Beijing, China 6/14-16/06

We fly to Beijing from Xi'an, good flight and the airport was easy. We go immediately to the information booth to get a room and book our tour to The Great Wall. Take a taxi to the hotel which is in the center of Beijing within walking distance to Tienaman Square and the Forbidden City. We are staying at the Beijing Yandu Golden Street Hotel for $18.80 each a night. The hotel is strange. It's a maze really! The escalator going up works but the down is stationery. You walk thur a restaurant/bar to get to the room. The room does have a nice view of the street below, which is a pedestrian only street. We get settled in and decide to go out on the street and find the Forbidden City. We spot a KFC tram w/Chinese speaking tour of the city, we get on paying a small fee and ride around the center not understanding anything the guide is telling people. It's amusing though because the Chinese all want their pictures taken with you. A couple gets on and sits across from me. He looks very Mongolian with a narrow mustache and a thin goatee. His wife looks very Chinese and moves over to sit very close to me. She begins whispering in Chinese, coupling her hand to her mouth and up against my ear. Then she says in English "I have not studied English!". It was very cute and funny at the same time. I respond to her in the same fashion, "I have never studied Chinese!". She has her husband take a picture of us. The man behind me wants a photo too. We get off the tram about where we got on and begin walking towards Tienaman Square. We get hussled, unknown to us, by some art student who speaks very good English. Same as in Guilin and I can't figure it out.