After 13 hours in the air, the Choate Tennis group arrived in China. After clearing immigration and customs and meeting the rest of our party and our guide, we were taken straight to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. The traditional food turned out to be better than I had expected. Our accommodations are at Capital Normal University; our rooms are sort of a cross between dorm rooms and hotel rooms, but comfortable enough. There's television here, but no channels in English.
Today was a sight-seeing extravaganza: the Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and an acrobatic show in the evening. Interspersed between these sights were traditional Chinese meals and some shopping stops.
Overall impressions: Beijing is a BIG city--one that sprawls outward rather than upward. And Mao must be rolling over in his mausoleum now that everyone in the country seems determined to make a buck (or a yuan), especially from Western tourists like us. The street vendors are relentless, offering knock-off watches and Chinese army hats.
We headed north to Badaling to check out the Great Wall this morning. The conditions were windy and frigid, but it was a pretty cool spectacle nonetheless. Back in the city, we visited the Temple of Heaven and had a Peking duck dinner (overrated!) and then watched/slept through a kung fu show that was pretty cheesy.
This page contains an archive of all entries posted to As Far As You Know in the Beijing category. They are listed from oldest to newest.
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