7 June 1999
The last stop on this leg of my trip was Beijing. Since I would be returning in a few months time, I decided that sightseeing would be limited on this occasion. At any rate, I landed in the downtown station and registered with one of the ubiquitous hotel touts offering cheap accommodation.
Got to the Summer Palace by public transport and spent a few hours there. By 15:00 I figured I had had enough and set off for Yuanmingyuan. Yuanmingyuan’s vision and mission was to serve up all the world’s spoils to the Qing Emperor. European art, architecture and artifacts were studied and faithfully reproduced. Rather than traveling all over the world, the world would now come to China. Unfortunately, the looting sacking hooligans of the European coalition forces razed it to the ground.
8 September 1999
Boarded the 09:00 bus from Taiyuan to Beijing and arrived at 15:30. I flagged a cab and asked for the Jin Hua Hotel, but I suspected the driver was taking me for a ride. I confronted him and he insisted it was due to the road works that he took a circuitous route. When we approached the hotel, he drove past it and had to make a U turn. I yelled at him and he finally waived the cab fare. Also managed to withdraw some much needed cash.
Joined the Jin Hua Hotel’s tour of Simatai Great Wall and received a T-shirt as souvenir. The bus left the hotel at 08:30, but we only arrived by noon. Purchasing my train ticket took me one and a quarter hours travel time, as I had to take a bus and then ride the subway to the train station.