Beijing is located at 40 degrees North latitude and 116 degrees East longitude. Average city elevation is about 43m. Population is growing 10 million in 1990 to 12 million now.

The first thing I noticed about Beijing is that it is much cleaner than Shenyang. There is a big beautification effort going on to make the city cleaner and newer looking. It is not hard to see why Toronto got beat out for the 2008 Olympic bid. The second thing I noticed was that I have seen more foriegners in a few minutes than I have ever seen in Shenyang. Obviously, this is the magnet for China to haul in foreign interest.

Our first tour stop is Tiantan Park (see link to the right). It was interesting to see some of the highly scientifically brillant things they came up with here. Our next stop on the tour was a famous Chinese brass making factory. That was nothing more than a tourist trap designed to make money on the tourist trade. Next stop was a restaurant for a very lame lunch. After this, we were able to go and check in our luggage at our hotel. It was just off the main freeway on a side street, right across a very big KTV restaurant.

We decided to walk around the hotel. Then Ami decided we should try to find a famous shopping district downtown called Xidan Street. Ok, sure why not. We walked about halfway there and we took a pit stop at a McDonalds to get a bearing where it was. It was 7:30pm so we needed to catch a bus for the rest of the way in order to catch the stores when they are still open. We took the cheap one yuan bus downtown. I learned that the passengers with money are suppose to board through the back doors and pay an attendant that is in the bus. The driver is only needed to drive the bus.

We get off the bus right across from the Pacific Grand building. It is a large department store full with KFC, McDonalds, Starbucks Coffee, and even a Hagen Dais shop for all the foreign peoples. We walked around the street market as well as a few of the department stores down here. Afterwards, we got caught a taxi and headed back to the hotel.

Our first stop is Tian'anmen Square. The world's largest city square. All I can really say is it really is a demonstration to the money making ability of the Chinese people. The line up to the tribute to Mao Zedong was very long. They sold plastic tribute flowers for 2 yuan each. When people came in the main hall, there is a statue of him. People just waved the flowers in a quick prayer and dropped them into wheeled laundry carts, which I am sure the government turns around and resells them again for another 2 yuan again. Brilliant! They also sell a book of his tribute for 1 yuan. Which turns out to be a colour single piece of paper folded into three. Oh yea!

The people are then lead into a room where they have a replica of Mao lying in a bed of flowers. Of course, we were rushed along into a large hall where it is wall to wall of venders selling Mao merchandise. Even on the way out of the memorial, there is a guantlet of venders all selling their Mao wares. The only thing that came to my mind was, "I waited a hour for this?!! The only other bigger waste of time was watching the movie Battlefield Earth".

Followed by the Forbidden City, which of course is very high on the foreign visitors list of places to go so it was very busy. I recognized tour groups in French, German, Italian/Spanish, Japanese, and of course English.

Next is Jinshan Park, which is a nice park to relax in just like Tianmen Park. The main highlight is the many steps up the artificial hill to get a great view of the city. I took a continueous movie of that for you to see.

After that, we had a rather lame lunch. Our next stop is some Tomb site where they worship the symbol of Fook, luck. There was also a tea theatre. The short show consisted of pot and umbrella juggling, much what the Shanghai Acrobatic Circus Show had. There was also a rather basic magic show done to the background music of "Everybody" by the Backstreet Boys.

Next is Beihai Park, which is just west of the north gate of the Forbidden City. We only did a short walk around part of the lake in this park. There are some other places within the park like the Round City and the West Bank and etc, but we just took a walk around the rim. I suppose it would be like walking along False Creek without actually going into the Science World, or Plaza of Nations or etc...

After this, we went to the famous shopping district refered to as Wang Fu Jing. It has a small street market as well has many company stores and a few department stores. It is a bit more upscale, and totally geared for foreigners. So, if you want to do shopping and want to have a ghost of a chance of the person speaking English, here is the where you want to try. Of course, they sell bottom of the barrel crap to top end name branded stuff but they all have something in common, they are both overpriced.

We ate dinner at a place that served Beijing (Peking) Duck. We got shuffled to the 4th floor of this restaurant where we had duck. The room was full of foreigners. There was table of 3 German guys. There was a stupid group of 2 white women trying to difficult with the menu. I think the item on the menu was written in English "Sweet and Sour Fish", they were trying to ask the waiter if it was fried or steamed. Of course, this must be out of the waitess's vocabulary. And of course the stupid bitches didn't think to have a Chinese to English dictionary with them. They were probably stupid Americans. I heard "I have never had this happen to ME in a restaurant." No DUH, you bitch. That is what you get when you are in someone else's country that doesn't speak English. I have learned that anything more than a point with your finger and a nod ok is too complicated for someone who can't speak the language. So a travel tip in China, just point to a picture (or item) in the menu and nod ok. If you are worried what it is or how it is prepared, then you better not order it. Just point to the bottle of Coke, and nod OK. Also buy from places that list the price of the item on the item, so that way you don't get ripped off because you are a foreigner. For example, a 500ml bottle of Coke would normally go for 6 yuan in standard grocery store, but if it isn't priced like it is in CarreFour, the cashier may just jack the price to 10 or 12 or 15 yuan just because you are a foreigner.

