do being the only ones there.  It was a very nice restaurant.  Very wide open space and we were seated at a huge table (12 seats) with the biggest Lazy Suzan (the glass circle that rotates on a table to facilitate sharing).  It wasn't long before people started showing up.  Once everyone showed up, we kinda sat there as they took care of the ordering.  It is sooo beneficial to have someone local with you in a foreign country.

The food ended up being amazing and we were thoroughly impressed.

Cabbage

Roasting the Duck

Roasting the duck

Wall of Wine

Stuff you use with the duck

They come to the table and carve the duck in front of you

Soooooo good

I liked it the bun wrapping

They cook the duck in the middle of the restaurant

After dinner, we went to the "Old Beijing" region because one of the girls needed to buy something.

A lot of the decorations from the holidays were still up

Sugar coated fruit

Signs outside the bathroom

China is panda land

We shopped a little, snacked a little, and walked a little.  Once we got close to the end of the block, we settled on a bar that could seat 9 of us.  The ambiance was relaxed.  We sat at a large table with some live music going on.  After 30 minutes or so, the live music stopped (because we got there so late) and it was replaced by a flat screen showing the Victoria Secret Fashion Show.  This was fine until we got to loop 5.  Moves Like Jagger soon became our least favorite song.

We played a couple drinking games while we were there.  One of the more fun games turned out to be a game, our travel mate learned in his Australia travels.  Essentially, you simulate a horse race with the ace of each suit being a horse.  Horses progress one step for each card that comes out with the matching suit.  There is also a bet that each person places on a horse.  This can be something like 3 seconds of drinking or a bottle of beer.

The other elements that make it especially fun is that you name each horse.  Our horses were Kennedy Town (influenced by our experience in HK), Quickie (my friend's cousin's fish), Kaka (my friend's cousin's dog), and Cupid (made sense because it was the heart suit).  We had a lot of races and my horse (Quickie) lost every single one except for the last horse.

Oh! and we added an extra rule to make it more fun.  If a joker came out, the horse(s) in the last position advanced 3 spots (This is how my horse finally won).

We had a good time but we had to get back to get ready for the next day.

The Setup

We leaned the hand signals for counting 6 through 10  on one hand.  We tried to order 6 beers but we made the signal with both hands and ended up getting 12.

We still finished them

My horse finally won! (Quickie/Spades)

The street we were on

What happens when ppl drink, we Tebow in an abandoned bike

Day 3, Sunday, 2/19

This morning was not nearly as rough as Saturday but we woke up at 9am (compared to 1pm the day before) which was kinda rough.  We were fortune enough for my friend's cousin to arrange a driver for us so we didn't have to worry about missing a tour.  Our private driver took us for some breakfast (after some drawings of the golden arches) and even came along with us on the Great Wall of China.

There were no numbers - we had to order by pointing

It looks like the beginnings of a Disneyland in Beijing

Badaling the most visited part of the great wall

I wish people followed this sign

Can you hear me now?

Some people do not like following rules

Linsanity!

Some parts are VERY steep - She busted her ass

When we got to the end, we were treated to a couple of bears doing their thing.

Really? - California Beef Noodle King USA - Keyword much?

After the great wall, we wanted to make use of our full day of having a private driver.  Our next stop was the Olympic Stadiums.

This is a massive open space in between the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube - Things are just so big here

They are everywhere

Bird's Nest

Water Cube

Water Cube 

Water Cube 

After walking around the Olympic Complex, we didn't really know what we could do.  There was a lot of traffic and we were coming up on dinner time.  We decided to just look at the CCTV building because of its unique look.

Some random building I thought looked cool

CCTV building

After our full day of touring, we went to meet my friend for dinner again.  The restaurant was at the top floor of a shopping complex that had this MASSIVE screen.  The restaurant was very impressive again.  The food was top notch and very spicy.  I had to take two bites and take a 10 minute rest.

Car wash in the parking garage

Shopping complex

Where we ate

Dumplings

Meat pie?

Taro

Kung Pao

Bullfrog

Noodles with minced pork - spicy

Green beans

Fish

After dinner, we walked around the mall and took some pictures with the huge screen.

They sell some interesting stuff

The MASSIVE screen

Attempting to take a picture with the screen - should have turned the flash on

After the quick tour, we decided to head to a tourist section of Beijing called the Village.  We look at stores, food stalls, and ultimately ended up at a Spanish place for dessert.

Police in enclosed spaces.  Some have heaters

Pandas are everywhere

Apple is everywhere

"Probably the finest seafood served in Beijing" - LOL

My dessert

Day 4, Monday, 2/20

The last day was make sure we wake up and get to our plane so we don't get stuck in China day.  We were successful.

Story - when we landed, we walked all the way up and down the arrival area of the airport to find a China Construction Bank to avoid transaction fess from Bank of America.  We didn't find one.  As soon as we get to the departures hall, we find a CCB ATM sitting there on the 2nd level of the airport.  We have some funny pictures with this ATM that I cannot share.

HK Airlines food on the way back

The movie selection was awesome - I got no sleep again