(Not to worry; I’m not going to blog separately about each and every day…):
I had arrived a day early to make sure I didn’t miss the opening dinner. First order of the day was to run — I asked the 4th floor staff to direct me how to run to Tiantan (Temple of Heaven) and they just laughed; it sounded quite impossible. The concierge, however, pulled out a map and indicated a direct route on some major streets.
It is my theory that 90% of getting lost happens within 100 ft of the hotel. Because…you don’t know which way to turn when you exit the hotel. Do you turn right, right as you exit, or do you turn right at the end of the driveway? It’s never clear. So anyway, I ran a couple of miles down the wrong and very busy street, then self-corrected and ran a couple of miles in the correct direction, all the way dodging rush hour pedestrians, bikes and cars. The car exhaust on these busy arterials was pretty bad.
An inauspicious start to running in China, and I didn’t reach Tiantan. Much improvement to come!
Then I set out by taxi (lazy me — the subways work fine in Beijing) to Wangfujing (a big shopping district) to relive my memories of 1984. It was vaguely familiar, but so grown up! I ate at (I admit) a Pizza Hut. The food was fine…what fascinated me was the crowds of young Chinese, waiting in line to get a table and ordering up dish after dish after dish…Wow. If any businessperson doubts the future of commerce in China, let him or her come to the Pizza Hut at Wangfujing.
I then walked to the Forbidden City, accompanied by an art student who struck up a conversation with me, chatting about the history of the Forbidden City, this & that building’s significance, etc. I knew something was up, but let him lead me down a side street to…the gallery where he worked. A smooth-talking salesman took over from there, giving detailed descriptions of each scroll. I was not in a scroll-buying mood (plus, had ZERO space in my luggage), so I eventually escaped from the high-pressure sales and continued on to the Forbidden City. I didn’t pay the entrance fee, but just admired the outer courtyard, and of course, the iconic view facing Tiananmen Square:
From there, I walked back to Wangfujing, took a taxi back to the hotel (20 yuan — about $3), and went to our opening dinner, Banquet #1, Beijing Duck! A naive group we were — we ate heartily, thinking that future meals would be more simple. Hahaha….