The Amazing Race Beijing

After two and a half days of traveling, I arrived in the infinitely interesting city of Beijing. The skies were cloudy, the weather cool. I boarded a bus from the airport and watched this new city go by on the way to the hotel. It is a fascinating place. East meets West.

The first night, we were served an absolutely delicious meal in the restaurant of our hotel. Real Chinese food is amazing, and I mean AMAZING! My favorites so far: walnut chicken, three treasures, spicy green beans, eggplant, and dumplings. I hope I can learn to make these dishes.

Fast forward to day two. We were assigned a group and two Chinese University student guides to go around the city of Beijing on a scavenger hunt-type excursion. We had a big list of things to see and take pictures of. My group chose to go to the Houhai neighborhood of Beijing which has the Drum and Bell Towers and the Hutong Alleys.

Here were the tasks we were given:

1. Observe Traffic Patterns

This is a street near my hotel. Traffic in Beijing is fairly orderly, although buses can do whatever they want and get away with it.

2. Observe fashion

The women in Beijing are always dressed to the hilt, and so are the dogs!

3. Buy a transportation card

We went to the subway station to buy a transportation card. These are amazing. You can use them to ride the bus, ride the subway, and make public phone calls. They are the only card you need to make it around the city.

4. Buy the "most different" potato chip flavor you see.

We got the pecan flavored chips. These were just like sun chips, and were actually quite good.

5. Visit a Chinese Tea Shop. What is the most expensive tea?

We found a beautiful Chinese Tea Shop. The most expensive pot of tea was about 900RMB (about $150) And, no, we did NOT buy it. :)

6. Join a game of chess or hackey-sack with the locals. We did BOTH!

I actually didn't "join-in" per se, because I had no idea how to play.

I tried to hit the hackey-sack, but was unsuccessful. Here is my friend Edwina playing.

7. Visit the Drum and Bell Towers

It was too expensive to go inside, but the towers were pretty neat from the outside too

 Some bonus pictures:

At dinner the first night. The food was delicious!

With my Chinese student guides, Rachel and Katherine

Eating mango ice cream by the lake

Beautiful lake near the Drum and Bell towers

Starbucks! I didn't order anything though. Don't you wish Starbucks looked like this in Lubbock? How cool would that be!