Beijing: Day One

We left Tianjin in a thunderstorm and saw thunder and lightning for nearly half the trip to Beijing. Once we cleared the storm, the ride was sleep-inducing, with steady and heavy rain falling from dark skies and the hypnotic thrum of the windshield wipers. Everyone on the bus was quiet during the trip, perhaps because of the storm or the cumulative fatigue of travel or the knowledge that Beijing was out last stop before heading home. We saw more farmland and farmers residences than industrial scenes as we approached the city from the eastern side, certainly more than we saw as we neared Tianjin.

Our in-country travel coordinator booked us into the Rosedale Hotel in the international embassy district of Beijing. The Chaoyang District (facing the sun) is in the rapidly expanding eastern part of the city. It is the largest and most populous in the city. The hotel is near two beautiful parks in a thriving neighborhood, and is just 15-20 minutes from the new Bejiing Capital International airport. I think the hotel is located between the city's 2nd and 3rd ring roads.

The Rosedale Hotel is a nice older hotel, with a large lobby that features a tea bar along with a cocktail bar. We spent a good deal of time waiting in the lobby waiting for our rooms, and when meeting each other for activities. The lobby also featured four foot tall figurines of the Olympic mascots, which a few of us used as a backdrop for photos. One of the stores in the lobby carried many Olympic-themed products.


The first rooms assigned to Lucille and me were nice, but in close proximity to part of the hotel that was undergoing remodeling. There was an intense unpleasant chemical smell in the air, and we could feel headaches developing before we were in our rooms for 10 minutes. Lucille called Jinshui, who was able to secure rooms on another floor. The new rooms were very nice and thankfully far enough from the remodeling work that we could not smell anything.

I discovered an interesting feature with the guest rooms. The key card that opened the door also enabled the power to the room. Once you opened the door to the room and entered, you had to insert the card into the appropriate slot on the wall near the door.

That night we had dinner in a neighborhood restaurant just a few minutes walk from the hotel. It was the first meal we had that was not in a private room. We ate in one of the restaurant's open dining areas and the noise level was tremendous! Michelle, one of our travel coordinators, and Mr. Tang. a wood importer, ordered dishes that we recognized from Chinese restaurants at home - chicken & cashews, pepper steak, and so on. They were much better than the versions we'd sampled back in the US. The picture on the left shows one of our Beijing escorts leaving the neighborhood restaurant.


After dinner, Lucille and I decided to walk around the neighborhood. There were a lot of people out walking. Along the way we discovered a few hotels, more restaurants, and a small shopping mall attached to a Holiday Inn. We also saw a man walking a golden retriever - the biggest dog we saw since we landed in China. While in Beijing we would see several dogs, most of them Pekinese.