Motorcycle Sidecar Tour (Friday)

After quickly getting checked in and dropping off our luggage, it was time for a wild ride through Beijing. Jerri had made arrangements for us to have a motorcycle sidecar tour of Beijing. The two drivers were a study in contrasts. Amanda and I had an older guy with crazy long hair and a motorcycle I swear is older than I am. Jerri and Ally had a younger guy with a gorgeous blue Triumph (or something comparable). I opted not to try and use our digital SLR, which realistically takes two hands to operate. Instead I used Jerri’s Flip video camera, which means I have no pictures to post of this little adventure. The videos are pretty cool, though.

We rode through crowded hutong streets and main roads. We saw tourist areas around lakes crowded with domestic tourists having fun at the bars and shops along the way. We went through business districts and public plazas. Everywhere the buildings were lit up like it was a holiday. All throughout the ride my driver tried to explain what we were seeing. He did a pretty good job considering his limited English. Sometimes he would say something and I would just repeat it back to him, which seemed to make him happy (not that I had a clue what I was saying half the time). We went around Tiananmen Square in front of the Forbidden City. We passed the Great Hall of the People and the National Center for the Performing Arts (the “Egg”). We went completely around the Forbidden City, stopping at the same entrance where it had been so crowded two weeks earlier. Not so bad at 10:30pm. There was a squad of soldiers (I think) marching from the front gate area to their barracks. We finished up at a McDonald’s a couple of blocks from the guest house. Since our flight was late we hadn’t had any dinner yet and we didn’t really feel like trying to order Chinese that late at night, we opted for the easy out.