China - Day 1

Beijing was wonderful in many ways, but in many ways it really made me miss Korea.

Day1:

After heading to our hostel and checking in and dropping off our packs, we immediately headed out to meet a fellow teacher from Korea, Norman, so that we could go see the Summer Palace together. After meeting Norman as one of the subway transfer stations, we immediately made off to the palace. It wasn't too dicfficult getting there either. After leaving the subway, we caught a taxi who took up straight there. The cab fare was only 10 yuan, which was less than $2. After paying our 40 yuan entrance fee (less than $7), we were free to wander most of the premises with the other tourists and locals who were checking out the palace next to it's frozen lake. I do have to say it was beautiful, even in the middle of winter, and I had a good idea of why the emporer would have wanted to stay there in the summer (other than the fact that the forbidden city is a veritable maze).

After the Summer Palace, we decided to hit up a popular western-style mall with a huge food court. I know, you are wondering why we went to a food court, well the food court at this mall consisted of at least 15 full resteraunts, all carrying a different style of Chinese food, and even many Korean resteraunts. We avoided the Korean, since we eat Korean every day, and headed to one of the Szechuan resturaunts. I was really excited because Cody and I watched the old Iron Chef all the time, and we had never had Szechuan food before. Cody went with a chicken dish, and Norman chose a non-spicy chicken dish (most Szechuan dishes are spicy and laden with Szechuan peppers). I decided I wanted to try something new and went with the Szechuan Bullfrog. Now, I've had frog before (At a Asian buffet back home), but the frog was always overcooked and deepfried. This was a whole bull frog chopped into pieces and stewed with Szechuan peppers and garlic and chili oil I believe and served in a big bowl with all the peppers and oil and such. I was immediately scared because I was starting to be afraid that I ordered something unbearably spicy. It turned out to be really good. The peppers were spicy, but not horribly so, and very flavorful. I had the strangest sensation of knowing the food was spicy, but my mouth not being affexted and my lips going really numb and tingly from the spice. It was delicious, and only 75 yuan ($12.50!), a little on the mid range/expensive side for China, but still really cheap!

After dinner, we stumbled on a Dairy Queen, and could not resist buying some blizzards for 35 yuan (less than $6), and then we made our way down to Tiananmen Square and the front of the Forbidden City to see them and night and to see fireworks because it was the Lantern Festival (the last day of Chinese New Year). It was fabulous lit up, and everyone in Beijing was crowding the sidewalks buying things, and going to blow up a firework or ten. You actually couldn't see too many fireworks in the sky because of the tall buildings and smog and smoke, but it sounded like we were in the middle of a war zone with bombs going off everywhere. The ground was constantly booming, and it was very loud.

We were actually lucky to avoid any street firecrackers because when we went back to our hostel, we could tell by the amount of firecracker papers that walking in the street there would have been hazardous while they were going off. There was even a newly constructed hotel that burned down that night, and not far from us, because of all the fireworks going off next to it.

We headed to bed around 10:30 pm that night to finally get some sleep, only to get up at 5:30 am the next day....