Beijing Round 1: Take a Rest

With seemingly little effort, we made it out of the airport and onto a bus bound for the area of town our hotel was supposed to be in. We had done it. We left Korea and we were now somewhere in Beijing. And we needed to find our hotel.

We had the name written in Chinese and showed this to four taxi drivers, all of which gave us a headshake or a hand gesture to indicate that they weren’t going to take us there. After walking for over 2 miles and finding the wrong hotel by the same name, I was losing steam and we were losing patience. So when an unmarked car pulled up and we showed the hotel name to him and he nodded yes and said ok, we got in. There had been warnings of taking taxis that were not official, but at this point, neither or us cared much.

The unmarked taxi ride did cost us more than a real taxi would have, but since a real taxi wasn’t getting us to where we were going and this guy did, we were happy to pay double a normal taxi just to be at our hotel.

We stayed for four nights with the sole intention of resting, relaxing, and not being demanded of. It was nice. We stayed in a Green Tree Inn, which is a fairly prevalent chain around here. We booked online for a better price and the room itself was very nice and clean and the staff was as helpful as they could be with their limited English. We would highly recommend the chain, though it seems that they tend to be located in areas away from where things are happening, so keep that in mind when you book.

On our way out after 4 days. Was a nice room to rest in.

At the end of four days, we decided we needed to get moving. Our first choice was Harbin (Har-bean) a city to the north and east of Beijing, famous for it’s ice festivals in the winter and the Russian influence in architecture and food. Sadly, when we got to the train station we were told that trains for the next three days were standing room only (on a 14 hour train!), and that we were not willing to do. So we opted for tickets to a city called Taiyuan (Tie-you-en) to the west and south of Beijing. But we couldn’t get those tickets until the next day, so that meant one more night in Beijing.

Mao and all his glory. This is as close as we got to the City

To simplify our lives, we decided to stay a bit closer to the railway station. Under guidance from what we thought to be a reliable source, we got on a bus heading west and then got off at the designated stop to begin our hunt for a new hotel for the night. Though the person told us that there were many cheap hotels around, we never saw any. We walked for over three miles that afternoon looking for a place to stay. Our search did take us by Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, so we got a photo and kept trekking.

Not as nice as our first room, but it was only for a night.

We finally ended up in a dank little hostel, 4 floors below ground level, not far from Wangfujin street (the famous shopping street in Beijing). It was over-priced and gross, but it did the trick for the night, and we were out the next morning on an 8:30am fast train to Taiyuan.