Everywhere a Foriegner

Directly off the train from Jinan to Beijing, we spotted a Baskin Robbins next to a Starbucks and felt instantly giddy with the excitment of how much western food we would be feasting on over the next four days. Yes, of course, we wanted to see the Great Wall, and the Forbidden City....yaddiyaddiya.., BUT we were not ashamed to admit that locating the Papa Johns was of equal importance.
One the first day we hit TCBY, Starbucks and Subway just because they were there!

Beijing is overflowing with foriegners. I couldn't stop myself from staring.
We noticed straightaway that nobody was giving us a second glance. As we passed people on the sidewalk, I watched their faces waiting for them to register that we were white and take a longer look... but nothin!


We found a youth hostel that was warm and clean (the YHA) and got ourselves a couple beds in a room of four bunks. What I love about youth hostels---and this is true of hostels anywhere in the world, I think---is after you have stayed there for a night, you feel like you own the place. Some new travellers come into the bunks nearby and after introductions, you find yourself behaving as if you have graciously allowed them to crash at your place for a night or two, tempted to say things like "go ahead and makes yourselves comfortable...the shower down on your left has the best pressure...just let us know if you plan on coming back late tonight."




We decided that this view was nice enough that we didn't actually need to go into the Forbidden City.






Lamu Temple

















IKEA!!

We took a long bus ride out to Simitai--a section of the wall with very few visitors. After we got off the bus, I pretended that we were beginning the Amazing Race. Our competition: all the other young foriegners on the bus.