Chinas Capital
Trip Start
Jul 31, 2005
1
68
209
Trip End
Sep 05, 2007
Beijing,
China
Wednesday, May 3, 2006
We spent our time in Hong Kong, browsing along Nathan Road - which is the main throughfare in Kowloon, the area in which we stayed, it lashed rain most days we were there too, it was still hot, but very wet! We went along to Hong Kong Harbourfront one night to watch the world biggest Sound and light show! It was cool seeing all the skyscrapers over on Hong Kong Island light up, but it rained so hard we were saturated.
We visited Hong Kong Island, travelling across on the world famous star ferry, the view on the otherside of the harbour was equally as impressive
Ali standing in Tiananmen Sqaure - Beijing
. We took the Peak Tram up high and watched Hong Kong from a height at the Victoria Peak, there is a big shopping centre up there too, so plenty to do, we saw the view by day, and then strolled across again as night started to fall, and watched Hong Kong come alive with the array of lights on all the different buildings, by day the view in our opinion was nothing special, at night it was spectacular.We had the most amazing Chinese meal in a brilliant restaurant on Nathan Road, unfortunatly we still havent mastered chopsticks, its on the to do list however, we had to use boring old knives and forks!!
We took the train from Hung Hom station in Kowloon - Hong Kong, we had no idea what to expect, and being used to basic Indian trains, we were soooooooo suprised when we set foot on what was like a posh hotel on wheels! Ok, so maybe im exagerating a little, but it was really nice! we had the top berths in a 6 berth compartment, the toilets were clean and diddnt smell, we had pillows and duvets! It was really nice, we settled in for the 24 hour journey north across China to Beijing.
We arrived here yesterday, Beijing is suprisingly clean, very busy as its a holiday here at the moment, very modern, you can see the strict rules that they must live by though, and they speak hardly any English which will prove difficult, but Matts learning some Mandarin and used it this morning when we got coffee!!
Today we visited the enormous Tiananmen Square, people were flying kites, and the Chinese flags were flying high just like you imagine, after that we went to the Forbidden City, the architecture there was simply stunning, and the detail on the buildings magnificent, as we already said it was busy, but we seriously have never seen this many people in one place ever
Chinese Statues in Beijing
!So, we shall stay in Beijing until the weekend, after that we arent sure wheather to head north to Siberia near the Russian border, or head across to Xian, what we do know is that in the next few days we are going to visit the Great Wall of China, The Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace - we also must pay a visit to the Vietnamese Embassy...
Thanks mum.....the song is now constantly in our heads!!!!!! We are counting....let you know when we get to 9 million!
Hugs
Ali and Matt
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
