Beijing Series- What we saw & did not see

What we DID NOT see in Beijing!

we did not see the Forbidden City! it was closed by the time we made it there

we did not see The Summer Palace! just not enough time

we did not see The Temple of Heaven! next time

we did not see The Great Wall of China! so hard to pass it up

since this was not a leisure vacation, I was bummed to miss it all...but we did see a lot!

What we DID see in Beijing!

we did see schools, homes, offices, apartments and taxis

we did see frozen lakes in Hou Hai- yes, I know we have matching scarves

we did see references of America...and tee shirts that mean "I love Beijing" but if you wore it in America it would mean something very, very different

we did see McDonald's and...
... Starbucks

we did see "4th of July-worthy" fireworks shot off by people on the street

we had an interesting conversation with our real estate agent that went something like this...

him: "so, you can buy guns in your country but you can't buy fireworks?"

us: "ummmm....yeah" :/

* although he thought we can buy guns at our grocery stores, we set him straight*
we did see lanterns...

... at the Lantern Festival

we did see Chinese people doing their thing on the street~ hubby had to tell me he was sharpening blades~ I thought he was smoothing bricks!

we did see Chinese architecture

we did see disgusting things on menus

we did see rickshaws

we did see beautiful lights everywhere


we did see Christmas decorations...everywhere...in Febraury

we did see construction that has never, ever heard of OSHA

we did see smog, lots of smog

we did see Tiananmen Square

we did see blue sky (for one short day)

we did see lots of "authentic" name brand items

we did see police...everywhere...all the time...although we never saw them giving tickets, reprimanding or even talking to anyone~ they don't even carry guns
we did see cool shopping malls with giant screens~ this is Sanlitun village that has an adidas store, nike store and apple store~ that building in the back "Sanlitun Soho" is the apartment building I fell in love with (more info on that to follow)
finally, we did see American expats living, thriving and loving it in Beijing

Stay tuned for another school and tours of all the homes and apartments we toured!