Ryan and I arrived in the Beijing airport midday on Wednesday after a great trip on the Dreamliner (see Ryan’s previous post). The Beijing airport is beautiful. Built for the 2008 Olympics, it is spacious and clean with white tiles and high ceilings.

Arriving at our lodging was a bit of a shock. The hostel itself was fine, sparse but clean, though I was a little put off by having to rent a towel. It is located in Nanluogu Xiang, one of the oldest hutongs in Beijing.  The street is full of shops and restaurants and street food, and close to major sites, which sounds ideal, but words cannot accurately describe the chaotic feeling.  It is very narrow, busy, crowded with pedestrians, bicycles, rickshaws, mopeds, the occasional car trying to make its way through, and noisy.  The dichotomy between the airport and the hutong, new vs old, and clean vs. not quite as clean feeling, is something we have found throughout our stay in Beijing.  Here is what the street outside our hostel looked like, and this wasn’t even busy!

We headed out to the Beijing tourist information center, stopping for some tasty coffee and pie on the way (green tea cheesecake for me and chocolate banana cake for Ryan). Funny thing, which we’ve subsequently found in other places; there was a sign on the door indicating they accept Discover Card, but they would actually only take cash. The overwhelming feeling from the hutong (and probably Dramamine) quickly dissipated once we had some nourishment.

With full stomachs, we wandered around some other hutongs, found the tourist information center and booked a day trip to the Great Wall, and walked around the bar/restaurant area near the lake.  Wild squash seems to grow all around Beijing, including on the rooftops of homes in the hutongs.