We arrived in Beijing a day earlier than planned because of a landing rights dispute between American Airlines and the Chinese government. Scrambling to get re-routed a couple of days before your trip is very, well, exciting. We flew to China by way of Tokyo. That did wonders for the frequent flier miles and the early arrival wasn’t all bad since this gave us an extra day to get over jetlag and allowed us to explore the city a bit on our own.
The first thing we needed was a good map of the city in English, which we found in a nearby shopping area. Some students stopped us on the street to practice their English. They were very cute and some of them spoke English quite well.
After our “cultural exchange,” we headed for the Forbidden City/Tiananmen Square and ended up walking along one side of the Forbidden City, reaching Beihai Park, an old imperial garden to the northwest of the Forbidden City. It was beautiful.
The smog from the 4+ million cars in Beijing was absolutely incredible. We choked on it. Imagine LA at its smoggiest during the ‘60s and then double it. That would approximate the smog in Beijing. After a day of walking around breathing it, I felt as if I smoked a pack of cigarettes.
We finished the day at the Night Market on Wangfujing St, where you can buy deep fried scorpions, starfish, and sea horses (very endangered, I might add). We opted for less exotic fare, like a spring roll. It was a very inexpensive way to have dinner and was a lot of fun.
