In the afternoon, I headed to the noodle bar restaurant recommended a couple days prior at the hutong cooking class. I wanted to experience hand pulled noodles expertly prepared. So far, the Android "Trip Advisor" Beijing app had been my main source for directions and for information along my way through Beijing. It was awesome; however it failed miserably when it came to the Noodle Bar. The description read that it was in courtyard 4 of the 1949 "hidden city...

Now into day three I was getting a lay of the land. The metro system was simple to use; the city radiates out from the Forbidden City. There was the first ring road, the second ring road, the third ring road and then the center of the city disappears into the outskirts where there was the fourth ring road. All in all travel was easy here; I think even easier than Europe. Everyone knows by the look of you that you were not Chinese, so there was none of that fi...

I woke up at about three in the morning realizing that my plan of using the cooking class to meet and tag along with other travelers was a bit of a failure so at just past seven in the morning I headed down to the front desk and booked the Great Wall tour at Jinshanling. There was one spot left. Score. I was told I needed to bring my own lunch so I headed out of the hotel in search of my hutong market. There was not an indoor market as there was in Dongchen...

I woke up about six hours later feeling quite refreshed. I slept the night in the same sleep sheet I had used as a nineteen year old trekking across Europe. Not that I needed the sleep sheet the hotel bedding looked quite clean but I was feeling nostalgic. The free breakfast at the backpacker's hotel was in a little cafe next door. I handed the woman at the bar my breakfast ticket and a few moments later I was presented with three slices of toast, eggs and sa...

I landed in Beijing at about 20 minutes past eleven in the evening. The Beijing Capital Airport was massive; it may be the largest in the world. The plane taxied from one terminal to the next before arriving at the gate. I think I spent more time taxing the runway than I spent going through customs. The entry into China was completed with great efficiency, young customs officials in tailored blue uniforms sat in a long row of white document stations ready t...