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 sausage. I thought that maybe I was getting the "westerner" breakfast but it looked like the Asians to the right and left of me were eating the same thing.

After breakfast I headed out. My destination: The Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. I made it to the subway station. I got to the ticket vending machine and pressed the "English" button. I followed the instructions, selected my station and pressed for one ticket. The machine spat back, "please deposit cash, then press button". I deposited cash into one slot only to have it come out the slot below, "please deposit cash, then press button." Ok, breathe, follow the instructions: Deposit cash and press the "one ticket" button. Again the machine spat out my money, "please deposit cash, then press button." Ok, next I tried to deposit money with the right hand while pressing the ticket button with the left hand. Again the machine returned my cash. "Please deposit cash, then press button". Something was pressing my buttons; I turned and left the subway station. I sat on a plane for 12 hours, I needed a walk.

I am glad I did because ten minutes later I was at the northeast gate of Jingshan Park. I am sure that I would have gone to the park at some point on my journey through Beijing but on Saturday morning it was full of Beijingers starting their morning. It was just the outpouring of communist culture that I had imagined but never really expected to see. The walled park was quite large, with three temples set on a hill at the center of the grounds. Surrounding the hill, in different sections of the park were people, mostly elderly, practicing Tai chi, women to the right of me ribbon dancing and then another large group toward the base of the hill, intermingled in the trees, performing some sort of clapping exercise. I followed the group of locals in front of me and they started clapping and singing in unison as we neared stairs leading up toward the temples. In the distance, younger people were challenging each other among rows and rows of ping pong tables, hand ball courts and bat mitten nets.

I hiked up to the middle and tallest Buddhist temple. The stairs were steep but short. At the top I was rewarded with views overlooking the Forbidden City and in the hazy distance, Tiananmen Square. To note, though a bit hazy, the smog smell from the night before was gone and the weather in Beijing was quite pleasant and warm. With the Forbidden City firmly in my sites I headed in that direction.

The north gate of the Forbidden City was for exiting only and though I was offered several tuk tuk rides to the southern entrance I decided to walk. It was a mistake but did provide me with the perspective that the Forbidden City was a walled city not just a palace or fortress. It was massive. I must have walked forty-five minutes along the moat to the south side and then another fifteen minutes toward the center and southern gate situated at the northern edge of Tiananmen square. I was rewarded with the iconic portrait of Mao but by the time I had reached the entry I needed to head back to the hotel for the next adventure on my itinerary, hand pulled noodles at the Hutoug cooking school. I wandered Tiananmen a bit. It was impressive for its shear expanse but that was about it. I thought about laying down on the ground and having someone take my picture but with the number of police and security cameras, I smartly opted out and headed to the nearby subway station to see if I could have better luck with the subway ticket machine.

Fortunately this time at the ticket machine I had some guidance, a nice couple stopped and told me that the machines were for loading tickets on existing transit cards and to purchase a ticket I would have to go to the ticket counter. A minute later I was on the metro heading back toward the hotel. The Beijing subway system was modern, super clean and extremely efficient. All the signs were in English and in Chinese. I cannot imagine why anyone would risk the chaotic traffic above.

The hutoug cooking school (No. 35 DengCao hutong, DongSi South St. Dongcheng District, Beijing, www.hutongcuisine.com) was marked by red double doors with chilies dangling off either side. It was down a small alleyway and if I had not methodically researched directions I would have never found it. When I entered the interior courtyard I followed the sounds of frying woks. Chunyi met me and said she was finishing up the morning class. There were ten people sitting together at a large table outside drinking beer and enjoying their successful attempts at Chinese cooking. I was given a ginger panne cotta and introduced myself to the other guests. There were two others in the morning class who had already signed up for the afternoon session, a good sign.

I opted for the "market tour" add-on and soon after completing my ginger desert I was introduced to Chunyi 's brother and we were off to the market just outside the hutongs. On the walk there I was able to learn a bit about the area and the history of the hutongs. Originally the hutongs were where the merchant class lived. Each walled section housed a courtyard and an interior structure or structures where the family lived. When communism took over the wealthy merchant class was disposed and their homes broken into community structures and in most cases the courtyards disappeared and were replace by more housing. Now the hutongs were prime real estate, many like the ones near the backpacker's hotel were being converted into restaurants and shops. The old community living based hutongs were disappearing again just like the original hutongs.

We weaved through alleyways just wide enough for a car to pass dodging bicycles, ricks shaw, mopeds and leathery faced old men in caps peddling tricycles carrying bricks, trash or whatever else you could imagine. We broke out of the hutong and onto a busy street, turned to the right and down about a block to a two story market. I was told that in the morning the market was so crowded that it was difficult to move but at one-thirty in the afternoon it was pretty empty.

We went through the extremely fresh vegetable and fruit stalls. I was shown giant sweet radishes used in cooking or raw, a number of foreign looking squash and vats full of Sichuan peppercorns, teas and spices The second floor housed meat of all kinds, laid out and unrefrigerated, various types of rice and pasta and eggs of all sorts, pigeon, duck, chicken and quail. Like my travels in Hungary and Mexico, everything in the market was fresher, better, and less expensive than the supermarket. Why do we not have this in America?

I learned about the foundations of Chinese cooking: Two types of soy sauce, one for taste, one for color, two types of vinegar, one for salads and one for taste and how to determine quality and all about Chinese wine, new wine for cooking, older wine for drinking.

When we got back to the hutong cooking school the other class had already left and we began learning about hand pulled noodles and classic northern Chinese beef soup. From there it was a challenging afternoon. The soup broth was complex and you cannot learn how to hand pull noodles in a day. The four of us who took the class ended it in frustration. None of our noodles made it into the soup. However, looking back I think it set the foundation that with practice I could do it. It was all about "feeling" the dough and moving with a tai chi like fluidity that was foreign to the three Americans and one Venezuelan in the room.

My goal of the class was to meet other travelers, gain some insight into Beijing and maybe get some recommendations from the natives. I was too flustered from failure to ask the natives for recommendations but of my three class mates, two were from a college in Tinsin, 30 minutes southeast by bullet train and the other was Jean, a former tour guide from the mid-nineties returning to Beijing so I thought they might have some tips for my travels

The two college students recommended a restaurant called the Noodle Bar where they make the same Szechwan noodle soup we were preparing and the aging tour guide gave me the insight to the Beijing of the nineties. When we were presented with the finished beef noodle soup, Jean took out everything but the noodles. At that point I stopped listening to her ramblings because my soup was delicious and though the noodles were not of my making, they were as good, or better, than my favorite noodle place in Portland.

Unfortunately, at the end of the class the two college students were heading back to the train station and the old tour guide, she was heading back to the same hotel I was. It was not her stories of old Beijing or those of her civil war historian husband that did me in I was just tired. By the time we got back to the hotel we politely changed business cards and went on our separate ways. I watched a bit of recorded TV on my iPad and was asleep before nine.