As far as cities go, Beijing is really really big. It takes at least one hour to get from one side of the city to the other - whereas driving for one hour across (non-rush hour) Washington DC will take you well into Maryland or Virginia. It's true that visitors underestimate distances in the city, places are generally much farther than they appear on a map. Of course, my mom and I learned this the hard way when we spent today walking around the city.

We used the subway to get into the city area since the nearest station is 五道口 Wudaokou on Line 13, about 10-15 mins walk away from campus. There are currently 3 lines on the system: Lines 1, 2, and 13 (presumably lines 3-12 are planned for the future). Fare is dirt cheap at 5 RMB or 60 US cents for a transfer ticket across three lines, while single-line fare is 3 RMB or 32 cents. What can 32 cents buy in North America? Even vending machine gum costs at least 50 cents. Lines 1 and 2 are older so they still have 服务员 (staff) who take paper tickets but Line 13 is newer so there are barriers that take magentic tickets. Despite the automation, even these barriers are staffed by at least one person, perhaps make sure everyone knows how to use the machines. Stations are stuffy and it can be quite a wait between trains but the subway is still the best way to get around Beijing. And among the announcements declaring the next station and warning about closing doors is a great one that translates into "China is a country that respects its elders. Please offer your seat to those who are elderly."

Our first stop was 天安门广场 Tiananmen Square which is very large and very impressive. We wanted to go up 天安门, the iconic Gate of Heavenly Peace hung with a portrait of Mao Zedong but bags weren't allowed in the building and the line for the baggage storage area was too long. It was too hot and too crowded to linger outside for long so we left the square and headed for 王府井大街 Wangfujing Street, a busy commercial and shopping area. There are shops and department stores flanking the entire street, and a very large, very new mall that reminds me of something from Hong Kong. Wangfujing is also home to the huge and creatively named Wangfujing Bookstore which is much larger than any Barnes and Noble, Borders, or Chapters. There's a decent English section with lots of classics and Harry Potters but I was there to buy a Chinese-English/ English-Chinese dictionary and a couple of maps.

I also picked up a sim card for my mobile; did you know you pay different prices depending on your choice of phone number? Numbers with 4s are cheapest (it's considered an unlucky number because the pronounciation of 4, si4, is very close to the pronounciation of death, si3. This is not good if you have trouble with mandarin tones, especially if the number 1 is next to 4 because the pronounciation of one and four, yao1 si4, can sound awfully close to yao1 si3 which means "want to die"). So now I have a chinese number for my North American phone. It works fine, except because the phone is programmed for English, Spanish, or French but not Chinese, the phone menu for the sim card is in gobbledyguk and I keep getting mystery texts from the network that say "incompatible message format".

By this time mom was exhausted so we stopped for a coffee break (not Starbucks although there was one packed full of people) and people-watched for about 40 minutes. Recharged with caffeine, our last stop was 秀水市场, the Silk Market which sells much more than silk. Instead, the market is known for selling goods with questionable authenticity. Think a five-storey building filled with NYC Chinatown vendors but better organized and with more variety. Bargaining is expected and I heard some of the best english in Beijing so far from the stallkeepers, except it's along the lines of "I give you best price," or "20 dollars? you're killing me" On average, we managed to get down to about 1/3 of the initial asking price which meant prices of around 100 RMB (12 USD) or lower. We got some shoes, and a few USB flash drives. I also got a really fake IBM wireless travel mouse but it seems to be working so far.

It was past 8pm by the time we got back to the hotel which meant we were walking around Beijing for the better part of 11 hours! I think we will need to start taking more cabs tomorrow.