The People's Republic of C....

Day One in Transit..so far so good. Journey was fairly painless and all flights on time, so happy about that.
It was a clear day coming into Beijing, and pilot mentioned that he could see the great wall....but only told us after....it can be seen from space and I missed it from a few thousand feet!! Ah well, day trip later anyway.
The Beijing airport is very 21st centry - terminal was built for the Olympics. There was even signs to guide Olympic travellers along. Made it to hostel on train, subway and walking, good going on first day.
Small stroll around the city in the evening was enough for the first day.Its basically like any other city, traffic, hussle etc - but with loads of bikes, and bike lanes on every street that are wider then your regular bus lanes! Bit surprised that they got carried away with all Ireland fever here too - as you can see from the pic......and I though we were in the People's Republic !! Loads of taxi's are painted green and gold also.......
Strolled down a few Hutongs which was a bit of an adventure, and tried to find a place to eat with an english menu...but were looking for a while. Settled for a place with pictures of food - but alas when we went in, we were given menu with English translation, phew!!
Some old favourites from lunches in Chinatown (thanks Wende, Qian!!) were perfect.
Night life in the Hutongs is pretty cool....found a bar full of Westerners and had 1 or 2 to help sleep with the jetlag! Beer for 30c for 1/2 litre...a steal! Hope to rent bikes tomorrow.....