Paul & Josclyn in Abu Dhabi: Let’s Go Kick Some Hunny Buns!

When we were planning our budget & trips for the year, Paul said that the one thing he wanted to do was see the Great Wall. So, we started planning a bit and waffled between going over the August or October Eid. We opted for August since it’s so dang hot in the UAE, we figured it would be a nice break to leave for a bit. Being Americans, it was the first country we’ve ever visited where we had to apply for a visa ahead of time (well, I guess Paul has done that for Saudi for work, but he never actually went). And on top of having to apply a month ahead of time, the visa costs $140 per person for Americans and only $30 for EVERYONE else… Guessing there must be some political stuff behind that. We also had some issues buying tickets as one of the Chinese airlines was advertising a code share with Etihad, but every site I tried to book through would end up sending us a message a few hours later saying that they weren’t able to confirm our tickets.

Luckily, the extra work on the front end to get the trip planned was not an omen for the trip itself. We had a blast!

We left a few days before Eid and took a direct Etihad flight to Beijing. Man, it was so nice to be back on an “international” airline compared to the American Airlines & US Airways flights we’d taken in the summer on our trip to the US. There is just such a huge difference in the overall experience. We flew through the night and arrived in China in the late morning. I had mapped out the way to our hotel using the metro & buses or a taxi.

My travel buddy

beautiful mountains

While we were riding on a metro, a 20ish guy with a guitar on his back started talking to Paul in Chinese. It took Paul a little while to realize that the guy was talking to him. Finally Paul told him he didn’t speak any Chinese and the guy looked surprised and then asked where Paul was from. He said the US and the chinese guy replied with “Oh yeah, I love America. You know Hotel California, by the Eagles? I can play that” He also informed us the “Beijing sucks” and Shanghai is much better. We never made it to Shanghai so I guess we’ll just have to take his word for it.

We took the metro as far as we could and then opted for a taxi. This was our first of many experiences where taxis just turned us down. We finally got one to stop for us, got our bags in the trunk, and piled into the backseat. I showed the driver the hotel name & address in Chinese (he spoke 0 English) and he basically told us no through many gestures and “words” we didn’t understand. Ummm… can taxis do that in the US? I know they can’t in the UAE. I think the guy was actually trying to help us because we were on the wrong side of the road for the way we wanted to go? Not really sure, but we ended up having to get out and walk around and try to flag down about 5 more empty taxis before we finally got someone to take us to our hotel. Even then, the driver wasn’t really sure where it was and kept calling someone… but we made it!

We picked the Holiday Inn Central Plaza which was definitely a step up in accommodations from what we’d been staying at on our other trips but well worth it. Something about knowing that you have a clean, comfortable, safe place to go back to let’s me feel more “adventurous” during the day. Since we got in early, we wanted to try to take advantage of that first day while we were there… but first we had to take a quick nap to recharge… which turned into a 3 hour nap. Ooops.

Eventually we made our way down to the lobby and asked the concierge if we could see the Forbidden City or if it was too late. They thought it was too late, but we decided to head over there anyways and if we didn’t get in we would at least check out Tiananmen Square. The taxi driver wouldn’t take us the whole way (are you seeing a pattern here?) and dropped us off a little ways away from the Forbidden City and pointed to let us know where to go. So we followed his direction and got to a ticket booth. There were a bunch of people still entering, so we figured we’d give it a try. Neither of us love to just saunter around museum-type places anyways. Not finding any signs that were in English, we quickly fell in line behind the other people, bought tickets, and dropped all of our bags off at a counter so that we could get through security.

just following the crowd

We walked in and I was a little surprised at the building architecture—it wasn’t quite the ancient Chinese look that I was expecting. Then we went inside and it didn’t seem anything like I was expecting, but I figured it was just one building as Forbidden City is pretty big with gardens, etc. We walked around, pretty unimpressed. Paul did like the ballroom—he said it reminded him of a Rocky movie where they’re in Russia at a communist place… Then we realized we must not be in the Forbidden City at all. We looked down at our ticket and it said “The Great Hall of the People.” Ahhhhh… that makes much more sense. Not really what we wanted to see, and I can’t really say that I’d recommend it, but the Chinese tourists were definitely interested and loving it.

Yep, this place is BIG

Tapestry of the Forbidden City

FOB

Note to Self: Next time read the ticket before you buy it

From there we walked across the street and found Tenement Square and the “real” Forbidden City. It was definitely too late by now and we were getting hungry. We walked around a bit and found a restaurant that looked like it could have some “local” promise. We ordered a couple of beers which were HUGE and somehow cheaper than water?!? We also ordered some sweet & sour pork which was by far the best s&s pork/chicken that I’ve ever had. And my Asian husband ordered some rice. He was disappointed to find that there wasn’t any soy sauce on the table, and our feeble attempts to describe it to our waitress who didn’t speak any English did not prove fruitful.

Zhengyangmen aka "National Gate"

Did A LOT of this over the next few days...

Tienanmen Square

Looks like it could work

Such a good trooper throughout the trip where I was constantly taking photos of him "eating" with chopsticks

After our bellies were full, we decided to walk off dinner around the Forbidden City walls and head to Jingshan Park which is famous for it’s hill that overlooks the Forbidden City. It turned out to be a fun outing and we enjoyed watching the sunset over the city.