My thoughts on Beijing fluctuate constantly.

The first night I was back, I was in love with the place. The entire city is very easy to navigate, there are restaurants and shops everywhere, and being one the capitals of the world, you can find anything you need. Then I started looking a bit deeper. The place is like 25% foreigners, so I don't really feel unique here. It's also impossible to get a cab, and the city is just filthy. One day it will be pretty nice, the next it looks like a foggy swamp. Except the fog is pollution. Yuck. And then after I went around seeing all the touristy things, I concluded this city is really really boring. The hostel had cheap beer, though.

I'm glad I went and got to see the sights, but I don't see myself ever going back there. The first day was the Forbidden City, which not true to its namesake, is pretty easy to get into. The thing is though, its kind of a boring place. Its a grand sprawling complex, more like a parking lot with some old buildings in it. Except the old buildings are mostly empty. Also it took about an hour to walk from one side to the other. Of special note was the park at the end. You got to climb up a hill that offered some really great views of the city. There's not really too much to say about it though. There are plenty of pictures on Facebook, and aside from the sights I didn't really see or do anything too interesting. I know, lame, right?

The 2nd day was a little better because I went to the National Museum, and there was some cool stuff. I really liked the section of gifts to China, because they had some pretty crazy stuff in there. Pieces of moon dust from America, a literal olive branch from Obama, some fish things - it was kind of a big deal. I also managed to make it out to Olympic Park, which is cool but REALLY FRAKIN' FAR. It involved changing subway lines 4 times, and I got there just as it was getting dark. At least I got to see when they turned the lights on, which was cool. Very impressive buildings, but seriously - way too far. I didn't get back to the hostel until pretty late, which meant I got to drink beer while looking out the window at people freezing their ass off.

Speaking of freezing my ass off, I met up with two guys I went to North Korea with for my final day there to see some joint sightseeing. We went to see the Temple of Heaven and the Emperor's Summer Palace on what may be one of the coldest days ever. It was -8 in Beijing that day, (Centigrade, but ffs thats still in the teens). and we are outside almost all day. Honestly the temple and palace were both pretty boring as well! Some overly impressive buildings that were pretty much empty once you got down to it. The lake at the summer palace was frozen completely solid, so my travel companions and I tried our hardest to find something big and heavy we could throw in to break the ice. It became our mission for the day, and after spending all day finding only pebbles and branches, we finally found a big rock that weighed about 20 pounds. Excited, we rushed back to the lake, and threw it as hard we could.




Thud.

Seriously, it was godamn cold.

Hey, it's Dandong! (snicker)

On the way back from the DPRK, we had a stop off in the border town of Dandong. Due to a series of very strange circumstances (too long of a story to write - ask me about it), myself and one other American arrived in Dandong about 6 hours before everyone else. We were taken to our hotel, which after being in the DPRK looked like the most decadent testament to capitalism I could ever imagine. My bathroom had a hot tub. And marble floors. Marble floors, ya'll. Seriously, that room was nice.

No dabbling! Go big or go home!

While we were waiting for everyone to come back, my American friend Tom went down to the spa. I took a bath and decided to stroll about town. Dandong isn't really an exciting city. Pretty small by Chinese standards, only 2 million people. Nothing really western or modern about it, with little appeal for tourists. But I had time to kill, so be it.

That evening we still had not heard from our friends, which we later learned got delayed at the border for 3 hours. Tom and I went out to a club that we thought was pretty mundane. It started out with a very talented singer, a few other acts, but then things changed when the clown came out.

I thought "Oh great, a clown". He did a few magic tricks, made some impressive balloon animals. But then, the music changed. The clown turned angry. And things got dirty. Really dirty. The nice clown making the balloon animals started making all sort of balloon genitalia and putting it on everyone. There was also a lot of fire. It was a strange day.

That evening, the others finally arrived and we went back to the club. They had a Gangnam style dance off I was all too eager to join in on. The MC said "I want to ask his name but I don't think he would understand." I responded I do understand, and told him my name. He had quite the wtf face, and it drew some applause. We chatted for a bit until he said something I truly didn't understand. Myself and one other travel companion Gangnam styled, and we got several buckets of free beer.

North Korea is past the river on the right

Anyway the next day we meet our tour guide who is one of my favorite people in the world. We headed off to the Great Wall, and along the way he talked and talked and talked and talked in broken English about China and Dandong, stuff I honestly didn't care about. We climbed up the wall and the very final tower, overlooking North Korea. Coming back to the bus the guide talked more and more, until suddenly he turned funny. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but he suddenly turned into Chinese Leslie Nielsen. He started speaking in lofty terms about this mountain, and asked "Do you know-how ancient-Chinese say-if-a mountain is beau-tiful? If tour guide says it is beautiful, it is beautiful."

Take a look at this, Kim!

It took me a second to process this. He didn't crack a smile or laugh, he was completely deadpan. I looked around and everyone else was the same. We all realized we heard the same and began laughing. He continued this deadpan style, and I still don't know if he was serious or not. When we went to the Duck River (so called because the water is green), he said "The North Koreans keepa-polluting it, I think it-is more yellow. We should call it Chicken River." Completely, 100% serious face the whole time.

We got to go to the Chinese Korean War museum, which was interesting to see their take on it. There was also a boat ride right up along the coast, consequently the same place those American journalists were snagged a few years ago. (exciting!). Bill Clinton did not have to come save us this time.

As one of the last stops on the tour, we went out on the broken bridge, a bridge we bombed during the Korean War. The story goes not one bomb was allowed to be dropped in China, so we left the Chinese half of the bridge intact while we blew the living crap out of the NK half. So now you can go out to the middle of the river and see it. There were lots of people there selling all sorts of NK souveniers.

And thats it for Dandong. We caught a train back in the evening that went to Beijing. It was a slow, overnight train, and sleeping was quite easy after drinking a few bottles of wine in one of the cabins. But Beijing will be something for next time. Seeya, Dandong.