Sunday, September 25: Beijing

In the morning we flew from Xi'an to Beijing via China airlines. Even though it was only a short flight they provided multiple drinks, snacks, and even a meal, much like American airlines used to do.  We took the subway from the airport to the closest station to our hotel. The subways in Beijing were somewhat crowded but still very easy to navigate.  

Normal crowds at subway--it was considerably more crowded during rush hour.

This is the only basket like this that I saw, but all of the babies were cute.

Instead of tackling the bus system, we chose to walk about a mile to the hotel.  The map showed it as a very short walk of only 3 blocks.  But it turned out that the blocks were about a third of a mile each, so it took longer than we guessed especially with luggage--although we had packed very light with only a small backpack each, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been, and we got good exercise and a nice close up view of lots of places.

This was on the south side of the street about half way into our walk.  We passed it many times on the bus but never did figure out what it was for.

We figured out the bus system before we ventured out again.

One of Gary's co-workers, who was originally from Beijing, asked us to look up his niece, Budan.  We called her when we got to Beijing and arranged to meet her at the Tian'anmen East subway system. We stood out in the crowd, so it was fairly easy to connect.  From there we walked to the Qianmen shopping center, a place just south of Tian-enmen Square.  Qianmen is very beautiful and has been very nicely updated. 

View of Tien'anmen Square from Qien Men

View of Qian Men from the inside

Another view of the gateway to Qian Men

Many of the shops had bronze displays indicating which store they were--in this case a tea store

  Although we walked around a little, we mostly were looking for a place to eat Beijing Duck. The duck is cooked in a special oven and cut up at the individual table.

The duck ovens

Carving the duck at the table

First they cut the head off and served half to each of us since we were the guests.  Gary was adventurous and enjoyed it. I couldn't summon the courage, so Budan ate the other half.  Then they cut the meat off  (and other delicacies like the liver and heart) and served it on a platter in the shape of a duck. The proper way to eat it was to take a crepe, put some meat on it and then add cucumber and spring onion and a sweet bean sauce.

Budan and I

 Besides the duck we had a vegetable dish with peanuts and, my favorite, a black fungus dish. I've never been able to figure out how to make my black fungus taste as good as what we ate in China.

This was a really nice introduction to Beijing.