Our trip here from Hong Kong on Saturday was rather complicated, but in spite of all that, somehow worked out rather smoothly. There was an accident on the road we would take to get to the airport, so we had to take a bus to a train to get there; when we arrived at the train station, we learned that our flight to Beijing was canceled. But there was another flight 35 minutes later that we were all finally able to get seats on, and the tour guides were still waiting to meet us, even though we were late.
Sunday was the first of a two-day tour of sites in Beijing: the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, and the Summer Palace; Monday was the Ming Tombs and the Great Wall. In between these visits, they brought us to places where they wanted us to shop - pearls, silk, jade factories - and to restaurants for lunch. It was interesting, and I was able to keep my wallet closed! Here's a picture from yesterday ... more to come later.
It's been an exhausting three days, and all of us had a hard time waking up this morning, but we're planning to take the day to chill, explore the town a little, and recover. This is not an easy city to get the hang of, even if only because the street names are hard to remember! (I have a map though ... haven't got lost). The streets aren't grided or numbered like New York; I guess that's what happens when a city's 3,000 years old (Boston's nowhere close to that, and it's a mess!). It's also quite polluted, the air here, and apparently so: a hazy smog reduces visibility quite a bit, and you can tell when you breathe in - not quite a smell - but it's there.
In the evenings, we've gone out and tried to find out of the way, local restaurants. Last night, we missed a little, because they gave us menus that were different from the ones everyone else - Chinese people - got. So we might go back and ask for the "real" menu. But on Sunday night, we happened upon this little place not far from the hotel, which was inexpensive and really good, and our waitress's English was more than passable. She was really cute about it too ... we ordered duck, which was brought out with little fajita-like bread and a sauce, and we asked her how to eat it. So she mimed putting the meat in, folding it, dipping it in the sauce, then taking a bite. Then laughed, a little self-conscious. Leah said she melted a little to see that.
Anyway, need to pack and go now. Just up the street I think. I'll try to upload more photos soon.
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