Day to Day

Here's my rough itinerary (suggestions welcome!):

October
3 - Fly to Beijing around noon.
4 - Arrive in early afternoon. Check in and explore around the hotel.
5 - Olympic Architecture /Turner projects
6 - City Sites
7 - Outer Area Sites / Great Wall
8 - Great Wall
9 - Travel to Xian
10 - Historical sites including Terra Cotta Soldiers
11 - TBD around Xian
12 - Travel to Shanghai
13 - Architecture/City Sites
14 - Shanghai Bienniale
15 - Fly to NYC in late afternoon. Arrive in early evening.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Here are my flight plans...





CO 89
Depart NYC-EWR 12:10 PM on Friday 10/3/08
Arrive Beijing-PEK 1:50 PM on Saturday 10/4/08

CO 88
Depart Beijing-PEK 3:45 PM on Wednesday 10/15/08
Arrive NYC-EWR 5:30 PM (Same Day)

Although I won't be having a stopover in some exotic locale (the flights are non-stop), I am psyched about earning 13,660 miles on my Emirates frequent flier account. I'm now that much closer to a free flight to Europe!

Visa

I got my Chinese visa! Woohoo. It did take 130 dollars, 4 hours, 2 subway rides, and whole heck of a lot of cajoling but I got it.

The consulate was in a strange part of town - 42nd St at the West Side Highway - not the usual UES haunts, and over 4 avenues from a metro stop. When I got there, there was the usual security screening and a deli-style number dispensing machine. The waiting room was super packed by 9:45AM, only 45 minutes after opening. About half of the visa-hopefuls appeared to be of Chinese descent, with the rest a hodge podge of students and visa courriers.

Up Up and Away...

I'm vetting my flight options.

Continental $1014
Dep EWR / Arr PEK Nonstop

Delta $1028
Dep LGA / Arr PVG (Shanghai) via Atlanta

Air Canada $1078
Dep JFK / Arr PEK via Vancouver

Other than that, United to Beijing and Shanghai (via Dulles) is the only other option under $1200.

Beijing Beijing

It's been almost a year since I landed back in New York from my whirlwind 55-day tour, but I am at it again (albeit for only 2 weeks this time)...

After being seduced by the fantasy-architecture of the Olympics,

Clockwise from Top Left: Herzog & De Meuron's National Stadium ("Bird's Nest"), PTW Architects' National Aquatics Center ("Water Cube"), Pei Zhu's Digital Beijing Buildng, and Paul Andreu's National Theatre ("Egg")

More information:

Essay by Paul Goldberger in The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/skyline/2008/06/02/080602crsk_skyline_goldberger

Beijing architecture blog: http://beijing08082008.blogspot.com/

Archinect article: http://archinect.com/news/article.php?id=78771_0_24_0_C17

...I've decided to travel to China from October 3 to 15 to see the avante garde in person. I applied for my visa and should be picking it up next Friday, September 5 barring any last minute snafus. I'm looking into flight options, and it seems that a nonstop to Beijing on Continental is the cheapest, coming in at just under $1000 (a steep discount on the $2200 prices during the Olympics).

Now to the rest of the planning. I need to figure out:

1) My budget.

2) What to do in Beijing. I am thinking 1 day each for a) Olympic architecture, b) historical sites-center city, c) historical sites-outer city, d) Great Wall, e) puttering around.

3) Where to go for a side trip. I'd like somewhere green and non-urban to contrast with the side of China I will see in Beijing. Or maybe arrange a stopover in Korea (fly via Asiana with a stop in Seoul).

4) Where to stay each place I go