On the train from Beijing to Ulaan Baatar

We just finished our 5 days in China feeling like we're going to have to go back for more someday. There's just so much history, so much culture, and so much to see. I'm glad that we weren't able to get ferry tickets to Tianjin, because our one day in Qingdao was really worth it. There, I feel like we really got to see some of the "real" China before heading to Beijing which had been thoroughly sanitized and mall-ified for the Olympics.

In Qingdao, we stayed at a quaint and well-organized hostel established in an old church on hill and it was surrounded by old crumbling buildings and hutong alleyways. A little further up the hill we found another hostel in an old observatory with an amazing rooftop lounge. The night view of the city was spectacular and we chilled out there for a few hours, enjoying the cool breeze, some (local) Tsingtao beers, and the US vs. China women's volleyball game projected on one of the old observatory domes. The next day we wandered around the city a bit before catching the evening train to Beijing. We got to visit a famous temple and ring the official Olympic mascot bell, as well as take a tour of the Tsingtao brewery.

Upon arriving in Beijing, we were wowed by the strange immaculate cleanliness of the city compared to Seoul and Qingdao. Then it took us a while to find our hostel in the middle of the night because it didn't have a sign. Other than that, Chinese Box hostel was a pretty nice chilled out hostel in the middle of a charming (and relatively sanitized) old hutong neighborhood. We met some interesting folks there and ended up having one long night of alcohol-fueled political conversation (bordering at times on outright argument) between the three of us Greeners, a conservative American libertarian from Detroit and a German college dropout (who claimed to be set to inherit his father's 18 million euros). We all ended on friendly "let's agree to disagree" terms though.

The first day in Beijing, we explored the maze-like grounds of the Forbidden City (which was gigantic and thoroughly overwhelming) and then wandered around for photo ops around Tienanmen square. At one point, I was asked to pose for some photos by a Chinese mother and quickly had my arms filled with an adorable, chubby little Chinese baby. I felt like a politician, but in a cool way. We ended the day with a delicious dinner of Peking duck and pork dumplings.

On the second day, we spend the morning hoofing around for tickets to Ulaan Baatar without much luck (they just told us to come back the next day), so we decided at the last minute to catch a bus out to Mutianu to see the Great Wall. Because we started relatively late, we ended up getting grabbed off the bus by a faux cab driver who offered to take us to the top and back for 50 yuan each (less than $10). It was about the same as the minibus price, so we went for it. We took the cable car up and spent a little over an hour drinking in the view, taking photos and running around. It's pretty much how you expect: really big and awesome. Basically all the old stuff in China totally dwarfs all the old stuff in Korea. Kinda sad that Korea was so poor for so long and then got reduced to rubble only 50 years ago. On the way back down our "cab driver" offered to trade us Bevin for his 10 sisters, but we politely declined (only because we don't have enough money to buy train tickets for his sisters). k-k-k-k-k.

On our final day in Beijing, we did a lot of running around: buying train tickets, seeing Mao Zedong's plasticized dead body (which required running back and forth across the street to check our bags), visiting the snack market alley and nearby mall, hoofing it up to Olympic park to try to score some cheap scalped Olympics tickets (none in groups of three though, so only Bevin ended up attending an event - 800 yuan to see Brazil v. Argentina in the soccer semi-fina), and finally Richy and I went to the night market, took a bike rickshaw ride and photographed Tienanmen square at night. There was definitely enough to do and see to last us a few more days in Beijing, but we have a lot more traveling to do, so we have to keep moving. I am however, relieved to leave behind all the pain in the ass heightened security, which required us to wait in lines everywhere we went and get our bags x-rayed dozens of times during our short stay.

We look forward to arriving in Ulaan Baatar tomorrow afternoon and staying at Oyuna Guesthouse. We're hoping to find a way out into the countryside to do some camping and get back to nature after our long sojourn in urban environments.

by Katie