Beijing
Trip Start
Dec 02, 2007
1
34
55
Trip End
Sep 01, 2008
Beijing,
Beijing,
China
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
We were greeted on our arrival by a massive thunderstorm, which wasn't handy as we were trying to find an ATM that would take our cards. We got absolutely soaked, much to the amusement of watching Chinese in the doorways of the hutong.
Our first real day of sightseeing was to the Forbidden City, a real highlight. Nothing quite prepares you for the sheer size of the place: 'city' is certainly an apposite description. It was constructed in the fifteenth century as a haven for the emperors and empresses, their families and their minions. It remained off limit to the general population for over five hundred years, hence 'forbidden'.
It is a sprawling mix of halls, temples and courtyards, with a massive level of detail. We spent several hours exploring, but left feeling like we had only scratched the surface
Welcome to Beijing!
. To put the Forbidden City into context, weheaded into Jingshan Park where we climbed to the lookout point. It dominated the southerly view, providing an interesting juxtaposition against the buildings of the modern Beijing and the permanent haze of smog. Indeed, the smog is hard to appreciate until you are actually walking out and about: it is said that a day in central Beijing is
akin to smoking 70 cigarettes. Best of luck to the marathon runners come August!
In our time in Beijing, we also traversed the tube and bus systems to visit the Summer Palace, 12km from the city centre. Although it was overrun with tourists, mainly in groups from within China, it was an attractive place. The highlight was a trip out onto Kunming Lake in a two person battery powered boat, both to take in the views and to
escape the crowds.
One of the places that we have both been looking forward to seeing most on our trip since it began is the Great Wall of China. We chose to join a tour run from our hostel to one of the lesser visited parts of the Wall, and hike the 10km (and 36 watchtowers) from Jinshanling to Simatai.
Even a 6.15am alarm call and two and a half hour drive didn't dampen our enthusiasm, and although the walk was quite arduous at times, we enjoyed some great views. We had to remind ourselves every so often that we were actually hiking the Great Wall, as we were concentrating so hard on the next climb or steep descent! We were also lucky to have a decent, small group to trek with, and went out for a good Chinese dinner with a couple of English girls on the last night of their trip
Rooftops of the Forbidden City
. We managed to spend a lot of the time discussing food we missed from home: for some reason, pork pies and salad cream topped my list!Speaking of food, we also went to try some of the famous Peking duck. We chose to eat at a restaurant close to our hostel, rather than take a thirty minute cab to the one which is supposedly the best. Walking in, we were fairly sure we had made the wrong decision when we spotted a tank full of live bull frogs under the fish tanks in the entrance hall. This feeling was exacerbated when one of the chefs managed to drop a live fish perilously close to Charlotte on the way through to the kitchen. It turned out to be an ok meal, but no match for Confucious in Wimbledon!
On our final day of six in the city, we visited Tiananmen Square, the world's largest public square. It was an impressive sight, but far to hot and crowded to hang around for too long. Instead, we retired to the hostel to prepare for our first overnight train in China, to Xi'an.
