Day 2: Beijing


We arrived in Beijing and met our guide Han who would be with us for the whole trip. We got to know him quite well and he was wonderful - so knowledgeable, patient with all our questions, took really good care of us, was open about his life. We hope he'll come visit and bring his wife and young adult daughter.

Beijing is the capital of China. It has a population of 13.5 million (compare to NYC which is 8.2 million, or LA with 3.8 million). It used to be called "Peking" by Westerners. Some first impressions of Beijing: It's a BIG city, lots of traffic, sky very gray, the air smells bad. Highrises everywhere, some old and run down, others new or in process. Construction everywhere. The buildings in the middle photo below are actually tilted...that's not an illusion! There is a moat around the city which has green parks and trees alongside it. The expressway is one of the old "ring roads" that used to be the wall protecting the city. We stayed at the Jiangxi Hotel, outside the city. (Note, this is one way China Focus keeps the tour price so low - we stayed in hotels that were not in the central city so were less expensive.)

More about Beijing on Wikipedia>>

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