We made it to Beijing, Air China likes to fill up their planes, very cramped seating and not an empty seat to be had!!! But we made it on time.
Smog is shocking, it was thick when we landed and has been thick ever since. Finding our hostel was a challenge, the taxi driver got lost then we got lost walking though the Hutong. It's tough finding your way through little unmarked alleys in the dark but we got there (2 hours late). The hostel is great and in the middle of the old city.
After a fantastic sleep we headed out for our first day. We took a bus to the Temple of Heaven then walked to Tianamen Square, the Forbidden City and Jangling park. Made it back to the hostel for a bit of a rest then heading to the night market to get some deep fried scorpion!!
So far we've been very impressed with the people of Beijing, everyone is busy doing something, the parks are full of people exercising, dancing, singing and playing games.
We plan on printing this at the end of the trip as our journal so we will be making reminder notes for us, they won't mean anything to anyone else. Reminders for Beijing:
- a few dancers at a church that turned into over 1,000 people in perfect lines dancing and singing
- the never ending groups in the parks participating in all kinds of activities, never had anyone doing anything for money (no buskers)
- the endless Hutong alleyways
- waitress refusing to take a tip, it's not acceptable in china to tip
- great hostel, did everything they could to help us work our way around Beijing
- spitting, smog, traffic, Interesting place but I couldn't live here