Hanging out in Beijing

May 3, 2011

Overall, I didn’t find jet lag to be much of a problem on this trip. I arrived in the evening, tired enough to go to bed within a couple of hours and sleep through the night. I got up and did something tiring the very first day, so I slept okay the next night. And just like that, I was essentially on China time. It helped that China is exactly 12 hours ahead of time on the east coast (13 hours when we aren’t in daylight savings time) so I didn’t even have to change my watch! The only sign of some sleep disturbances was a touch of insomnia, and my body thinking I should wake up at 5am, regardless of how late I stayed up the night before. However, I also have these problems in America, so it might not be fair to blame it on the time change! Anyway, the first couple of days were truly exhausting, and getting by on less than 7-8 hours of sleep was going to start taking its toll pretty soon. So I was thrilled to finally sleep until 9am on my third full day in Beijing! It was Megan’s birthday and to celebrate, we decided that rather than doing a specific touristy thing, we would have a relaxing day of doing whatever Megan wanted.

Making travel plans in the hostel lobby

After a couple of lazy morning hours, we got our day started by making our travel plans to see something other than Beijing for a few days. We had been kicking around ideas of places to go, and finally settled on Luoyang to see the Shaolin Temple and the Longmen Caves, and Xi’an to see the Terracotta Army. We spent about 2 hours at the front desk of the hostel and made all of our travel plans with the help of the amazing Drum Tower Youth Hostel staff. They gave us advice, tolerated the many side discussions necessary to make decisions, and finally helped us book our trip. For a small fee, the hostel staff booked our train tickets to Luoyang for the following night; we would buy our bus tickets from Luoyang to Xi’an once we were in Luoyang; and we were able to book our own plane tickets online from Xi’an back to Beijing. We also secured hostel lodging in both cities over the phone and the internet. It was so exciting to officially have plans to leave Beijing!

With those plans made, we finally set off to enjoy Megan’s birthday. We had a fabulous day hanging around the Houhai Lake area: eating, drinking, shopping, and wandering.

Rooftop snack and beers in Houhai Lake area

In front of a cool little shop

Showing off my new commie bag (and holding the other bags for a bathroom stop) in a hutong

One highlight was our bike ride! Steering was a little difficult at first, but by the end of our hour rental, we were flying along.

Tandem bike ride

We finished the day at a Sichuan restaurant to try their hotpot. Ashley and I had brought some birthday decorations from home and wanted to decorate something as a surprise, but we weren’t sure how and when we would be able to pull it off. A perfect opportunity presented itself when on the way to dinner, Megan decided she did indeed want some shoes she had tried on at a store a few blocks back. We sent her back on her own to get them and quickly decorated the restaurant booth. The restaurant staff and other diners were thoroughly amused by our efforts: they even helped us hang the banners! Megan was surprised when she got back! We had a great dinner, although it was a little spicy for my wimpy tastes.

Birthday decorations

Admittedly, this was after we'd picked a lot of the food out. But still. So many peppers!

Happy birthday, Megan!

Our plan after that was to go back to the hostel and get ready for a proper birthday night on the town. But we were so tired! Perhaps jet lag was rearing its ugly head… Ashley went down for a nap moments after arriving back in our room. I went down shortly thereafter. We promised Megan to reschedule the birthday night on the town.