Beijing Day 1 – 9/26

After a 2 hour and 15 minute flight we arr rived in Beijing at 1:30pm. We checking into our hotel – Beijing Marriott City Wall and dropped off our luggage. We then headed for the subway to Tiananmen Square. It is big. Big enough for 3 separate subway stops. It was relatively empty… only about 5,000 people or so. Yes, I meant 5,000 and empty. On 10/1 (just 5 days later) there was over 190,000 people there (in one day). At this point I want to address a traveling sightseeing event in China. It’s me. Many of the Chinese have not seen Westerners in person before and find it very exciting. As a result they often stare and take pictures (most of the time trying to hide the fact that they are taking a picture with me being the central item). Occasionally they are brave enough to ask to have me in their pictures with them.

Moving on people, we have a lot to see. There is no time to waste reading my egocentric babbling. Our next stop was the Beijing National Theater. It is 1 block west of Tiananmen Square (it is a very long block though). One interesting thing we noticed is that the water surrounding it has different depths. In some areas it looks as though people are walking on water, at others they are knee deep. We decided it looked much better at night, but I will let you be the judge.

Then we went to the China Millennium Altar. This was 2 subway stops away. A portion of the area was closed as it was romping up for the events to come in the next couple of days (most people traveling to Beijing for the National Holiday do so on 10/1 – 10/5 as people still work through 9/28). Essentially this Monument appears to be a large sundial with a museum under it, but it was closed so we could not do a closer look.

Finally we made it back to our Hotel at around 9pm.