Catching a taxi in Beijing is ridiculously easy, as they are everywhere... And they all are pretty new Volkswagons (which is German for "People Wagon") or Hondas (which is Japanese for "Small Car That Will Never Break Down") and are ri-donk-ulously cheap... I'm talking 10 RMB for a 3 km ride... (I know there are at least two things in that sentence that you don't understand...) Or, to convert to Americanizalistic measurements, $1.41 for 1.86411 miles... Which, when you split it 4 ways, is pretty damn cheap...
We took a taxi to The Temple of Heaven, where the Emperor used to make prayers and thank the gods n' stuff... It was pretty cool, and, like everything in Beijing, contained large open stone and concrete areas... There were two large temples, and then an open air altar at the south side... Pretty cool...
After T.T.O.H, we decided it would be a fabulous idea to walk back to Tiananmen Square through a fabulous shopping street that we saw on our tourist map... However, after walking for a couple kilometers (approx. 1.242747 U.S. miles) we realized that the shopping street was being either built or torn down in order to make a new trolley system... So instead of getting to do some shopping, we got to see some old timey Chinese neighborhoods, or Hutongs if you are in the know (and you now are), and a bunch of "tored-up" houses making way for the soon arriving trolley system...
We then visited Tiananmen Square again at our leisure, rather than having Shoe-Tran tell us we have 10 minutes to soak it in... Just kinda chillin' at the Square... Not promoting democracy or free markets or anything... Not standing in front of tanks... Just chillin'... Nothing to see here... Move along police officers... Keep marching Chinese soldiers...
You definitely felt the police and military presence while there... And I would venture to say I also felt the need to keep a low profile... Not that I was spouting Capitalist propaganda or anything...But there were tons of Chinese people just hanging out in the square too... Kids flying kites, people having a picnic, people reading... So it's really a public square, but one that is under the watchful eye of the police...
After round two of Tiananmen, we headed back to the hotel, but not before picking up some more Tsingtao beers... We decided that since Beijing had an American style Pizza Hut, that we'd order pizza for dinner... The ordering process was pretty intense, what with "Pieces" and "Pizzas" sounding almost exactly alike to the Chinese ear, but we managed to get 3 pepperoni pizzas... It had been a long time since I had American style pizza, so it was a welcome treat... (Japanese style Pizza Hut pizza looks like this crazy hot mess...)
So ended our second full day in Beijing, eating Pizza Hut and drinking Tsingtao... Awesome! Check out the pics here!
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