China, you're doing it wrong

Flying over China and into Beijing is pretty odd. There are clouds below you, but you can't really see down to the ground through the breaks in the clouds. Once you get down to cloud level you can't really see much and I guess flights/pilots are always under instrument flight rules.

We landed and made our way through immigration without a hitch then through the massive terminal. Airport train to line 2 to line 5 and on to Happy Dragon Hostel. We didn't do much the first night but get settled in and have dinner.

With only about six days in China we quickly realized we were doing it wrong. The Chinese visa was the most expensive of all the countries we had visited but China was now one of the countries we were spending the least amount of time in. Six days wasn't really enough to go anywhere besides Beijing. We had originally planned to go to Xi'an for a few days, but when we arrived in Beijing there were no train tickets to be had. Oh well, next time we drop the money on a Chinese visa we'll spend a month touring the country.

The next day we relaxed in the morning then headed to the Forbidden City in the afternoon.  It took several hours to get through and we only glanced across the road at Tianamen Square then started walking back towards the hostel.

A guy asked to have his girlfriend take his picture with us. A group of three people chatted us up for a while and we walked with them. It sounded like they wanted to get food or drinks and I didn't particularly trust them so we parted ways and made our way back to the hostel. The smog, heat and humidity were oppressive.

Tiananmen Square, celebrating 80 years of the Communist party