Trip to Beijing

Wow, talk about a "Western" city in an "Eastern" land. Beijing is a boombing city with all the luxuries an expat could want...ice cream, cheese, real coffee, Western dishes, newspapers in English. Amazing. I stayed very near to the well-known Forbidden City which resulted in lovely streets shaded by glorious trees. It had more of a warm fuzzy feeling than I had expected (the warm fuzzies leave when you reach the less traditional parts of the city). I stayed in a hostel down a hutong (older, Chinese alleys) which was nice and quiet and quaint. Tucked away in these hutongs are the local people carrying on their slower-paced, daily activies. It made me feel more at home in a city that holds more than 17.4 million people.

I woke up early my first day and left the hostel at 6:15 to head to the Great Wall. I decided to be a bit adventurous and chose to complete a 6 mile hike on the Wall from Jinshanling to Simatai. Whoa...let's just say that there are some parts where the stairs are so steep you have to turn sideways to go up or down. It was pretty intense in places and tiring but well worth it. This area was 3 hours from the city by bus which meant far fewer tourists and less renovations...just the way I like it :) Another payoff - I got to take a zip line across the river to a boat that then took me to the parking lot!

The next two days I met up with my former boss, Leslie, and her husband who were in town on a tour of China. How bizarre to visit with old friends in another country. We toured around the main sites which all represented Old China. This meant walking, walking and more walking. I was a whimp with my post-Great Wall legs and had us sit a few times to rest that first day, ha! The last night in town we went for Italian food. I cannot tell you how excited I was about this. My taste buds were alive with the flavors of cheese, balsalmic vinegar, CREAM sauce, salmon, arugala, fettucini, bread with pesto, cheesecake with strawberry drizzle and real ice cream!!!!!!!! Talk about positive overload!! It had been 4 1/2 months since my taste buds had experienced such joy. I literally had perma-grin during and after the meal. Heavenly!!!

A little bit of drool just came out of my mouth :) My time in Beijing was wonderful and Leslie and Tom spoiled me rotten. The trip ended with a 25 hour train ride and 1 hour taxi ride - it's nice to be home.