With our taste buds satisfied and our clothing still wet from our previous day’s adventure, we departed Hong Kong and headed for Beijing. The wheels of the plane skidded off the island, leaving behind modern comforts and our naive experience of China. Beijing was about to open our eyes to the distorted assumptions we had made about China based on Hong Kong’s gllitz and glamour. We were on our way to a country developing under communism, a country with radically different social values, a country where my grandmother’s Cantonese was no longer useful ( Cantonese is largely spoken in Hong Kong but Mandarin dominates mainland China as the official language).

Beijing was larger and spacier than Hong Kong; the streets were ample, the buildings plumper. The local citizens too were quite in contrast to those of Hong Kong – they dressed down and were not as perfectly polished as the residents of Hong Kong. The city isdecked out in full Olympic gear; from the Temple of Heaven to the corner shop, “Beijing 2008″ is plastered everywhere. Even the hutongs, the narrow alleyways home to Beijing historic residential homes have been re-painted in preparation. Gardens and colorful blossoming flowers have been planted in every corner and along most main streets as Beijing attempts to “go green” to clean up its tarnished image as a polluted city.

The night we arrived, we feasted on the famous Peking Duck (Beijing is also known as Peking). That night I also almost became a vegetarian. My grandmother had ordered duck and hen. But little did I know that the Chinese have a special way of displaying their foods. When the food arrived the Peking duck was placed right in front of me. My mouth began to water. But by stomach lurched suddenly when to my disgust, I saw that the plate had been adorned with the duck’s head! The beak was pointing straight at me! I quickly glanced away but was met with two hen heads on the adjacent plate. I panicked and began flaying my arms and waving my napkin around as the waitress furtively and confusedly took the plates away removing the unwanted parcels. The plates promptly returned but the image was still too heavily impressed in my mind. I was not going to eat it. But I was famished beyond the belief ( I had skipped the meal on the plane because it was an unappealing black stew of lentil beans, for breakfast!). So I tried to erase the image of the duck beak from my head as my chopsticks wrapped around a steaming morsel of steaming duck. It was amazing.

Beijing contains some of the most impressive historical sights of ancient China – from the Great wall of China to the Forbidden City and the Lama Tempe. We hired a young guide named He Zhang who spoke English and Mandarin. Luckily one of my grandmother’s good friends named Poly decided to accompany us. She spoke Cantonese, Madarin, Spanish and English. Well, more like broken Spanish and something along the lines of Chinglish, but nevertheless she was a great help. The first day we tackled the Great Wall of China, staggering up its hundred of steep steps. We later descended into the underground Ming Tombs. The next day we set out for the Forbidden City, home to the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasty and visited the beautifully ornate Lama Temple. That night we enjoyed a nerve-racking but spectacular performance by Chinese acrobats. Our last day in Beijing was spent cruising down the lake at the summer Palace, and having some tea with a local family in the hutongs. Our last night we attended an unforgettable heart-pounding Kung-Fu show.

It was a packed couple of days, but definitely worth it. Beijing has so much wonderfully preserved reminders of its past that a full two weeks would barely suffice to see it all.