Beijing Is Grimy

We spent about 5 days in Beijing and managed to see very few of the "sights." We did spend a day at the Forbidden City, which was interesting, but also hot and tourist-filled. And we tried to see Mao (preserved and on display in Tienanmen for 30 years now) but showed up on the wrong day and the mausoleum was closed. Just as well as far as I'm concerned - it's kind of creepy - but it was pretty much the only thing around with free admission, and that piqued our interest.

For a few of the days we stayed with Alexia and Thierry, amazingly generous people who I met in Sweden at the plant biomechanics conference and invited us to stay with them in the first minutes of our first conversation. Their apartment was beautiful, and after a few weeks (months for Tavi) of staying in mixed quality places (the most expensive of which cost us each about $6 a night. The minimum we did for the trip was 15rbm = $1.90 each.) we found it too easy to hang out there for too long in the mornings. Their generosity also extended to giving Tavi a job until November (helping to prepare for a conference. Sarah T., think I should go back up for that? ;).

Also high on my list of must-do things for Beijing was to go to Din Tai Fung...for the dumplings I can get any time I want in California. Even had the dual-language menu with me from home so I could be sure to get my favorites. Turns out this is one of the fanciest restaurants around (much more upscale setting than the US one), and the dumplings were about the same price as in the US (so exorbitant there). But we had our "appetizer" and xiaolongbao, and I was happy. Oh, and a cucumber-honey drink that was delicious.

So, I'll have to go back to Beijing sometime to see more, if they don't renovate it all out of existance in the 2008 Olympics preparations. But I'm not in a rush - the pollution is so bad that the second hand smoke from cigarettes is negligible and every surface is dirty. Better places to see in other parts of the country.