After spending a couple of days chilling out, I went to pick up Ben and Sophie from Beijing's brand new Terminal Three at Capitol Airport. It was amazing seeing the two of them again after almost three months on the road. It brought back a lot of memories from home, which was quite a bizarre feeling really.
Ben and Sophie clicked in really well with Matt and Emma, which was a relief. Theres nothing worse than introducing friends from different circles and them not getting on...however, in this instance that didn't happen, which was brilliant! A couple of days after our little group met Pete (AKA Pirate Pete...don't ask me why.....) and Dom, plus a few others, and all of the sudden we had quite the posse going on! Over the space 1 week, we managed to test out a good majority of the Beijing Nightlife, which was fantastic.
Beijing really was an amazing city though. So many contrasting differences, and an obvious struggle between the way things used to be and the way things will be going. The best way I can probably describe Beijing is a combination of the entire Yunnan Province and Shanghai. It seems like the people (especially the younger generation) are desperate to become up to date with the latest trends that you see blasted through the internet, yet still wanting to hold onto traditional values as well. In Beijing, it is still quite common to see the older ladies walking down the street carrying tons of food over their shoulders, and men delivering things on Bicycles. Where as in Shanghai you really don't see that at all. It was interesting to say the least!
And the pollution.....oh my god the pollution! Even when it was a nice day you couldn't tell due to the giant smog cloud that shadows the entire city. The only time I saw a blue sky was when some of us went to the Summer Palace and we went to the top of one of the temples. It was so bad that within one day of being there my eyes had swollen up and were itchy as hell...giving them a really stunning red glow to them! One thing I have to say is I definitely feel sorry for every athlete, especially the track and field guys and girls, who have got to run in that. Should be interesting to see how everyone goes.
That said, the city has definitely cleaned up. It was a lot cleaner than I was anticipating, and the entire Beijing population is just so excited about the games. Even some of the taxi drivers had started to get a basic understanding of English, which in China is pretty rare.
The Olympic stadium that has been built for the games was truly an amazing sight to see. The whole area around the stadium is till under heavy construction, however I think by the time the games roll around it will look magnificent.
We spent the first week in Beijing just wondering around the city, checking out only a few of the sights, as we knew the main ones were included in our Intrepid Tour, which was starting the following Sunday. We headed out to the Summer Palace and checked out the 798 district (art house Beijing).
As said earlier, we spent most of our evenings checking out the best of Beijings nightlife, which really was an amazing experience. From dancing in an empty club on a tuesday night, to hitting up $1 shots at a bar called Shooters, to checking out on of the classiest techno clubs in Beijing, Tango...we truly saw it all! It was great to see all the young Chinese out and about, dancing away to music that we get at home.
We then departed our hostel on Sunday the 1st of June, and headed to the Harmony Hotel (quite possibly the fanciest hotel I will ever stay in on this trip!) to start our Intrepid Tour.
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