Xijiao Beijing

... came back to the car it was time to head back to the city to grab our lunch, before visiting the Old Town of Beijing in Hutong. We took a rickshaw to pass through the narrow alleys. We stopped at a traditional house which we were able to visit. It contained a courtyard in the middle and was surrounded by the different rooms of the house. Later, I had some time to explore Hutong by foot. Hutong is very well known for going out as it has lots of Bars where you can enjoy a cold beer ...

Decidimos ir a la parte de Jinshanling-Simatai 13 km a pie (recorrido completo, tomando el teleferico=10km). Alrededor de 4 horas de marcha. Hay menos turistas que en Bandaling o en Muntianyu.

Un tour desde Beijing cuesta alrededor de 400Y con pick-up al hotel round-trip.

Esta parte del muro, por ser parcialmente reconstruida, no esta en perfecto estado, hay partes delicadas donde hay que caminar casi en puntillas y ...

... go there and have the signature food in that location. Beijing for Peking (Beijing) duck, Maine for lobster, New England for Clam Chowder, Maryland for Crabs, Alaska for Halibut, France for Frogs legs (eww)...you get the idea. Our dinner was delicious. Frank ordered everything like usual. He says he likes to balance out the fatty duck with some vegitables, so we also had some good broccoli and cabbage. It was really kind of sad though ...

... tinha um preconceito de que todas as chinesas seriam do mesmo naipe da minha amiga... Não sei qual é a etnia dseu pai. Mas confesso que as chinesas da china(onde a maioria é han) tem um rosto muito agressivo. Com ossos definindo um rosto todo anguloso, sisudas. Gosto é gosto e não se discute. Concluímos que ao nosso gosto elas são feias. lógico que tem as excessões mas a sinceridade me força expressar clara ...

... bought a small clay pot and for oolong Ginseng tea for home.. Well - all for now - our room is finally ready.....I think we will try to get to bed early tonight - we have a full day tomorrow with visits of the Summer Palace / Lama Temple and palace of Heaven - followed by a Peking Duck dinner and the Kung fu show.....I doubt we will be able to write before we leave for Xian - so we will try to write again from there... Love to all, Mike and Serge

... the viewing platform - so many views were crying out to be captured. We exhaust all possibilities for pictures from the viewing platform and move onto the Great Wall. It's funny, but I expect to have some kind of feeling of this being a very important moment when I step onto the Great Wall ... but no such feeling comes. Once up on the Wall we need to decide which direction to walk. To our left is a steep incline and to our right looks to be much more gentle. With a bit ...

... we've reached the end of the path at Simatai. The end of it included an Omega rope that began at the bottom of the wall, and ended at the visitor centre, located on a small lake's shoreline. We decided to use the Omega for getting there - and the feeling was awesome! It felt like flying above the lake, moving towards the small visitor centre that became bigger and bigger, until I got the last station - a few meters from the lake. It was a real fun! In the visitor ...

... physician-in-training explaining to us the origins and constructs of tibetan medicine - which diagnoses illness based on looking at the palms (with different parts of the palm representing different body parts) as well as looking at the tongue and face. all of us had a free consultation with the visiting tibetan physician. 4 of us had the same physician and the other 3 had rather accurate diagnosis - 1 was ...