We're staying in the Shao Yuan Hotel on the Peking University campus. It's perfectly nice, but to be honest somewhat downscale from the hotel we stayed in Shanghai. There are some awkward aspects.
First, we cannot connect our laptops to the internet. I am using a computer provided in the hotel room. It manages to serve most of our needs but is somewhat inconvenient to use. But since I cannot reconfigure the machine, I have lost the ability to view this blog again. I find it ironic that the most restrictive conditions are found on a university campus here.
Second, we are finding it difficult to sync ourselves with the hotel restaurant hours. Yesterday morning we tried to get breakfast but discovered that they stopped serving at 9am. Luckily, there is also a coffee shop that serves food later. Then we tried to eat dinner at the hotel restaurant around 7pm, which seemed safe since the listed hours are until 9pm. But the waitresses with embarrassed expressions on their faces told us that the kitchen was having trouble serving all the existing clients and was very slow. I told them we were happy to wait but eventually they explained that the restaurant would close before we would get served. So we were forced to find something else.
We asked the hotel front desk if there was a hot pot place nearby, and it turned out that the restaurant directly across from the university gate is a (very raucous) hot pot place, where I suspect very few foreigners or young children go. For whatever reason, we were stared at (just like in 1979!) when we went in. The menu was completely in Chinese, but luckily we got a waitress who was very patient and helpful. Eventually, we learned to walk around the restaurant and point to what others were eating. We had lots of lamb, fake crab legs (the waitress chose this for us), spinach, another leafy vegetable, sliced potatoes, flat clear noodles, wood ears, lotus root. Unlike other hot pot places, the sauce is given to you premade and was not to the taste of my family. So we asked for soy sauce, and everybody improvised a bit. The hot pot itself was the traditional metal one with a chimney in the center containing hot burning wood charcoal. We drank lots of beer, coconut juice, and I also had jujube juice (whatever that is). I thought we had ordered way too much food (3 large plates of sliced lamb!) but managed to finish all of it. It wasn't the best food we've had but it was quite an experience.
Lastly, the hotel is somewhat far away from the center of the city, so it is less convenient for sightseeing and meeting people. But it's not a big deal, and we are having a blast here, despite the cold weather.
After we arrived in Beijing, I started looking around for tips on how to get to the Great Wall. I went to the www.tripadvisor.com forums and found that some tour guides came highly recommended. Sophia (above right) was available, so we retained her for two days, one for the Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven and one for the Great Wall. She has lived up to the recommendations I read. We're going to use her again on our last full day.
