Day 2 - Saturday, Sept 14 - Somewhere around the north pole to Beijing

We arrived half an hour early in Beijing, just after 3:30 in the afternoon. The flight was mostly smooth with a few bumpy segments.

At the arrival hall, I had to be finger-printed at an automated machine before going through immigration. My mother didn’t have to as only people 14-75 had to be finger-printed.

There was an incredible mass of people waiting to go through immigration, with a very long serpentine path of barriers. It took over an hour in line to finally pass through which went fairly quickly.

It was warmer than we expected in Beijing, with the temperature around 80.

We took a taxi from the airport to our hotel in downtown Beijing. We were surprised at how heavily wooded it was along the first part of our journey. There had obviously been a major effort to plant more trees. Our guide later told us this was to help stop the dust that came from the north and that it may also help with pollution and climate change. There were many weeping willow, pine, eucalyptus and other trees that we couldn’t identify. There were also many beautiful roses along the road which we’ve seen downtown as well.

Once we got closer to the city, there was quite a variety of vehicles in the “bicycle” lane – regular bicycles, battery-powered bicycles, motor scooters, motorcycles and three-wheeled vehicles, some pulling trailers.

The 20 mile trip to our hotel took over 2 hours! Traffic was terrible and a number of the roads on the Google-equivalent directions were closed for unknown reasons, just blocked off by police cars. The driver twice had to make u-turns in order to change the route. We could tell that he was getting very frustrated. I certainly wouldn’t want to drive here as the drivers are very aggressive and are constantly trying to squeeze into the traffic. Even though Beijing has made major efforts to improve the air quality, I thought I would get sick from all the exhaust fumes. We finally arrived at the hotel around 7:15, to the relief of our driver and us!

We are staying at the Qianmen Jianguo Hotel which seems to be mostly filled Western tourists although the English skills of the desk staff is fairly limited. The room is large and typical to what one would find in a US hotel. While there is WiFi in the hotel room, the internet access is highly limited with no access to Gmail or any Google-related services, Facebook, Twitter and some other web sites. I am able to get WAMC, the Albany public radio station! Fortunately, my non-Gmail e-mail is working. I use a Google-related blogging service which isn’t available so I will need to write up notes and save photos until we reach someplace with fewer Internet restrictions.

After checking in and getting settled, we took a walk through the neighborhood around the hotel, checking out a local grocery store and some convenience stores. Prices are fairly high for wine – a 750ml bottle of Yellow Tail wine was over $20 – in the US this would be less than $10. I tried using an ATM at a bank but was not successful in getting it to work despite the notice that Visa and Mastercard-related cash cards are accepted.

One of the back streets that we walked along was lined with old wooden houses and reminded me of typical streets in the old parts of Kyoto Japan.

We stopped at a western-themed sports bar for a glass of wine and a beer. When we went to order, the bartender had us speak into his phone which translated from spoken English into written English and Chinese. His response was shown on the phone in written English. I was surprised that the “cash register” was an iPad-like device but didn’t accept credit cards. An English soccer / football game was playing on the large screen and the people in the bar were cheering for one or both of the teams.

We got back to the hotel around 10pm and went to bed.