In Beijing we stayed at the Holiday Inn Central Plaza, which is Trip Advisor's number 1 rated hotel in Beijing. Our rooms were great, and we had access to the Executive Club on the top floor with internet and free food because of a problem we had with our reservation before leaving the US. The best part of the hotel by far was our concierge, Storm. He's the guy in the suit in the picture below, leading us through the street.
Our first day (to be posted soon) we took a great tour to the Great Wall and Ming Tombs which a man named Frank set up for us at a really great price. The next day Storm introduced himself, apologized to Matt (who had been talking to him a little from the states) that he hadn't been there the day before because his SON was being BORN, but said he'd had Frank set us up with the tour. That day he listened to what we wanted to do then gave us a plan of attack...he was very detailed in his explanation and after telling us what bus to take to Tian anmen, he ended up walking us there from the lobby, paying for all of us, and telling the driver to instruct us where to get off before he left. 
We occassionally got lost, especially when there were cab drivers involved. Even when given instructions in mandarin they seemed to never know where anything was...but we always miraculously ended up in the same spot, despite the fact that the 15 of us had to take at 4 cabs everywhere we went!
A man discretely cutting the hedges outside forbidden palace...
Some of the girls in Tiananmen square...
The entrance to Forbidden Palace. There's Mister Mao.
This girl was happy to be there. We had a mission to take as many pictures of cute Asian children as possible...and there were rat-tails and naked butts galore.
Inside Forbidden City...this place was absolutely incredible...so of course I'm just going to include a link so you can check out some sunny-sky photos and see what it's like in person a little better:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_City
From here, we went to the zoo...just to orient you, since these posts are anything but in order.
No comments:
Post a Comment