An early rise and off we went by 6:00 am. The flight was nice, serving such choice snacks as dried squid morsels. I saved some, so ask me for some if you are craving such delicacies late at night. Arriving in Beijing the first thing we noticed was the cloud of smog that engulfed the city. We took a cab and somehow navigated our way to our hotel, The Far East Youth Hostel. Which is actually a really nice hostel, more like a 3 star hotel. We really like it here and settled right into our room. The hostel is located south west of Tiananmen square in the heart of a hutong neighborhood (a hutong is a very close quarter living arrangement neighborhoods where each family has their own quad-shaped courtyard surrounded by rooms: kitchen, childrens' room, parents' room, grandparents' room, and guest room). These are very old neighborhoods and if you want to see how the chinese live, you need not look further than the hutongs. Our hotel is like an oasis within the hutong land.
Our first adventure in Beijing was the silk market just south of Tiananmen Square. There was quite a bit of silk, but most of it was traditional chinese patterns. After some shopping around Kate and I decided to make some silk clothes. I picked out a black and gold bamboo leaf pattern to make into pyjamma pants and kate chose a lovely pink and silver material from which to create a dress. (after haggling over price, I got them to trow in a headband and I was sold.
Then Kate and I headed to a famous duck restaraunt for some roasted peking duck. It was a delicious meal, and surprisingly the first time I had the meal. Afterwards we wandered around some more in the markets and found ourselves turned around and a bit lost. My savvy navagation skills turned sour, and apparently so have my barganing skills. Hmmm, maybe my bowstaff skills are on the move upward?
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