Downtown!

Tonight the 13 of us ventured to downtown Beijing for the first time! It was a very interesting trip. We walked from Peking University campus to the bus stop and got on the bus to downtown. It was crazy! The bus was sooo crowded and people in Beijing drive the craziest I've ever seen so we were all bumping around and hanging on for dear life. The bus trip cost 1 yuan so about 1/7 an American dollar. Very cheap.

The packed Beijing public bus

After about a 30 minute bus ride we got off in downtown Beijing. Now we had to get onto the subway, another very crowded mode of transportation, to get to our destination downtown. The subway cost 2 Yuan one way, again very cheap. We got off the subway after about 20 minutes and began walking the streets of Beijing. We walked only 3 Beijing blocks in about 40 minutes. Beijing blocks are nothing like American city blocks. They are huge blocks. We saw some interesting sights along the way.

The group (minus me) on a spiral staircase in downtown Beijing

After dinner it was getting late so we walked back to the subway station and took it back to where we got on. The buses to our area of Beijing stopped running so we had to take a taxi. This was an experience because only Wenjie, the only one that speaks Mandarin, could communicate with the driver. She had to take the last taxi so she could explain to them where to take us. This was the most expensive transportation of the night at about 4 Yuan per person (still much less than 1 US dollar!). Overall it was a very fun experience.

Zai jian!