Beijing!

By steve on August 5th, 2004

Hello everyone! Today is our last day in Beijing before we take the train north to Mongolia. I’m feeling a little under the weather today — probably too much Peking Duck last night — but still trying to put in a full day of shopping. Need to bulk up on groceries for the 30 hour train ride!

Yesterday we visited the Great Wall. It was nice. A little pricey, and the bus ride out there was pretty long. All the walking and climbing is wearing me out, and I’m still not quite adjusted to the time change, so I went to bed early and Kate soon followed. We’ve been getting up pretty early in the morning, because of the time change, and that’s actually worked out quite well for us. People here tend to get up at the crack of dawn, to beat the heat.

Great Wall pictures here.

The food has been good so far, although as I said I’ve picked up a bit of tummy trouble. We had Peking Duck at the oldest Peking Duck restaurant on Beijing (aka Peking) and it was actually pretty good, although eating all that fatty skin is probably why I’m sick. The day before we stopped into a random little restaurant on the western side of the city. We had fun drawing pictures with the owner, and flipping through the translations in our guidebook, and eventually he brought out something like Kung Pao Chicken, and then a VERY tasty beef, onion, and chilies dish with cumin and cilantro. It was REALLY tasty and I ate the whole thing and that might be another reason why I’m not feeling so well today… 🙂

I’m looking forward to some cooler temperatures and cleaner air in Mongolia, although we might not see that until after we leave UB.

We had an interesting mishap today. We were sitting in the hotel lobby eating breakfast (buns from a bakery) and suddenly the glass table between us fell to the floor and smashed! We hadn’t touched it — it just fell on its own. Hopefully, it won’t appear on our bill when we check out tomorrow.

Anyway, time for lunch! I think plain rice is on the menu for me today. Later today we’re heading up to the shopping district for more shopping, and then tonight we’re going to try to catch an acrobat show. Tomorrow morning, we get up at the crack of dawn to catch our train. It’ll be a few days before we’re back on email, probably. Talk to you then!