From Bali, T and I flew to Beijing for a traditional Chinese Christmas. This was perhaps not our best laid plan, as the temperature fell a staggering 60 degrees Fahrenheit between Denpasar and Beijing. At the time, however, I was very excited to have a real winter again. Melbourne winter is a sad imitation of a true one, with temperatures hovering around 45-50 degrees, and no snow—only rain. So when we flew into Beijing in the early morning, I was overcome with joy to see the telltale fuzzy winter sky out the window of the plane…

until I realized it was pollution.

But that came later. The first thing to surprise me at the airport was the rating system installed in the window of our immigration officer. Um, for real, who is going to say that their immigration officers work is unsatisfactory in CHINA? I’d just as soon chop my head off right now. I was amused to see signs in the airport saying things like “Welcome to use Unicom China. Your friend, Yao Ming.” I had underestimated the popularity of basketball in China; I realized how big it is when we flew in and the first building I saw said NBA.com on the side of it. More surprising than that were the first two restaurants I saw upon exiting the baggage claim: McDonalds and Starbucks. Welcome to China.

Our taxi driver took us to our hostel after asking a couple of people for directions. The hostel, the Lotus, came recommended by our friend Mara, and was located down a small hutong in a quiet part of town. A hutong is a Chinese alleyway, in which few of the local houses have bathrooms and they all share a public one. Fear not. Fortunately, ours had a bathroom.

The hostel was quite lovely, with a courtyard and a sweet little lounge area. Unfortunately, the lounge was heated with coal, which was akin to breathing in razorblades. Our room was fairly large, with a decent bathroom and a thick curtain in front of the door to keep the cold out. Our bed was also large, but it was also a boxspring. No, literally, a boxspring. T’s head almost flew off when we went to bed, and he spent the remainder of the day cursing Mara, but I slept like a baby.

After a few hours of sleep on the boxspring, we were ready to go exploring. We managed to order noodles at a local restaurant and were quite impressed with ourselves when they turned out to be delicious. Then, we walked. We walked through a shopping mall and down numerous streets and down some wide boulevards which appeared quite European in the fuzzy night light, until we got to Tienamen Square. Like many people, when I thought of Tienamen Square, I thought of tanks running people over. Luckily for us, there was nothing so sinister on the night we visited. The square was mostly empty, with a few other tourists and some Russian-hat-wearing locals roaming around. We took some pictures, and danced around the kite and postcard sellers. I decided I really liked Beijing.

Unfortunately, in the following days I decided I liked Beijing a little less. Not because of anything the city did wrong—it’s a charming place, with nice people and lots of history. It was because of the constant, incessant grey. Everything was grey: the houses, the sky, the smoke, and people’s clothes. After a while, I found it really depressing, and nothing could make up for it. I should also mention that I had difficulty taking a deep breath the entire time we were there. Between the pollution (it was mad smoggy when we were there), the coal and the neverending smoking, I think my lungs aged at least 30 years during the 5 days we spent in town. In case you were wondering, I now speak like a 3-pack a day smoker and regularly hock up giant chunks of phlegm. Excited for me to return to America, are you?

I should reiterate that it was lovely, though. People in Beijing are very nice and helpful, even if their English isn’t always that great (ha! as if my Chinese is remotely understandable). The Forbidden City was under construction when we were there, but was still really colorful, with stunning detail. We wandered around for a few hours one day, just staring at all the different designs and colors and the neverending maze of rooms.

The best thing we discovered was the Chinese Park Phenomenon. We were a little lazy in Beijing, and didn’t do nearly as much as we would have liked, but we did go to the Temple of Heaven, which Mara has warned could be a disappointment, as it’s “just a park.”

Who knew? Chinese parks are more exciting than Disneyland! It was full of old women playing hackysack (T played with them, but I begged off because of terminal uncoordination), old men playing cards or mah jong or God knows what kinds of games, people playing Chinese classical music and doing mass ballroom dancing, and huge groups of people doing Tai Chi, all slapping themselves together in the winter air. It was friggin’ fantastic. Oh yeah, and the Temple of Heaven was okay too.