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.