So this is Beijing.

Early night in, and fully-charged laptop accessing free wifi...time to catch up.

Wednesday (Qingdao still) I slept in a bit, then waited for a bus for a while and gave up and took a taxi instead, which cost me approximately $1 more than the bus would have. Took it to #2 Beach, from which I walked to an old house that I think used to be the German Governor's mansion. I'll post a photo entry after this one, which won't include Beijing since they're still on my camera, but will give you an idea of Qingdao. Anyway, the house was cool because you could just wander around and sit in all the chairs and touch everything, but obviously not very well-preserved. It had an extensive love-themed park in the front yard, which was kind of frightening.

Walked and wandered and ate and so on for the rest of the morning and early afternoon, then came back to the hostel to pack up and write emails and so on. Ate dinner, and found a couple from Vienna who were taking the same bus to Beijing, so we found a taxi together and hung out at the stop. (It was nice to have some company, since it was really unclear if we were in the right place at all.) The bus itself was quite the experience, and in a much better way than I had expected it to be. There were three rows of beds with two aisles in-between, each with a lower bed and upper bed. I had an upper bed in the middle row, and it was surprisingly comfortable. Slept on and off, and after 11 hours arrived in Beijing.

I kind of felt jet-lagged all over again when I got here, but was stubborn enough to find a taxi that wasn't going to cheat me and got to my hostel without a problem. I'd read and heard great things about this hostel, and it's impressing me so far- the hostel rooms are just the basement (and maybe other floors, but I don't think so) of a hotel. The hotel is right in the middle of the city, and had a tour office and breakfast and stuff.

Anyway, I felt awake enough when I first got here to just want to get out, since I knew I would crash later and want to come back to chill. So I went out in search of a bank, a post office, or a Forbidden City. Found the last one first, and woke up enough to realize that I was actually there, looking at images I had seen a billion times before in real life. Kind of surreal. I let myself just wander through whatever rooms of the palace attracted me, and came to the fairly firm decision that the whole thing should become a living history museum. I wanted so badly to go back in time and see how things used to be, and reading signs while looking in glass cases just wasn't giving me enough of a picture.

I then went on a pilgrimage to a post office, where they seemed less than surprised that my suitcase was 4 days late and gave me hope it would still arrive. Ate a late lunch and came back to the hostel to clean up, unpack, email Lizzie, and chat with the tour people a bit. Looks like Lizzie and I will hopefully meet up tomorrow night when she and her classmates are celebrating being done with exams.

After relaxing in the hostel a bit it was too late to run out and catch anything important before it closed, which was fine since I will probably have more energetic days. Found a bank and took the subway to a shopping area, mostly just for the sake of taking the subway. (Everything about the Beijing subway feels totally different than the Shanghai one. These are VERY different cities.) Ate dinner, and came back to the hostel in time to see if they'd found a ticket for me for the Beijing Opera performance nearby, and they had, so I headed over. Beautiful theater, and I'm glad I went, but I don't think I love Beijing Opera. (Same thing as Peking Opera.)

Tomorrow is looking busy, so don't worry if I don't write, but you may hear from me. :)