Days 185-187: Solo in Beijing

Getting into mainland China went smoothly and I found my way from the airport to the inner city by train and metro pretty easily. The place I was staying was very central, down a narrow alley of squat buildings called a hutong. By the time I got in the first night and settled myself it was already pretty late, but the main pedestrian street of the city was very close so I had an evening stroll down, checking out shops and looking about.

The room I booked was a dorm-style one, but for 4 nights I stayed there it was just me and a Hong Kong student from Austria who was in Beijing on a school project. The second day I explored a bit further out, and had some of my first frustrating moments. Beijing, on a map, has a very elegant layout. Unfortunately it's not carried out so well, and traffic is a constant hazard. Not surprisingly, it's also a very crowded city and at times it seems every person in it is trying to find some edge to get money off you. On the plus side, public transit is extremely cheap (about $0.20 CDN by subway to anywhere in the city) so some of the traffic dangers can be avoided by just not walking much.

After a few days getting my bearings I spent the next day sightseeing. I walked from my hotel to Ti'anamen Square and across to the Forbidden City, which I explored all morning. The size of the complex is huge, especially when you consider that it's stuck right in the middle of the city, and everything else has been built around it. Other than the size, the rest wasn't too impressive as the architecture isn't really very different from many other buildings I've come across in Asia.

(That last one was taken a different day, which is why it's so much hazier, but it's the best one I could find showing the scale of the place)

In the afternoon I walked to the large park that contains the Temple of Heaven, and spent the rest of the day there. Besides the temple itself the park has long stretches of trees and other monuments, so there's quite a bit there to keep busy with.