2025 Beijing -1-

BEIJING

2050913,14 – Saturday-Sunday – Bodrum-Istanbul-Beijing

Had the house fumigated from top to bottom before shutting it down for two months for the China trip.

Returned the rental car at Bodrum-Milas airport and took the plane to Istanbul, and after a two-hour layover, took the cramped plane to Beijing.   The plane was supposed to leave at 00:30, but we finally flew after 1:40 am.  Since the cheese I had for breakfast was playing havoc in my guts, I did not eat a single bite, nor did I want to.  Ultra-cramped seats made it unbearably agonizing. Unable to sleep, read, eat, or even stand up, I didn’t even get to watch a movie to pass the time.

Landed at Beijing around 15:30 Beijing time, already a day ahead.  Sunday.

Filled forms for immigration, had the passport scanned, waited more than half an hour in the queue to be interviewed, and got in.  Passed customs and met our guide, Olivia, at the exit line.

We waited for a tiny car to pick us up with two large and two small luggage and our side bags.  The driver miraculously fitted the luggage into his small compartment, even including his personal items like bottled water and other things.

We drove about an hour in the traffic, which Olivia said was light because it was Sunday.  We spoke all the way to the hotel. This was her first time being an English guide.  She had visited Turkey as a Chinese-speaking guide over twenty times and was also familiar with Bodrum.

At the hotel, she took our passports and arranged for our registration.  The driver left, and we tipped him 50 yuen. Olivia took us to the room, made sure the water was hot and the room temperature was cool, and everything was okay.  We gave her a 100-yuan tip, but she refused it profusely.  We insisted, and Gulden put the money in her backpack.  She gave us her contact number and told us to call her anytime we needed anything. She was a very sweet and helpful young woman.

We are staying at the Sunworld Hotel (Address: 88 Dengshikou, Dongcheng District, Beijing, China). The room was supposed to be a “superior room,” but we had a small window facing some dark inner building columns, with a tiny patch of sky showing, telling us whether the weather was cloudy or clear.

We had our dinner at the hotel restaurant.  It was a buffet dinner with a limited selection.  Each of us ate for 125 yen.  Payment became an issue because my setup with WeChat Pay didn’t work.  It started asking me to send my passport picture, take a picture of myself, and asked me to open my mouth for the picture.  However, nothing worked.  Gulden had luckily exchanged $200.00 at the airport, so we paid with cash.

In the room, we crashed and slept till 10:00 AM the next day.

2050915 – Monday – Beijing

We had missed breakfast.  We snacked on some pastry leftovers from the plane and the Airport in Turkey.  Made coffee in the room.  Still felt very tired from the previous day’s long flight and the lack of sleep over the past two days.

 I talked to the receptionist, but they assured me our room was “superior.”  When I complained that the bathroom lacked a door and only had a curtain, they said that upgrading to a Deluxe room would cost me 980 Yuan per day.  I declined.

The TV only has a limited 35 channels, all of which are Chinese, except the last channel, which broadcasts from Singapore in English.

 Finally, we went out after 14:30. We were told we were very close to Wangfujing Street, where old buildings had been transformed into shiny, bright shopping malls.  We decided to walk there and see.  It is a shopping district featuring trendy Western stores, as well as Chinese businesses.  Shopping malls line both sides of the street, and people are walking around, crowding the Huawei and Apple stores.  Apple had just announced its latest model, the 17, and a small crowd had gathered at the Apple store, looking at the new phone.

 The street is closed to traffic, allowing people to shop freely.  Shopping malls are lit very brightly, mimicking Times Square. The center features bright electronic billboards advertising the iPhone 17 and other US products.

After walking for about half an hour, we found the street and continued to the end.  We saw a small side street, and when we walked in to take photos of the spectacular doors, we saw a Roasted Duck restaurant, Quanjaude (Address: 9 Shuaifuyuan Hu Tong, Wangfujing, Doncheng, Beijing, China, 100005)

[People can “rent” and use these bicycles for a minimal fee around the city]

We ordered a combination of roasted duck dishes that included skinny bread to wrap the duck meat, duck soup, all relishes, and a rice soup.  We also ordered duck hearts and Chinese beer.  The waiter didn’t speak any English, so we used body language and picked from the menu with her help.  We wanted to get what looked great at the next table, but that was duck intestines, so we passed.  Perhaps because we ordered too much, or the way we ate, or because we are foreigners, people were watching us and how we ate.  We used chopsticks.  We paid with WeChat Pay, and it worked; the total came to approximately $56.

There is a way to eat the Peking duck.  A chef comes to your table and cuts the duck.  However, ours stayed at the door of the section we were eating in, but was still visible.  He cuts the duck to serve the crispy, yet tender, skin first. It is served with a tray of sugar dips.  You pick up the skin, dip it into the sugar, and eat.  Then the rest of the meat, cut into small pieces, comes.  There are small pancake-like breads that are served with the duck.  You pick the meat, dip it in the sauce, make a small sandwich with the meat inside, and eat.  We didn’t know this protocol, but we managed to survive.  Duck meat was very oily, which made it easy to eat.  We also had soup and duck hearts.  I loved the duck hearts; however, I could not finish the whole plate.

[Deliveries to a hospital are left outside with the recipient’s name.  Nobody steals them.  We saw the same with food deliveries.  The food is delivered to a street and left there for the owner to come and pick it up.]

After walking to the end of the Wangfujing Street, we turned back, ate ice cream at a roadside stand with very low chairs, and watched people walk by on their shopping in the trendy street.  Three scoops of ice cream cost around $ 23.

I stopped at a bookstore.  I was surprised to see a huge 6-story store that also sold sunglasses and other stuff.  Each floor was bright, and some sections were assigned to reading. The books seemed geared towards children a lot.  However, I noticed a mix of photography, literature, foreign literature, and a lot of popular science, primarily aimed at children.  Parents were reading together with their children in assigned sections, chairs, and tables. They even had a small cafeteria. But the store looked busy.

[Detail of protection dragons on the roofs of royal palaces and temples] 

Due to the flight and exhaustion, I had a stuffy nose at the hotel last night.  I wanted to get a spray, so we entered a pharmacy.  They had translator devices to speak to us.  The woman behind the counter said it was only salt water, but I accepted.  It was around $ 10, but neither my WeChat nor my AliPay worked because my credit card (Citi Diamond) became suspicious and kept asking me to “either call or send text to my US phone.”  However, my US card was at the hotel, and I couldn’t get the call or the text.  So, we couldn’t pay and left without the spray.

 In China, stores are legally obliged to accept cash; however, they usually cannot give you any change. Change because they don’t have much cash.  The money and payment system has been resolved with cell phone apps like WeChat, Weixin, or AliPay.  The apps scan the store’s QR code, or they scan yours from your app.  You agree to the amount shown on the app, and payment is done.  That’s it.  However, Western banks, such as the ones we used to link our credit cards to these payment methods, have limited usage to only trusted businesses.  They give an error if you are paying a person directly or if the merchant isn’t a well-established business.

Currently, our WeChat Pay, AliPay, translator, eSIM, and power adapters are not functioning.  We couldn’t find, buy power adaptors, raincoats, or medicine.  We have limited cash and can’t even read street signs.  Good start.

 Came back to crash once again in the hotel room