Peking Duck

Happy St. Patrick's Day! We headed to the only Irish Pub in Beijing, Durty Nellie's (no misspelling there, that's the way they spell it!) and enjoyed some pints of beer and some traditional pub grub. We met a few other Americans there, 1 who works construction for the new American Embassy (the new Embassy will be 10 acres, the largest in the world) and a couple from Kentucky who are here for 5 months teaching English. We enjoyed talking with other travelers and had a good night, Ryan even got a t-shirt!

Friday, we took a tour to the Great Wall. Julie and I had both seen the Great Wall separately on our last trip to China, so we sort of new what we would see...a really long wall. As with everything on this trip of ours, nothing ceases to amaze and the Great Wall is no exception. We had forgotten the feeling of seeing the Great Wall extending over hills and mountains for as far as the eye can see...it is a truly amazing sight. We climbed two towers of the Great Wall, as our tour guide waited at the bottom of the stairs for us, and you come to have a greater appreciation for those that built this monstrosity. It is exhausting to climb a few hundred yards of the Great Wall in the 21st century, let alone build the Great Wall extending about 6200 miles, centuries ago without the marvels of modern construction (yes, some for the Great Wall was built in pieces or connected already existing portions of walls in each province, but even so, it is truly amazing!)

After our Great Wall trip, our guide, Rose, took us to a lunch spot - typical tour lunch, with our expectations quite low; however we were pleasantly surprised when we tasted our meal. Our tour included one other traveler who was from Mexico City, he was here on business (parking equipment supplier) but had been to China 21 years ago. We really enjoyed talking with him about his business, Mexico and what China was like 21 years ago compared to present day. By the way, we thought Beijing was a huge city with 14+ million people but he told us that Mexico City has 21 million people!!! After the tour was over, we headed to the Hyatt for afternoon coffee and people-watching. (although one cup of coffee at the Hyatt is more than our 3 taxicab rides put together!)

We later met with our friends Jimmy and Cecelia for dinner at the Peninsula Hotel. We enjoy their company as Ryan and Jimmy tend to talk about the differences in Chinese v. American law and Cecilia and I enjoy talking about the hospitality industry. Beijing is certainly changing in order to prepare for the Olympics (that's another blog entry in itself!) as confirmed by Cecelia. It was a Peking Duck dinner (I even tried it, so much for being a devout vegetarian!), one of the best we've had in China. . . everything we ate was absolutely delicious!

We're off to explore today, heading to Xian tomorrow!