16
Jul 08

Beijing to Datong



Wednesday, July 16 Today started a bit crazy.  We were tired after spending a late night trying to distill our belongings down to a volume that would fill one less bag … in the end, it didn’t work.  We realized laying in bed that the station listed on our train tickets didn’t match any of the names of stations on our maps and that we needed help deciphering the nickname.  At breakfast we asked our host, who was very helpful, but nervous about the city traffic and our ability to get to the station on time.  She hustled us out the door and hailed us a cab.  She was great and we HIGHLY recommend our B&B, The Mao’er Hutong B&B, to anyone in staying in Beijing. Continue reading →


15
Jul 08

Holiday Beijing Day 3



Tuesday, July 15 Today we started with another lovely breakfast cooked by our B&B host. We left feeling nourished for the exciting Great Wall adventure we had planned. We used the local bus system to get there (as opposed to the tourist buses) and still feel quite accomplished by this fact; we even made it onto a special speedy bus. Continue reading →


14
Jul 08

Holiday Beijing Day 2



Monday, July 14 We had a great Chinese breakfast at our B&B. We took took care of some travel business and found a contact to buy our plane tickets from Xi’an to Guilin through our B&B host and also bought our train tickets to Datong. We started our Beijing sightseeing for the day by climbing to the tops of both the Drum tower and the Bell tower. It rained all day but we still managed to see a ton of sights and maintain a steady level of dampness along the way. Continue reading →


13
Jul 08

Holiday Beijing Day 1



Sunday, July 13, 2008 This morning we got out the door a bit late at 10am because we felt the need (read: Jeannette felt the need) to reorganize our stuff so we knew who had what and where everything was. We started the day right away by walking to the Forbidden City and from there on to Tian’anman Square. We walked over to the Opera House for a closer look before taking the subway to the Temple of Heaven. Continue reading →


12
Jul 08

Jeannette made it!



Saturday, July 12, 2008 We are together again after a month apart. We are checked in to our lovely bed and breakfast, the Mao’er B&B, in the Mao’er hutong. Not only do we SO HIGHLY recommend our B&B, but we also superly recommend walking around our particular hutong.  And that link about the Mao’er hutong is very informative about hutongs, hutonging, and specifically about our hutong.  We walked around our neighborhood, saw the Bell and Drum towers, walked around Houhai and are now sitting down to dinner and cold beers. A couple more pictures follow the jump. Continue reading →