Beijing!

I'm in Beijing!

It's hard to believe right now since it's been a whirlwind of events leading up to it. Last Friday and Saturday, I spent all day packing and moving my stuff back to Cleveland (about an 8 hour drive). I then had only 2-3 days to unpack, see a few friends, and then repack before doing another 8 hour drive back to NYC in that huge rental cargo van without any windows on the side (Speaking of the cargo van, saved about $70 by not buying insurance for it, which, though perhaps not entirely necessary, would have improved my peace of mind - however, it felt odd later on that same day as I splurged the same $70 on a bunch of souvenirs at a museum which no doubt are just sitting somewhere at home. Isn't my peace of mind worth more than some lame souvenirs? Of course, not getting insurance also made me extra careful while driving, which meant that I ended up not needing the insurance anyways).

Well, the drive back to NYC should've been 8 hours, except I ended up taking a detour, lodging overnight, running a few errands, doing a bit of sightseeing, and seeing some old friends all along the way. I ended up arriving in NYC the night before my flight, and having to return my cargo van the morning of before hopping on a late morning flight to Toronto before taking Air Canada the rest of the way to the Northern (and current) Capital of China.

As on the trip to Taiwan, I met some random people again on the flight which were pleasant to converse with:


They are students from Wuhan, and were in Canada for the World Jamboree. For one of them, it was only their second time on a plane - however, she did not freak out ala Mr. Dijon (a character I once met on a trip to Chicago - an African American man in his 40s who had never ridden a plane before. He blew his mind and sort of lost it when we took off and ended up in the heavens...).

First impressions of Beijing in 2008:


Frankly, Beijing actually looks, well... rather nice! I was impressed - it looks a lot greener, though maybe that is because the photos above were not so much of the city itself but the outskirts. However, once I got into the city, I did find it to be greener and less rugged than in 2004:


Also, as I heard, most of the streets have been cleaned up - they had forced a lot of street vendors out, and there are a lot less cars on the road. Apparently some of that is good and bad news - some people (perhaps surprisingly ironic, many foreigners) reminisce and yearn for the dirty streets and cheap street food of Old Beijing. Now that Beijing is becoming like any other modern city, it's lost some of its allure.

My friend picked me up from the airport, and after dropping off my things, we went to eat at the local Chengdu restaurant nearby. Everything seemed about the same, except they now have TVs broadcasting the Olympics in the background. We got two rather large bowls of soup for $2 RMB each. That's about 30 cents USD. I really missed China...