Biking in Beijing!

Finding myself in Beijing for the third time within a span of 6 weeks, I decided to try something different - not the usual starry eyed touristy stuff. So I ended up renting a bicycle and started riding around Beijing - especially around the Forbidden city area. With this experience, I have come to realize that this is the best way to enjoy a city! Oh, the only problem with the bicycles was that they were all girly looking ones! All that were missing in my girly cycle - a bunch of pink ribbons and flowes in the front basket! :) Still it was awesome!

Riding randomly with no plan in mind, I saw some interesting sights and places. I rode through countless Hutongs. (Hutong is an area that has been preserved over a period of time, where you can see old buildings and normal people living in clustered houses and narrow roads.) I saw interesting sights where people sat around tables playing a chess-scrabble like chinese board game. I even saw a bulldozer that squeezed itself through one of the narrow roads!

Another interesting place I ended up in was a hotel called Courtyard 7. The specialty of this luxury hotel was that it is in a building that is 700 years old. So this building is a traditional Chinese quadrangle building with 3 courtyards. Ofcourse this place caught my attention only because there was a cute chinese maitre-d'! :) She spoke decent English and I got to practice my Hanyu! She gave me a private tour of the place, gave me a primer on Chinese history when I had coffee in their café and definitely brightened my Beijing trip!
After that, I found myself in some random road, which opened itself into a huge vegetable market. The market was probably the size of a football field. Rows and rows of open shops that sold fresh vegetables.

Ohh, and this you need to see. I found myself around the Houhai lake area. I was riding around happily, and I sensed I saw something weird. Couldn’t put my finger on it immediately. So I turned around and started riding back looking at the buildings. Then I realized what was so interesting. There was a very very authentic Chinese building (ofcourse its absurd to say that since I am in the heart of China!). But still this building was the old style chinese building. And the interesting part, which had caught my attention in the first place, was a banner just above the door - glass doors - that said "NFL Evenings"!!! It turned out to be a bar for expats that showed the NFL world series!

The best part of going to Beijing three times is that I have seen all the three popular sections of Great Wall around Beijing - Simatai, Mutianyu and Badaling! I probably have seen more of Great Wall than 98% of Chinese! The famous words of Mao Zedong about Great Wall: "Bú dào Chángchéng fēi hao hàn" loosely translated as "You are not a real man if you haven't climbed the Great Wall"! So my Chinese friend has conferred upon me the title that I am a "tri - hao hàn"… "three times a real man"… hee hee, some achievement that is!!! :)