Autumn in Beijing Day 1 - COSMO

Part of our first day in Beijing was getting lost somewhere in Wangfujing and accidentally ending up at one of the most popular shopping places in Beijing, the Oriental Plaza. There we encountered the 2nd Beijing Wangfujing International Brand Festival. There were a lot of shops, and a lot of items on sale. However, we were not really up for a shopping spree since we're on a budget. Though fall and winter clothes were kind of expensive since the season was on transition from summer to fall.

 welcome arch

 the long shopping strip

huge golden abacus

At the end of a long day of walking around Beijing, we spent some time at the hotel lobby to use wifi! Facebook and Twitter are banned in China but good thing I got those uploaded as my mobile apps in my Blackberry, that's why I was still able to use them. I finally got in touch with my friends in the Philippines as I got my BBM and email working too.

this aquarium was so relaxing 

 outside the elevator doors

 reading the hotel rules

After relaxing for a while in our hotel room, we're off to have dinner at Houhai Lake. But before that, we headed first to Xidan Shopping Mall and shopped for scarves and shirts from H&M. It's the usual thing we do every time we go to a country with H&M, since we don't have one here in the Philippines. I just hope we can have it here soon!

 encountered these Kung Fu performers at the hotel lobby on our way out

 walking on a really cold weather

 huge overpass/walkway

 they said that's the longest escalator in Asia

It was so hard to find a cab so we decided to just take the train from Xidan to Ping An Li. Just by referring to our map, we walked to find the Houhai Lake. We knew we were there when we found this map:

We were at the Northwest part of the lake. Our friend Pam couldn't remember what side of the lake they went to the previous night so we just kept walking. we walked southward on the west side of the lake. However, when we couldn't see much bars, restaurants, and lights on that side, we went back up north and decided to walk southward on the east side of the lake. We kept on walking even if it's drizzling because we were so hungry and we just wanted to arrive to the cosmo place. Then we finally found a series of bars and restaurants. We chose to have Thai Food at Lotus Blue.

 service was fast and dishes were yummy

 dinner was quite expensive compared to our previous meals in the city

After dinner, we walked for a bit and tried some street desserts: fruits on stick coated with sugar and huge cotton candy. Then we all got sugar rush! haha!

Starbucks Chinese Version

Then we headed back to the hotel. However, it was so hard to find a cab because there were a lot of people waiting for a cab also, and there's no line...well yeah, we did it the Filipino way. But the worse was, no cab wanted to take us back to the hotel because it was kind of far from the area plus they couldn't understand us. Even if we're showing the business card of our hotel (with map), they still wouldn't take us there. It just so happened that there's this private car driven by an old man with his wife on the front seat, offering to take us back to the hotel. However, he's offering an expensive rate. We didn't agree, and we moved farther from them. But he didn't leave. He approached us again and bargained. Finally, we agreed to a certain rate and we finally got a ride back to the hotel.


We got home before midnight because we needed enough rest for our next day's destination: Great Wall of China.