beijing day 2

waking up on day 2 in the motherland, shimi and i stepped out of jenny's apartment and down her questionable stairwell.

jenny, who had work that morning and couldn't join us, armed us with basic instructions on how to find and catch the subway to our first beijing attraction. it was a little difficult purchasing the tickets from a booth that had no english menu, nor english-speaking person. other that that, the subway is similar to bart here in sf, replete with surly employees manning the ticket booth.

and just as crowded during rush hour.

after a brief 10 min ride, we found our way to yonghe gong, the largest tibetan buddhist lama temple in beijing.

the temple was an enormous complex whose buildings became grander the deeper you went into its labyrinth.

with beautiful architetural details,

people lighting incense in giant urns as offerings to the gods,

buddhist monks dressed in golden yellow and red robes inconspicuously roaming the grounds,

and rare stone-sculptuted turtle dragons!


while we weren't allowed to snap photos of the 70-foot high buddha carved from one single piece of sandalwood, we did manage to snap shots of shimi spinning a giant bronze drum for good luck..

and me posing in front of a giant brozne bell inscribed with thousands of tiny chinese characters.


by the time we had finished touring the temple, we were starving and ready for our first true chinese meal. we found our way out of the labyrinth and onto the streets to search for grub, without a map, nor idea of how to read chinese. that didn't stop us from having a fantastic, soul-satisfying meal. click here for my post about our first xiao long bao in china on my food blog.

after lunch, shimi and i had the energy (and the guts) to brave the walk back to the subway station, dodging cars, taxis, and bicyclists going every which way in the huge unmarked streets.

amazingly, motorists do heed traffic light signals. we were still scared shitless.

back at jenny's pad, we dozed until becca finally arrived from a 20-something hour flight from the big apple. jenny presented her with a golden trinket and sustainable wood chopsticks to properly welcome her as well.

now one big, happy family, we headed off to our first of many r&r sessions at bodhi therapeutic retreat where we immediately soothed away our traveler's aches and pains. the girls chose the 80-min foot reflexology,

while i went for the 90-min chinese body massage which focused on acupressure points to release tension, improve energy flow and create balance.

and at 100 rmb (which translates to roughly $13 us) with free food and drink, you can bet we soothed away plenty.

rested and relaxed, we got prettied up and jumped into a taxi,

to hua jia yi yuan, or ghost street, to have dinner. the sidewalks on both sides of the street are littered with hundreds of glowing red lanterns of varying shapes and sizes hanging from wires for blocks and blocks down the street. quite an amazing and eery sight as you drive through in the black of night.

the street is popular with locals for the many restaurants that hide behind the red aura. jenny took us to a great beijing-style restaurant that recreated a beautiful garden courtyard inside a cavernous warehouse.

click here to check out the great food we had at this restaurant.

after a very filling dinner, we decided to paint the town red, this being our first real night together in china. we headed out to grab some drinks at a more modern, hotel-rooftop bar called...

most of the clientele here were international and spoke english. the staff wasn't and didn't. it was reminiscent of an sf dive bar. drinks were rather expensive (comparable to US prices).

weather was strangely sf-esque too.

but after a drink or four, we began to loosen up...

and really enjoy our first china nite.

not content to stop there, and in the mood to dance, we left Q bar and hit up our first, real chinese niteclub, mix.

the place was packed wall-to-wall with, you guessed it, chinese people. youngsters that were probably around their early 20s, some dressed as fobs, some dressed cooler than me.

the music -- hip hop, reggae, and r&b was amazing, with a technically, trick-heavy dj that knew his shit. he also happened to be black.

so we proceeded to get down,

with all the funky chinese folk.

exhausted, intoxicated, reeking of cheap cigarettes, but happy and feeling good, so we ended our first big nite with a swig, swash and shantay into the motherland.

beijing day 1

on sept 27th, i boarded a boeing 777 in san francisco bound for beijing via tokyo.

the first leg of the trip was 13 hours. these are really nice planes, if you've never flown them. spacious, modern, and smooth. fortunately, i was upgraded to premium economy and had a nice bump in leg room and upgraded electronics. highly recommended. the food on ana (all nippon airlines) is pretty darn good for airplane food, some of the best i've had. and i got to catch up on pirates of the carribean 3 on my personal 5" in-headrest tv screen.

even so, the tokyo airport was a welcome sight for my sore, cramped legs.

i loved this airport. so modern and clean, simply but effectively designed, from the signage...

to the sorted trash and recycling bins.

my terminal had a long row of immaculate, high-end designer stores, from bvlgari to coach and more. you brand-whores would've had a field day, in an airport.

and the walkways were super cool. as you approached, it detected your motion and automatically turned up the speed of the walkway; after exiting it automatically slowed down to conserve electricity.

and they looked so cool too. those japanese. what will they think of next?

what i was shocked to see was a public squat toilet in such a modern airport. (at least it was extremely clean. still, gross.)


another 4 hours later, a smaller and less glitzy plane plopped me down in beijing, china. the first thing i notice upon arriving the terminal is the massive amounts of advertising plastered all over the terminal.

everywhere i looked, there was media in your face. even on the baggage carousel.

can we say overload? it would come to be a running theme across the country.

customs was amazingly easy to go through in china. the officers didn't even check your bags nor did they seem to really read your declarations. i whizzed right through disinterested guards. lucky for me, since i was dying to be done with travel. by this time i'd been up for almost 24 hours and running on the fumes of sleep never attained. by the time my college friend, shimi, arrived from honolulu an hour later, we were ready to blast out of the airport, "get me outta here!!!"

perhaps we should've stayed in the airport. jenny, our ucla buddy who is now living in beijing for work as an environmental consultant, had her driver come greet and pick us up from the airport. personal chauffeur! and although he spoke not a lick of english, he was a nice guy and knew where he was supposed to take us. yes, she has a driver. amazing what you can get with cheap labor.

but as soon as we got on the road, we realized that while a lot of chinese have driver's licenses in beijing, they sure don't pay attention to the markings on the road. close your eyes and imagine hundreds of cars around stuck on the same road headed towards the city, honking and honking. then open your eyes and see another car mere inches from yours and still bulldozing his way into your lane with a beep and a HOOOONK belaying. now picture that happening over, and over, and over again...

omg. my passenger side air brakes must've needed lifetime servicing a hundred times over by the end of that 40 min drive. the picture above doesn't do it justice.

but safely we made it to jenny's apt in dongsishitao, the international expat community in north-eastern beijing. and it was here jenny welcomed us to the motherland with a little golden trinket for good luck and happiness.

and after a few rounds of peach juice and catching up, shimi and i passed out around midnite, beijing time, happy to be able to sleep soundly and horizontally.