The first place we went to this morning is another tourist trap place, a jade making factory. The thing that amazed me the most was how big the parking lot was, and how quickly the entire lot got filled with tour buses and tour vans. I mean, the yard got filled with close to 50+ buses and probably 20+ mini vans. When our group came in, we were tour group 5, by the time we left, I saw them handing out ID tags for group 73. (see link to the right). It was explained to me that these "tourist traps" are a collaboration between the company and the tour guides. The guides are given a commission kickback for sales from the tourists in their group. So needless to say, they get kinda pissed off when you don't buy anything. There was one things on my mind to buy, a new jade bracelet for my mom since she broke hers and a nice mahjong set made of green jade. However, they were charging too much for the bracelets, cheapest one that wasn't broken before was in the 1000's of yuan. Ami has a friend who sells jade stuff and she said the prices are too high. The other thing I wanted was the MJ set but they only had a black set and a red agate set, selling for 3000 yuan.

The first REAL tour site today is the Ming Tombs.

The next stop before lunch was another tourist trap. This time it was an experimental medicine store. The company has a Korean history. They sell pain and healing creams, and pills for cure alls and supplements and other assorted CRAP. The salesperson dressed up in white doctor's robes (purely to look professional I assure you), did a burn demonstration for the burn cream. She heated a chain over flame till it was glowing hot, the ran her hand along it enough to burn her hand. She applied the burn cream on it and left it. By the end of the sales pitch, her hand didn't looked like anything had happened to it.

After lunch, it was to Badaling Bear Park for a trek up the Great wall. The wall was started 7th century BC. In 221 BC, Qin declared himself an emporor and then ordered all the piecers to be linked. They say about 1 million people worked on the project, 1/5th of the population. The Han dynasty added more parts, Xinjinang Uygur. The Ming dynasty, added more to 6000 km from Yalu river in Liaoning to Jinyu Pass in Gansu province. The Badaling section is most well preserved. Best defense point for beijing being 800km above sea level.

After a day of climbing, it was our dinner.

Badaling Great Wall Of China

Anyway, today's tour was starts at the tall tower of the Beijing TV station. On the ground floor of the building is the Taipingyang Underwater World Exhibition. The place isn't that significant different than most aquariums. Major difference is that it is entirely indoors. It also has a really cool underwater glass tunnel going through the pool so you can see close up and along the bottom of the pool. The two main attractions in the ampitheatre was the Mermaid Show (which quite simply was a female diver with a mermaid costume over her leg flippers). But I bet the kids thought it was cool, just like the visit to Santa Claus. The second attraction is called the Shark Feeding demonstration. Ok, it wasn't really a shark, they were more like gaint catfish, but it was interesting to see the diver get mauled for his box of little fish and chucks of fish.

Now, one major issue came up today about Chinese people. They only know how to take care of themselves in public and total lack any respect for others and property. During the seal show, the performance area lacks enough seating. Of course the security guard lacks the balls to tell people to sit down and/or to stop letting people into the performance area. There were a few STUPID bitches in front of us who wouldn't sit down. They were right beside the guard with a megaphone yelling them to sit down. But of course, the bitch just ignored him. I should have yelled out "Doi e De (sit down), Can't you understand Chinese you FUCKING bitch!".

Again the same problem with standing people happened at the Shark Feeding demonstration area. However, the announcer held up the show till everyone sat down. Again, some stupid FUCK with a knapsack ignored the speaker. This time, I said in English "Sit down you STUPID FUCK". I doubt he heard me but many of the people around me heard me. Finally someone behind him pulled on his bag and he then kneeled down. What a shit head. Anyway, so if you have had any bad experiences like this from chinks, you now know why.

After the aquarium, it was the Beijing TV tower. It has most the nice features that tall buildings have like a super fast elevator where you can hear your ears pop due to altitude, a rotating restaurant, an open air observation deck, and heck even an English speaking elevator operator. Although, she was speaking "Engrish", it was so Mandrin-ish accented the only words I understood was "Thank You." (actually it was more like "Sank Ryu").

After lunch it was a trip the Yiheyuan Palace. (Summer Palace).

After this, we got dropped off that the train station. We were early, so we checked in our luggage while we browsed around some of the surrounding area. Even at 9:00pm at night there was a uniformed police officer at every intesection, every underground walk passage and on each side of the street. Of course, this was probably only for this tourist heavy area only but it was a nice sense of safety. I also noticed that the youth hostle is right beside the train station. And man, it is still 300 yuan for a deluxe room, which is pretty much the same price as the two star hotel we were staying in.

We got into the train station. There was a big line up at the entrance to the station, mostly because you have to put your luggage through a metal detector. The station is pretty scummy. You got guys who look like bums sleeping on the floor. You have people who look like they are train passengers, also sleeping on the floor. The waiting room was a bit cleaner but you have people spitting on the floor. There was a guy in the next row of seating eating sunflower seeds and making a mess of the floor around him. Of course, mixed in all of this are the thieves, con artists, magazine vendors and food vendors. There was a line up of a few people at the front boarding gate and an hour ahead of opening. I thought that was kinda stupid because the ticket is like an airplane, it specifys the car number, the room number and the bunk number; so it is irrelvant if you are first one to board, or the last person to board. Oh well, inexperienced train riders I guess.

With this, the train leaves Beijing at 10:15pm for an 8 hour ride back to Shenyang. And on this note, ends my trip to Beijing, China.

Yiheyuan Palace