Beijing

Our trip to Beijing was not quite the joy ride that we had hoped it would be. It rained pretty much the entire time that we were there. And as with Shanghai, it is impossible to get a taxi when it is raining. If it had only been Cassi and I, we would have been fine. But with a squirmy, fussy 15 month old, it was out of the question. So we spent most of our time at the hotel. We stayed at a nice hotel so it wasn't a bad place to hang out.

We did manage to do a couple of things during reprieves from the rain. We went down to Tiannamen Square when we first arrived. There really wasn't much to see other than a swarm of tourists and General Mao's tomb. I'm not big into oppression of the masses so we passed on the tomb.

We visited the Forbidden City, which is very impressive. It takes a while to go through the entire city. There is only one way in and one way out so you have to make sure that you want to see this place before you start it. It took us 1.5 hours to go through it and that is without stopping to admire the many treasure rooms and museums. Sydney was tired and it was threatening rain so we just made a mad dash through the city. It is NOT stroller friendly -- the floor is made of broken cobblestone.

We ate dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant one night as I continue my quest to find decent pho in this country -- I failed miserably. But the restaurant was located on a fabulous lake. It was very dark and overcast when we were there so none of my pictures turned out well. You can rent a paddle boat to go around the lake. We saw a couple of men swimming in the lake in the dark. The lake is surrounded by dozens of bars, shops and restaurants and would have been a great place to stroll around on a sunny day.

We were also able to visit the Temple of Heaven. At the same time that the Yongle emperor built the Forbidden City, he also oversaw construction of this enormous park and altar to heaven. Each winter solstice, the Ming and Qing emperors would lead a procession here to perform rites and make sacrifices designed to promote the next year's crops and curry favor with heaven for the general health of the empire.

Of course it was sunny and beautiful on our last day in Beijing. Unfortunately, we had to catch a 2:30 flight so it didn't leave much time to go to the Great Wall. Or so I thought. Cassi wasn't about to fly 1/2 way around the world to miss the Great Wall so she got up at the crack of dawn and drove 1.5 hours to the Great Wall, spent 1 hour on the Wall and raced back to the hotel for check out. Since Beijing is only a 1.5 hour flight from Shanghai, I'll have plenty of opportunities to see the Great Wall so Sydney and I stayed at the hotel. Here are some pictures, courtesy of Cassi.

Everyone that I've talked to about Beijing had warned me of how old and dirty it is. It is a lot cleaner than what I expected, and somewhat cleaner than Shanghai. I wonder if this is a result of the efforts being made to get Beijing ready for the Olympics next year. The city is littered with reminders of the Olympics. There is a clock in the center of town counting down, second by second, until the opening ceremony of the Olympics. And there are large banners hanging from various buildings advertising the Olympics. They are clearly proud to be hosting the Olympics, as they should be. But I wonder if the infrastructure is ready to host that kind of event and accommodate the anticipated number of visitors. As difficult as it was for us to find taxis, I can't imagine what it will be like next year. I even had a taxi driver tell me that he didn't know where the Forbidden City was so I had to jump into another cab.

After getting our fill of Peking duck, we headed on to Xi'An.....