More Beijing

Trip Start Sep 01, 2007
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Trip End Oct 22, 2007


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Monday, September 3, 2007

After an amazing breakfast buffet we headed off to Tiananmen Square where we could see the giant flag of Chairman Mao, overt police presence (an apparently plenty undercover ones too) and masses of us tourists. Standing in this massive open-air square is quite something; thinking about the mass rallies as well as some of the not so proud moments of protest is good "food for pondering". It was quite amusing that our guide could not quite grasp why we would want to just stand and watch for a while rather than "seen that, let's move on".
 
Entering the Forbidden City from Tiananmen Square is a pretty mind-blowing event. Neither of us had any concept of how big the area was, the number of palaces and buildings there would be or the detail and beauty that went into creating them, and all this for one man, The Emperor. Apparently, it would take 34 years to spend a night in each of the palaces that made up the Forbidden City Tianamen Square
Tianamen Square
 !
 
From palaces to courtyards, we went off to one of the local Hutongs for a bicycle-rickshaw tour of the neighbourhood. The Hutongs are the old style neighbourhoods where the very small houses are all facing the correct Feng Shui directions, built around courtyards and have neither kitchens nor bathrooms, mostly they use communal bathrooms and add on a little "out-house" Kitchen. We were taken to visit a local family for a cup of tea and a chat. Sadly the Government has knocked most Hutongs down but, now that they have become tourist attractions, they seem to be keeping a few of them.
 
To finish off the day, before catching the train to Xian, we spent the afternoon at the Summer Palace. This is actually more of a park and lake where the Emperor would go to relax with some small places where they would stay. They are also very proud of the fact that it has the longest outdoor corridor in China, I wonder how many there are in total?  It is now a public park where the tourists and common people can relax, hire peddle-boats and go running or power walking in a beautiful and tranquil environment.
 
All Aboard!!! Our overnight train to Xian was great. We had a private room for two with an en-suite bathroom with a western style toilet, quite a relief :-) We were in "Soft Sleeper" class, the only way the beds could get any harder than ours would be if they were just a wooden plank! In Annie's research she had found out that they provide boiling water on the train so we took some thermos mugs along and could have out tea and biccies.
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