This place feels homeless

My dad posted this e-mail soon after I sent it to my parents and I had him take it down, because I wanted to rewrite it with more... more something... I guess I was hoping to be clever-er.  But I'm just not feeling it.  

So here's the e-mail (again) recapping Michael and my time in Beijing.

I am alive.  Although after the heat and humdity I have endured in Beijing, I do not know how!!!  It is HOT here!!  Way hotter than Busan!!!  I have been sweating every minute of everyday we are out walking around. Our first day here we got in a bit late (~4pm) and our ride was late to pick us up at the airport, so we did the only thing natural to Westerns - we grabbed a Starbucks Iced Tea!   Once our ride picked us up and we made the hour+ ride to our hostel, we unloaded and headed out to look around. We tried to find one of the many markets in Beijing, but failed.  Apparently even the big, big name markets aren't even known to the Chinese... a bit funny, especially considering we were showing them the name in Chinese, but..... when in China I guess...? So we gave up and came back to our hostel area to get food and call it a night. The next morning (8/7) we got up early and headed over to Tian'men Square and the Forbidden City.  Overwhelming and underwhelming at the same time.  MILLIONS of people were there.  Ok perhaps not millions, but a whole hell of a lot of people!  It really took the charm, fantasty, and imagination out of the Forbidden City.  You couldn't picture history there with that many people walking around and shoving you out of the way. See the full gallery on Posterous After we made it out of there we were so tired and hot we didn't really know what to do.   So we wandered lost, literally lost in a daze, around Tian'men Square.  First, we just sat in the Square, but being that it's huge and has no benches, it wasn't really the greatest place to take a rest.  So we crossed the street to the Hall of the People, but after seeing the price of tickets and reading in the book about what was inside we gave up on that idea and decided to try the museum on the other side of the Square.   The Square, although only ~300m wide, felt like a mile wide at this point!  But we made the journey across and got to the National Museum of China. Climbed some stairs and found ourselves staring at an endless queue.  Again, too tired and hot to deal with it, we crossed some fences and went to make our escape out the back way.  Except my stomach was hurting and I needed(!!!) a bathroom, so I went up and around one side of the building solely to ask where the nearest toliets were.  However, I didn't get to ask. I was immediantly greeted with "How many?"  I said 3 and was handed 3 free tickets to the museum!  No money needed!  No waiting required, straight in and to the bathroom!!! and the HEAVEN of some AC!!!   We must have sat on the ground for an hour!!  too content to move!! Finally, feeling like we had to make something of our day, we got up and went to make our way around the museum.  Except there was nothing in the musuem!  You had to pay to get in every exhibit.  We did get a rest, some AC , and a bunch of laughs out of it, but that was about all.  Thank goodness our tickets were free!! After that we parted ways to go clean up and then meet back up for dinner and a second go at attempting to find the markets.  No markets, but we had Peking duck for dinner.   It was ok.  The food here is soooooo greasy!  Everything is greasy!!  They must just pour it on extra!!  Monday (8/8) we did the Great Wall.  I'm not sure what I was imagining for it, but it was a HIKE!  A bit dumb on my part!  But it was really great!  The kind of sightseeing I needed to make up for the disappointment of the Forbidden City.   I don't think I've ever sweated that much from just walking!!!  I was dripping!!!   Tuesday (8/9) we went to the Temple of Heaven, Hou Hai village and rode around in a rickshaw for an hour or two and then over to Bei Hai Park to get lost and just a little bit more sweaty.   See the full gallery on Posterous All that was left to do in Beijing was a short wait, in the AC of our hostel, before we headed to the bus station to get on an overnight bus to Xi'an.   4 days down and 10 to go!  [When I sent this email to my parents I said this of China]: So far I don't know what to make of China.  It's definitely big, dirty, full of people and historical sites, but as it was at the Forbidden City, it feels over/underwhelming at the same time so far. Hopefully with the rest of the cities and with less on our list of things to see/do it will turn out to be a really fantastic trip.  Right now it's just hot!!!  But still cool, just not awesome yet.