china 7 - beijing (6/18)

tuesday very early morning i arrive in beijing and eventually "check in" to my airbnb place. it's a little bit far from the metro station, but it's so nice! soso, the appt owner is really cool, it seems like so far. smart, very friendly and casual, which i like best.

view from soso's appt

i eventually head out to find banks. including a couple on the list that the moneygram person told me about, and one that lonely planet mentions does western union, and of course no one knows what i'm talking about. at least the western union accepting bank does know about money transfers, but alas, they don't take moneygram, just western union, of course, lol. at this point i give up. at each bank i get hopeful and it doesn't work out. over and over again. i'm also tired from the weather, humidity, and walking, and hungry since i haven't had a real meal in a couple days now. i'm really just emotionally exhausted from this whole mess. i actually walk away from the last bank and start to tear up. good thing for sunglasses! i get home and call rip and tell him to get his money back. honestly i'm not upset at anyone but myself. i'm clearly the world's biggest fucking idiot for forgetting to bring a backup. but everyone has been really nice about everything. rip wiring me money, moneygram people finding banks for me (even if they don't work), tour person taking me to the bank... just wasn't meant to be, i guess.

the famous bird's nest stadium

also very famous water cube

anyway, i head out again to sightsee a bit. i hadn't done much research on beijing cause i had planned on taking it sorta easy here. i had better planned the rest of my trip and had thought to do this portion more on the fly. so i head out to the one thing i had actually planned to see: olympic stuff!

donghuamen night market

which was just okay... it's still super hot and i'm still pretty tired and hungry and the walk from the subway to the olympic stuff is pretty far and each thing is pretty far from the other and i think maybe this stuff is much better seen at night so i plan to come back later. i want to be home when soso gets back so i can properly meet her since i met her for just a minute on the street early in the morning. i get back and wait for a while, shower again, take a nap, and she still hasn't gotten back so i head out to donghuamen night market which is so crowded and kitschy. this place is "famous" for scorpions on a stick. live scorpions which they then grill dead and you eat. i do not eat. lol. of course. at this point it's getting kind of late and the olympic stuff is not too close so i go home to say hello to soso.

starfish and scorpions. normal stuff too, of course.

and she really is great. she's interesting and about my age and so so so nice! we talked about our day and i told her about the bank stuff (after the bank stuff in the morning i had decided that i could go without extra money. i knew i had enough to get me to vancouver and that's all that mattered) but she volunteered to give me money. straight up. i didn't even ask. i ended up borrowing about $45, so we're not talking about a lot here, but it was definitely enough for a day and a half. and she didn't stress about when i would pay her back. i asked for her paypal but she said she'd give it to me later. honestly, it was just that she was so damn nice. everyone i'd met on this trip thus far had been pretty cool. i don't normally need much help back home, but i wonder if people in the states are quite so friendly? i can't help but think no.