greetings from beijing

So I survived the rest of the trip to Beijing. The flight from Portland to Tokyo was 11 hours (I think), and I got to see Guy in the airport for a few minutes there. Then it was another 3.5 hours to Beijing. Going through immigration and customs was a breeze. I had arranged for a driver to pick me up at the airport, as had about a hundred other people. There were a ton of people holding signs with names on them and I had a hard time finding my driver, but I finally found him and his handwritten sign, with even my first name in broken English.

The drive to my hotel was peaceful. There wasn’t much traffic by then and it was neat being able to just sit back and enjoy the view from the backseat. When I arrived at the hotel, it was very, very quiet and a nice young woman with good English checked me in.

My room was cute and very Asian. There was even a sauna in my room…as in, a wooden room with hot stones in it!

So I started my Sunday by going to the Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and Jinshang Park. Then I was just too pooped to go on anymore, so I came back to my hotel to take a break. It was only 4 in the afternoon here, and I was going to see if I had the energy to go out again, since it probably still felt a little more like 4 in the morning to my body.

Well, I decided to take a nap, and I didn’t wake up until six hours later!! I was sooooo tired and groggy. Wendy and Howard arrived from Maui tonight, and Wendy gave me a call around 11 p.m. I’m about to check out my hotel, actually, and take a cab to meet up with them at Howard’s dad’s apartment. I’m really looking forward to hanging out with Wendy! I have been fortunate to avoid looking too much like a tourist and getting hassled by street vendors. I did get suckered into buying some artwork from a student (at least she said she was a student) at the Forbidden City. It is original artwork, and I actually like the pieces I got, so I’m not really complaining. My point, though, is that it will be nice to be with someone who speaks Chinese and can maybe protect me from the "rich American" or "rich European" thing I saw so many blonde tourists going through yesterday…vendors following them with such determination…I actually had a few of those latch onto me when they saw my English guidebook sticking out of my bag. I was mostly pitched glossy photobooks of the Forbidden City or rickshaw tours of the hutongs, neither of which I wanted at the time.

One down note is that I’m not feeling very well today. I woke up with a weird headache and feeling nauseous. I took some Pepto a while ago and am trying to shake it off, since Wendy and I are supposed to be doing the Great Wall today. I want to feel much better before attacking that! At least I have some time…we’re going to try to arrange our flights and/or train trip to Hong Kong before we head to the Wall.

Well, I’m going to go checkout and try to get a cab. I’ll update more when I can. And oh — I was going to post some pictures, but this 10 yuan (a little over a dollar) an hour Internet connection is dirt slow. I guess I can’t complain for the price!