Executive Summary - Beijing

• Saw: Temple of Heaven, Night Markets, Forbidden City (including the Gate of Heavenly Peace with a disappointingly small portrait of Mao), Tiananmen Square, Summer Palace, Birds Nest & Water Cube at the Olympic Park, Lama Tibetan Buddhist temple, large groups of people singing / ballroom dancing / doing tai chi / playing hacky sack / line dancing / performing gymnastics, the world's coolest bar with what have got to be the most amazing toilets EVER, Beijing's old-style hutong streets, and good friends who currently live in Beijing as expats.

Oh, and there's this wall...maybe you've heard of it...it's GREAT.

• Did: Danced the Macarena with 70 Chinese people in a public square on Friday night. Was corrected by a Chinese person when asking a question about Mao that I should refer to him as Chairman Mao. Danced in an R&B club near the Worker's Stadium. Made a strong (but definitely not first place) showing in the Vodkatrain tour group night markets unofficial dare you to eat this contest. Haggled respectably for a mah jong set (1800 RMB down to 320!). Had my photo taken with 8-10 middle school aged kids who were incredibly excited to see a white person. Realised if you just stand and stare at the wine selection in a grocery store they start offering you free bottles with purchase. Made friends with a Chinese woman on a bus that insisted I needed a Chinese husband. Searched frantically in LP Mandarin phrasebook for 'thank you but I'm quite happy being single at the moment and I'm not necessarily seeking to get married again' (unfortunately the phrases are the same as for Russian - 'is that why you're still single' and 'easy tiger'). Imported a bit of furniture to the US (!). Put the credit card down and backed away slowly.

• Ate/Drank: Peking Duck (duck fat/skin dipped in sugar - OH MY GOD!!!), the most incredible gungpao ji (who knew kung pao chicken was a real dish!), hot pot, a cricket leg, a fish eye, sheep penis, snake, seahorse, shallot cake (mmmm) and a number of northern cuisine dishes too numerous to mention, too difficult to write down, and too delicious to forget. Also...Tsingtao beer, Chinese rice wine (ugh), mojitos at LAN bar, and lots and lots of tea.

• Favourite part about Beijing: Everything. Love it love it love it. It's completely wacky, the people are incredibly fascinating, it's so easy to navigate (ok, relatively speaking), and the city is transforming in front of your eyes as capitalism and communism duke it out over cartoon-esque ads for mobile phones and men's beauty products.

• Least favourite part about Beijing: Right, so...the squat toilets...my technique could use some refinement.

  And I just learned that breathing the air for a day in Beijing is the equivalent to smoking 60 cigarettes. The smog wasn't too bad days 1-3 but by the end of my stay it was so thick you could barely see across the street. Luckily the Chinese government made it rain that night.

• Life-altering revelation which has contributed to my search for universal truth: Chairman Mao was 70% right and 30% wrong.*

*Oh the hilarity. Chinese propaganda has always amused me but this is my favourite, favourite, favourite one. After Mao's death the PRC came up with this 'official stance' on his actions. For the remaining days on the Vodkatrain tour we took this gem and ran with it, e.g. "I am 90% confident and 10% unconfident that we are heading in the right direction". Bless!