The Olympic City - Day 1

As promised, the next couple o' blogs will be about our trip to Beijing - the capital of China. Beijing isn't too far from Qingdao, so we bought some high-speed train tickets and left early one morning. Thankfully, the train ride was pleasant and took a mere 6 hours. We also got to view some authentic Chinese countryside; not surprisingly, it was mostly packed with large farms. But, on to the good stuff, right?

The Beijing train station was conveniently close to our hotel. We dropped our bags and headed for the largest public square in the world.

For those of you who guessed Tiananmen Square, give yourself 200 points! The photo above shows the Gate of Heavenly Peace, also known as the building with the huge portrait of Mao. As you can also see, we arrived at the square around dusk, and were greeted by a Disney-like atmosphere that the square emanates at night. All the buildings are outlined with white lights like the one above. Another great surprise was a special botanical exhibit in the square aimed at getting the Chinese pumped about the olympics. There was a variety of flowers and arrangements configured to look like athletes engaging in various olympic sports. All of the athletes were standing in front of a Great Wall replica made out of flowers. It was really quite beautiful. At night, the exhibit was also lit which only increased its beauty. Tiananmen Square is also surrounded by many government buildings, and there are many monuments in the square itself - Monument to the People's Hero, and of course the Maosoleum. We decided to bypass these, but were slightly disappointed when we learned the Chinese Natural Museum was closed...until 2009 (how in the world can you close your national museum for that long, especially when you have the olympics coming to THAT city?)!

Tiananmen's charm lies in the people that flock to the square in support of their country. It was National Week, so believe us when we tell you, there were a lot of them. One night we walked to the square to hang out and were greeted by a claustrophobia-inducing amount of people packed into the square. Our first night in the square was our most pleasant. We were able to look at the flower exhibit in peace and watch the kites cut through the night sky. Beijing at night is different from many other global cities. First off, the city is expansive, yet there really aren't too many enormous buildings, especially around the Tiananmen area. Second, buildings don't stay lit all night long. If you look out over the city at night, you can tell the tourist areas, they are the ones that are lit up; the other areas remain dark, seemingly lifeless.

One area that is definitely not lifeless is Wanfujing Lu (Street). The street is Beijing's most popular shopping street and is lined with mall after mall. Fortunately, it also has Beijing's most praised Peking Duck Restaurant - QuanJuDe. You can't go to Beijing and not eat Peking Duck, it would be like going to Memphis and not having barbeque. The restaurant was very nice, and the food was hen haochi (very delicious). In true A Christmas Story fashion, the duck was brought out with the neck and head. Luckily, at QuanJuDe, they carve the duck for you. Another aspect that absolutely thrilled Darbie was the tea server. Usually, restaurants have a simple teapot from which the guests serve themselves; not so at QuanJuDe. A lady (perhaps a tea-pouring guru) walks around with a lengthy contraption serving tea. I wish we had video of Darbie's face the first time the lady refilled her glass. Fortunately, we do have some documentation, although it does not quite recreate the magic of their first meeting.

All this info for you, and this is only the first night! Instead of making you read one incredibly long post, we're going to break it up for you. Its kind of like how The Office really leaves you hanging with the whole Jim and Pam thing every season. We just want you to be thinking, "What in the world did they do the rest of the time they were in Beijing?" Plus, not too much goes on in Huangdao these days, so we need future posts. However we will leave you with a picture also taken on our first night in Beijing

One World. One Dream. Indeed. The Olympic Friendlies are hot, get on board now while you still can. And don't worry, at some point we will have an entire blog about just who these friendly pandas are and why they are so great.

Day 2, coming soon!

DB & KM