Our old owner, James, sold our school to a man who had purchased another kindergarten in the area. This week was week one of the merger and it was CRAZY! It'll all settle in the next couple of weeks I'm sure, but this week made me really tired!
Back to Beijing. Liz Teacher and I flew to Harbin, China on Thursday, May 20, 2010 for an overnight stay and then an early flight to Beijing in the morning. We thought the hotel we booked was 2 km from the airport, and it ended up being a 40 minute taxi ride. In China, that cab ride only costs about $20 total, so it wasn't the end of the world... but it wasn't what we expected. We were both really looking forward to some hot showers, but when we got to our room, there was no running water.
We called the front desk to let them know. There was a knock at the door about 5 minutes later with a woman and a bowl full of water.
We called the front desk again to clarify. They said they understood and that there was no running water in the building. We asked if there would be running water in the morning. They said, "perhaps."
We curled up in our smokey room for the evening and then made our way back to the airport the next morning with no hiccups. The flight to Beijing was a breeze and the directions that our Beijing hostel, Happy Dragon Hostel, provided us were perfect.
Here's a picture of the front of the hostel:
We had reserved a twin room with a private bath, but they were all booked up at the hostel so they upgraded us to their "sister hotel" a few blocks away for the evening. The price was the same for us - around $30/night for the room and we were happy campers.
We showered up and then decided we would walk to the Forbidden City and Tianeman Square.The first thing I noticed about Beijing was all of the bikes! Every street had a huge bike lane and it seemed that they were more bikes than cars in China.
On our walk, we were stopped by a Chinese university student who asked us if we knew where we were going. She pointed us in the right direction and then offered us a look at her art studio. We had read about this happening, but entertained her anyway. Then, naturally, she suckered us into buying two paintings. But, I love mine, so it's okay!
She told us that the Forbidden City closed at 4, and it was 3:45 so we hurried, hoping to at least catch a glimpse. It turned out that the ticket offices closed at 4, but the actual city was open until 5. We grabbed tickets and made our way in. The entire palace-city was surrounded by red walls like this:
I borrowed the following information from wikipedia:
The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. For almost 500 years, it served as the home of emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political centre of the Chinese government.
I borrowed the following information from wikipedia:The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. For almost 500 years, it served as the home of emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political centre of the Chinese government.
Built in 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 surviving buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms and covers 7,800,000 sq ft. It's HUGEEEEEEE!
There were about 6 rows of thrones this size:
After the palace closed, we walked through the walls and onto Tianamen Square. Tianamen in Mandarin means "The Gate of Heavenly Peace" which is the name of the gate that sits just north of the square. The gate was first built in 1417:
The square itself is massive and was a slow process in being created. A process that I haven't really found time to understand yet, but here it is:
After Tianamen, we walked to Wangfujing Street, a street known for its shopping in Beijing. There were high end stores, small shops and many side streets housing open air markets. We walked through one of the open air markets and were salavating at the street food. It was hot, about 85 F, and this frozen fruit on a stick looked phenomenol:
There was also an opportunity to buy meat on a stick that was grilled right in front of you. We didn't do, but found it very interesting.
After a walk through of Wangfujing and some souvenir purchases, we made our way back to our hostel for their *free* Chinese dumpling party. Liz Teacher and I made our pork and onion or tofu and cabbage dumblings and then the cook boiled them and we ate... and ate... and ate... They were delicious!
After we finished the dumplings we went back to our room and crashed early. We had to be up early for our trip to the Great Wall the next day!
There were about 6 rows of thrones this size:
After the palace closed, we walked through the walls and onto Tianamen Square. Tianamen in Mandarin means "The Gate of Heavenly Peace" which is the name of the gate that sits just north of the square. The gate was first built in 1417:The square itself is massive and was a slow process in being created. A process that I haven't really found time to understand yet, but here it is:
After Tianamen, we walked to Wangfujing Street, a street known for its shopping in Beijing. There were high end stores, small shops and many side streets housing open air markets. We walked through one of the open air markets and were salavating at the street food. It was hot, about 85 F, and this frozen fruit on a stick looked phenomenol:
There was also an opportunity to buy meat on a stick that was grilled right in front of you. We didn't do, but found it very interesting.
After a walk through of Wangfujing and some souvenir purchases, we made our way back to our hostel for their *free* Chinese dumpling party. Liz Teacher and I made our pork and onion or tofu and cabbage dumblings and then the cook boiled them and we ate... and ate... and ate... They were delicious!
After we finished the dumplings we went back to our room and crashed early. We had to be up early for our trip to the Great Wall the next day!More to come...
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