Beijing...finally a post

Hey guys, so apparently in China there are a number of sites blocked by the Chinese government due to too much free speech. They call it China's great firewall. Unfortunately, Blogger.com is one of those sites that can't be accessed at all. So we are posting through emails, hope this work. 

Thursday Night July 2nd

So after we got back from Macau Joe and I decided to just have a chill night and watch a movie. We ended up watching Bangkok Dangerous. It turned out to not b e the best movie but it was cool seeing the sites of Bangkok again from a Nicolas Cage point of view.

Friday July 3rd

The next day we woke up pretty late. We went to this amazing Mexican restaurant where I got a salmon and pineapple salad. We then wanted to do some shopping so we took a bus to Stanley market . Its about 15 km south of the city. The bus ride was beautiful and scary. There were cliff edges constantly and we were literally a foot from going over. At Stanley we bought some pretty sweet gifts. We took the bus back got ready and headed  out for our last night in Hong Kong.  After hitting a few bars and buying an amazing special (6 shots for 100HK) we ended up in a pretty sweet bar called Club 9 where basically it was all white people from HK trying to see who can spend the most money and look the best while doing it. Kind of weird. We were hurting by the end of this night and only had three hours of sleep.

Saturday July 4th

The next day was a travel day…yay.  A great way to spend Independence Day. We got up at 7 and almost fought each other because of crankiness. Took the airport express to HK international and caught our flight to Beijing leaving at 10am. To summarize Hong Kong would be difficult. It really is like the New York of the East but with a different vibe. The western influence permeates the  city everywhere it seems.  But you still get a hint of a feeling that there is some traditional Chinese culture in the nooks in crannies. East meets west is this city and I really had a great time.  Joe called HK China light. Now Beijing is the real China or China heavy.

We got to Beijing around 4  and were utterly exhausted. We are staying at the Novatel Peace Hotel close to the Forbidden City. The hotel is excellent. We asked if they had any upgrades available and they put us on their luxury floor. The room has two beds so life is good.  We got some food at Pizza Hut after an exhaustive search. In Beijing no one speaks a word of English. We were told that the Pizza Huts here are like legit high class restaurants and it's true! They are so nice and the pizza was excellent. We then relaxed in the room and I found a blog explaining where we could celebrate the fourth. After some convincing we headed a really classy club opening called the beach. It was alright. Kind of a lounge on a roof deck with a beach motif. We luckily met a group from England who ended up being really chill who have lived in Beijing for some time.  They knew all the hotspots in Beijing. We all went bar hopping and eventually found ourselves in the bar district. The drinks were cheap and the music was excellent at this one venue where we spent the majority of the night. We met some Korean girls who raved about Seoul. We may visit. After a party night that we didn't expect we went home and crashed around 4am.

Sunday July 5^th

We woke up around 1pm today got some McDonalds. Then walked around a mall and found ourselves in a Chinese arcade. This place was amazing. So many DDR type games that the people were playing were just unbelievable. Joe wanted to show his skills but I saved him from embarrassment. It seemed whatever game we played the people would constantly be watching and be intrigued. I almost beat a little Chinese kid at some fighting game but lost.  Now we're back in the hotel relaxing and trying to figure out what were going to do next.

-jed