Beijing, China: Our Experience

On May 2 we flew to Beijing for a 4 day vacation. The experience was amazing and one of the best we've ever had! We were so impressed with the city. It was remarkably clean with beautiful landscaping throughout. The people were friendly and almost everything was in English, including the ATM machines, bus/subway announcements, street signs, and maps displayed on the streets. Many people spoke English, too.

Our trip began by trying to find our way to our hostel. We took an airport shuttle into the city, and then we were on our own. We were dropped-off in the middle of the city, which was packed with people! We began by trying to take a taxi, but the only one we could find wanted to charge us triple what our hostel said we should be charged...so we ended-up taking a local bus, which only cost 14 cents each! Luckily, we met a man from New York who has lived in China for 5 years with his Chinese wife. They helped us squeeze onto the most crowded bus we've ever been on and told us when to get off. It was quite an introduction to China, but really fun at the same time!

After we found the main location of our hostel, they transported us to one of the hostel branches in a bicycle cart with us and our luggage in the back! It was so exciting riding down the street!

The Red Lantern Hostel: We did a lot of research to find a hostel that was placed in a traditional "hutong" neighborhood. We stayed at the Red Lantern Hostel, which turned out to be wonderful! It was really authentically decorated with a courtyard in the center and rooms on each side of the courtyard. They served food there as well. Each morning we had eggs and toast for breakfast for about $2 each.

This is the common area of the hostel.

The common area had koi fish in the pond under this bridge and caged birds, too!

A traditional Chinese dress added to the decor.

The courtyard at the hostel.

Frank outside the double door entrance to our room.

Our room, which was only $25 a night!
We used a shared bathroom and shower that was at the other end of the courtyard.

Houhai District:

Our first night in Beijing was spent walking around the never-ending neighborhoods of our hostel. After about an hour of exploring, we came across the Houhai Lake and shopping district. This area had quaint stores and restaurants along beautiful lakeside walkways. Chinese music played on loudspeakers around the lake.


About halfway around the lake, a circle of people were gathered watching as couples danced to the music that was playing on the loudspeakers. We were in awe of how happy and carefree they were. In Japan, we only saw people dancing during festivals, and they always danced in unison. Here, the couples were just twirling each other randomly! We actually came across people dancing 2 other times at different parks during our time in Beijing. This was one of our best memories of China!

Here's a video of the dancing:

Chinese Food:

We loved the Chinese food, especially since it tasted pretty much like what Chinese food tastes like in the States. We're big fans of Chinese dumplings, so we ordered those every day. Food was really cheap. The meal in the pictures below cost us $6 total (dumpling/noodle soup, beef fried-rice with veggies, 2 orders of fried dumplings, and 2 Jasmine teas).

Public Transportation:

Transportation was so cheap! Busses were 1RMB, which is about 14 cents USD each (with a bus pass, the fare is only 5 cents each) and subways were 25 cents each. Surprisingly, the busses and subways were clean and really technologically advanced with TV screens and electronic signs/announcements in English.

Double-decker bus. We took one once and of course rode on the top!

The majority of the busses look like this, with an extension on the back of the bus almost doubling its length.

We've never seen this kind of bus before. They had electric busses with attached rods to the power-lines that could drive all over the city.

Pedicabs were also all over the place!

A mix of old and modern with this woman on her cell phone in the pedicab.

Traditional Neighborhoods "Hutongs":

One of our absolute favorite parts of Beijing were the hutongs. Thousands of people call these narrow alleyways home and back in the day, Beijing used to be full of them, but unfortunately many are being destroyed to put up high-rise apartments. The hutongs gave us a glimpse of the culture and felt like we were going back in time. The best part of walking around the neighborhoods was that we were the only tourists there.

The one-story houses are all attached and with rows and rows of alleyways.

A crowded street in the middle of the hutong with shops and restaurants. Walking down this street really felt like we were in "real China!"

Take a look at this toddlers pants! We were so excited to get this shot because it's the oddest thing. We're not really sure why all the kids this age had pants with a hole in the booty, but we're assuming it's an alternative to buying/wearing diapers? Really weird!!!

Foot and Leg Messages at the Beijing Message Hospital:

After walking around Beijing for about 12 hours every day, our legs were killing us. We asked our hostel for a good place to get messages, and it turned out that the Beijing Message Hospital was about 2 blocks away from where we were staying.

This was a very different experience. Inside the "hospital" were about 3 courtyards with rooms on each side. Inside each room, we could see a row of beds in the windows with people in white medical coats giving people messages, acupuncture, and other traditional medical remedies. It turns out that the masseuses are blind! It is actually common for blind people in China to develop this trade, because they apparently have a great sense of touch. We each had leg and feet messages for about 45 minutes. The messages felt painful at times, but good in the end. One of the masseuses actually said "No pain, no gain."

Pandas at the Beijing Zoo:

Our hostel was walking distance to the Beijing Zoo, so we stopped in quickly for a look at the pandas. They were really cute!

Here's a video of the baby pandas wrestling:

2008 Olympics- The Birds Nest and Watercube:

On our last night in Beijing, we took a bus to where the 2008 Summer Olympics were. Almost a year later, it was still crowded with visitors and with stands set up selling food and souvenirs.

The 90,000-seat Birds Nest stadium looked awesome all lit up at night !

We were really impressed with the National Aquatic Center "Watercube" as well!

A view of the Birds Nest and Watercube from a distance.

All around the Olympic site were brand-new hotels and apartments. The hotel on the left is in the shape of a torch and all of the hotels in the background, including the torch hotel, had huge TVs on the left-hand corner which probably broadcasted the events during the Olympics. The entire complex was huge and we could tell so much money was invested in it. Unfortunately, it's not being used for much now...except for a free sight for tourists to visit.