I'll be honest; the trip here was pretty bad. It took us 13 hours, and while we did have seats to sit in, they were very hard. There were seats immediately in front of us, facing us, and the ladies sitting in them were constantly shifting their legs and putting their bare feet up on my seat while they were sleeping. The train was full of people. All of the seats were full, as were the isles. Apparently, in China, they sell tickets even when there are no seats available, so people stand and hope that someone will get up. If you get up, your seat is immediately filled with someone else who has been standing for hours. Needless to say, we could not take bathroom breaks. Even if we wanted to go to the bathroom, it would be impossible to get to it because you'd have to jump over people sleeping lying down and standing up in the isles. It was quite cramped, with very little air-conditioning, and the entire situation was quite uncomfortable. I think I got a total of 3 hours of sleep. Paul was in the isle seat and took most of the beatings from people walking by and trying to essentially sleep while leaning up against him, so he got about 20 minutes of sleep during the trip. Ibbi had the window seat, and so had much more room than Paul and I, he probably slept for about 7 hours. Paul was pretty funny to sit next to. He complained literally every 5 minutes about a new person trying to invade his space, saying that he was about to knock them out, I laughed and tried my best to push his buttons a little more. I'd say even though the atmosphere was not as nice as we had hoped, it was still a good adventure and we made the most of it. Upon arrival in Beijing, at 11:20am, we immediately went to the ticket office to see if we could get a better ride back (as opposed to our pre-planned 24 hour ride to Shanghai, without air-conditioning, and probably pretty similar to our ride to Beijing). Fortunately for us, we were able to secure some seats on the nicest train available (soft seats this time, lots more leg room, a 10 hour ride instead of 13, and much better air-conditioning). The only day that we could get these tickets for was this Tuesday night, which means we've extended our time in Beijing by one day. Cool with us! So we'll be back in Shanghai by Wednesday morning around 9am.
After we picked up our new and improved tickets home, we became quite frustrated with trying to find a taxi to get us to our hostel, and we opted for the subway instead. This turned out to be quite a good idea. We had to ask quite a few people how to get to the address of our hostel, which subway station we should be taking, and which direction we should be walking in, but we found success and made our way there with the beating Beijing heat upon us (Paul and I like to stick with the 'tennis-style' sweat towels around the neck at all times, it really helps). Turns out that the reviews I read online about our hostel were all true. It is a pretty great place. Named, the Beijing Dreams Travel Hostel, it is set up much like a college dormitory building. The reception desk offers towels, toilet paper (yep, you have to buy toilet paper), drinks, travel recommendations, taxi calls, really anything you could need. There's a small cafe, bar, and lounge area all on our floor, where people are constantly hanging out playing chess, watching tv, working on computers, playing music, and just hanging out meeting people. Our bedroom has 10 bunked beds in it, an all-guys' room, and is painted much like a child's bedroom in bright colors, which makes it a fun atmosphere to live in for a few days...it takes you back to when you were a little kid ;-) Bathrooms and showers are communal, as expected. We could upgrade to a more 'hotel-style' room with just three beds and our own bathroom in it, but what's the fun in that? And then we wouldn't be able to have the sweet deal of a $4.50 per night per person rate!
Once settled in our temporary 4 day home, we locked up our valuables in our designated lockers and headed off to explore the city a bit. We decided Tiananmen Square would be a good place to see for our first day, since it's easy to access and has lots to see. Tiananmen Square is one of the largest public squares in the world, and is the center of the Beijing. It is full of incredible Chinese culture, histories, museums, and government buildings. We browsed around for a few hours, took a bunch of pictures, and then walked south of the city's front gate (Zheng Yang Gate) to a local market area (Qianmen), which was pretty cool. We got to the square kind of late in the afternoon, so a lot of the sites that we'd really like to explore were already closed, but we did see some. The square is home to Mao Zedong's preserved dead body in the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall (aka Mao's Mausoleum), the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Tower, Daily National Flag Ceremonies, the Monument of the People's Heroes, the National Museum, and the Great Hall of the People. We're hoping that tomorrow we will find time to gain access into the Forbidden City, the National Museum, and Mao's Memorial hall. They would all be great to visit on a more in-depth basis.
After our visit to the square, we headed off to meet Ibbi's Chinese friend for dinner at a local Beijing Muslim Restaurant. This was one of the most interesting experiences of my life...
His friend wanted to show us what Beijing food was all about, but he did so in entirely the wrong way. He took us to the restaurant, and then chose the food for us. His choices were very regionally specific to the area of Beijing, and they were all 'bean-based' cuisines. He brought over a plate of 4 bowls of soup, one for each of us. Immediately, the worst smell of our lives hit our noses. We looked at each other in disbelief and tried to keep our facial expressions hidden as best we could. Ibbi's friend went back to get more food. While he was gone, we talked about how bad it smelled, and, in turn, how horrible it must taste with a stench like that. We determined that we had to eat it, no matter how bad it tasted. This guy was trying to show us a good cultural meal, and it would be incredibly rude to turn down his offers. Another plate came two minutes later, it was a sweet-smelling dessert, which he described as a sweet tofu in a clear syrup. Next, came the fried dough rings - literally just fried dough in onion ring shapes. He explained to us the order in which we should eat these foods, and then we started. We decided to attack the horrible smelling soup in a collective manner, all sipping at the same time. As soon as I swallowed, I cringed and looked at Paul, his face said it all. Paul is the kind of guy who expresses his discomfort as soon as it hits him, usually done in a very comical manner. I could tell that I was most definitely not the only one who hated this soup. Ibbi was much more of a trooper about it. He kept sipping at a steady pace and eventually finished (I have no idea how he did it), Paul gave up immediately after his second gulp, and I made it about 2/3 finished, but just couldn't take the wicked taste any longer. My Beijing beer just wasn't enough to mask the taste of the soup, and I quit as well. Ibbi's friend realized that Paul definitely was not enjoying the food. He told Paul that since he didn't like it, he would go find something that he did like. (Paul wasn't a fan of the dough rings or the tofu either...I handled them alright, in fact the tofu was quite good and tasted like maraschino cherries for some odd reason) Ibbi's buddy headed back to the kitchen to order something new that Paul might like. He came back with another kind of tofu - didn't he learn from the first tofu course? This one was yellow, dry, and the absolute opposite of a tasty treat. Paul gave it a shot, and then apologized for not liking that one either. Our host then explained that many Chinese people do not like any of the dishes that he offered us, but they usually grow on people after a few tries. He said that they are all very nutritional dishes that are good for your health, and they were favorites of the Chinese population many decades ago, but have taken the backseat to many more modern Beijing dishes. We immediately thought to ourselves, "If not even the Chinese people around here like these foods, then what the heck made you think that we foreigners would like them!??" But we nodded our heads, commented on what we did like about the foods he brought us, and then got out of there and headed to the local McDonald's as fast as possible!! While I appreciate his hospitality and willingness to give us a great experience, it was just plain bad food that was literally the worst thing I've ever smelled and/or tasted.
I'd say that day one of Beijing was an overall success, and I'm sure that tomorrow will bring with it many new adventures for us!
I'll keep you posted :-) ...sorry that my pictures won't upload to my blog. I hope to fix this issue soon.
--
PMM
I'm trying to get a good feel for what we will need to show our customers when we take them around the city to various markets for shopping excursions. There are definitely some very wild foods available at the wet markets around here that I bet westerners will ask questions about. Live eels, snakes, all kinds of fish, frogs, turtles, and more. 
