Golden Week

Will and I are enjoying a week off during China's October Golden Week holiday. This holiday has an official and traditional significance - the official holiday celebrates the founding of the People's Republic of China, while the traditional holiday is a lunar festival to celebrate friends and family far away. During this week people often go back to their hometowns to be with family and friends, so Beijing is "relatively" empty. We thought it would be a great time to do a little sightseeing....

Yesterday we bought bikes at the Carrefour, a French supermarket chain. The bikes were pretty inexpensive, but seemed like decent quality (until my bike chain broke - luckily we befriended a local bike repairman who fixed me up in no time.) We definitely looked like "touristas" wearing our helmets.

We biked to Tiananmen Square, which was about an hour ride from our apartment. Yesterday was the actual anniversary of the founding of the PRC, so Tiananmen was packed. It was great to be on our bikes and zoom right by all the crowds.

After Tiananmen we went to Houhai, a really neat neighborhood on a lake, filled with bars, restaurants and shops. There are also a lot of old hutongs in the neighborhood, which were really fun to explore on our bikes.

Here is a picture of me enjoying a bottle of Tsingtao Beer and relaxing after our bike ride.

We're heading out to do some more exploring. Talk to you soon!