Beijing

While we were in Europe, Arnold decided that he wanted to go to Beijing while we were on our trip. He became a bit obsessed with seeing the Wall and learning more about their history. So we changed our ticket to stop in Beijing for 6 days before we headed to Korea.

We definitely didn't know what to expect, but were excited to see The Wall, the Olympic buildings and Tiananmen Square. There is sooo much to do in Beijing so you can never really be bored. We decided to splurge and stay at a super fancy hotel - splurge as in, we got a smoking deal on the room, but was over my normal price range. The breakfast at our hotel for two people was almost as expensive as our room for one night - haha crazy, so we were definitely not doing that. I think the Peninsula Beijing was the nicest "city" hotel I have ever stayed in.  Plus our hotel was two blocks from one of the biggest shopping areas of Beijing (and I still managed to walk away empty handed haha).


When we were in our taxi from the airport to our hotel, we were a bit shocked. The sky was BROWN. A brown haze covered the city. It was a big suffocating actually - felt like the sky was right on top of you. We didn't know if it was pollution or clouds. The next day it was more of the same, but you could see a bit of cloud definition and then it started to rain later in the day. When we woke up the next morning we expected to see the brown haze, but was amazed to see BLUE sky - not a cloud in the sky.  It was like the rain took away all the pollution and clouds. We then read online that before the Olympics the government would shot something into the clouds to make them rain in order to clear the air/sky. Which is so cool - they are so advanced. Because we thought the same thing - how could they host the Olympics with all this brown haze and it must be hard on the lungs - I was ready to bust out a SARS mask haha. 


I think we might have gone a little crazy if the sky had stayed that way the whole time we were there. It was a bit depressing. Actually, it was funny because we had kept hearing how beautiful Beijing was from everyone who had gone there, but we were definitely not thinking it was beautiful.  BUT when you see Beijing without the Haze, it really is beautiful. 


Love Melissa and Arnold