We arrived in Beijing with Dragonair after a 3 hour flight. First impression of mainland China: everything is huge, the airport is super-modern and big, roads wide with dense traffic and sky scrapers touch the sky.

We were trying to find transportation to the hotel. There were hundreds of people lined up for taxis. Finally, we had a taxi driver, but he didn't speak any English. When I showed him the address for the Hilton hotel, he shrugged his shoulders. We had to ask two more people until they seemed to have it figured out where the new Hilton could be... we hoped!

After a 45 min cab ride, we arrived safely at the Hilton. The ride cost ¥105 which is less than $20 (and no tipping in China).
The hotel was amazing, it is brand-new and next to the big shopping district Wangfujing and several malls.
Around 5, after having settled in in our room, we were venturing out into the mall, first in search for an ATM to get some Chinese money. I was praying that I pushed the correct (Chinese) buttons and would get my card back at the end. It worked!

One can always try and ask people, but most do not speak any English and if they do, it is very broken. The give you directions, it's always "10 mins".... and not accurate at all.
We ended up on the food market and what we saw there was for a strong stomach! Everything from chicken, sheep kidneys, prawns, octopus, sea horses, oysters, star fish to scorpions, snakes or silk worms etc on a stick. We took a lot of pictures and I wish the smells would go with it. There was this sweet stink that could give you nightmares... Janine ate a chicken wrap and sugared apples on a stick and I had a piece of melon and later fried oysters.
Unfortunately, I left the map at the hotel and we were wandering a bit in circles. Finally we hopped on one of these motorcycle rickshaws, tuk-tuks. Scary! The driver drove off in front of traffic, honking her horn... then explaining us "hutong" and something. We wanted to go to a tea house, but she didn't understand that. She finally dropped us off and we wandered further.
Hutongs are the small houses surrounding the Forbidden City.
We found Tiananmen Square for night shopping right next to the Forbidden City (which is huge!!!).

We had another adventure on our way home. We asked a motorized rickshaw driver to bring us to the hotel. He didn't speak English, gestured and nodded, yes, ¥30 is okay and off we went. He drove and drove, no idea where we were (at 9 at night) and he drops us off at the end of a dark alley. Now he demands ¥300 ($50) and refuses to take anything less. Loud discussions, we walk away, he follows us, I pretend to use the phone to call someone... We walk into a hotel to get help, but the say "closed".
Anyway, I ended up giving him the 30 we had agreed and walked away fast. Another lesson learnt!
By now we had learnt that the big hotels always have taxis available and the staff helps negotiate and translate. But even here they were hear of the Hilton hotel, but brought us to the shopping district next to it, to Wangujing.

We were very happy to arrive safely in our hotel room. The shower was heaven... and I was so tired that I didn't even care about the "pillow menu" where you could chose from 4 different pillows .