Sight seeing madness
The rest of our days in Beijing we saw a lot. We actually began to get up early and ever got back till after dinner after massive days of sightseeing. its actually amazing how long the days really are when you get up and get out of the hostel by 9am! There is so much to see I Beijing and the city is huge (the whole area is the size of Belgium) so it takes quite awhile to get from place to place. Luckily the super efficient metro makes it easier but eve then it can take 45mis to get across town if you have to change lines.
But we did manage to see a lot, eat a lot and shop a lot. The main sight is Tienanmen square, only a short walk from our hostel, so one day we hired bikes and biked over to check it out. Beijing is great for biking as there are fenced off bike lanes and heaps of people on bikes which ca get a way with anything so not too much danger from cars driving into you.
We left our biked locked up and wandered through the surging masses of people around the square. We were there on a Saturday and it seems as it everyone of China’s 1.3 billion people had chosen to visit the square and the forbidden city that day. We pushed our way through snap happy tour groups all decked out in matching red caps. We waited patiently to get out typical shot with the forbidden city and Mao’s portrait in the background.
(OK Mao’s portrait is just behind Tom’s head…)
The joined the throngs heading into the not-quite-so-forbidden-any-more city. Got a sweet student deal which made it a lot better. Heading through the area you follow this main central bit full of temples and palaces where the dynasties used to rule the country from, until the revolution of course. Its very ornate and impressive but so many people and after awhile it all begins to look very much the same. After fighting our way through the crowds we headed through the gardens, which were probably the coolest part, then we ended up right down the opposite end from where our bikes were. So a long walk back to pick them up the biked over to the sack street which is the greatest street ever. Basically the sell a lot of food o sticks. And if there’s one thing I have learn t in china is that food on sticks is a good time. You can get live scorpions on sticks, starfish as well as usual chicken and lamb, there is also fruit dipped in sugar which is a good time. So we spent a bit of time filling up on various foods before biking back through the hutongs via the impressive opera house all the way back home. It was super cool going through all the hutongs as each area is different, there is more upmarket bits, some set around beautiful lakes.
Our other couple of days we went shopping and got carried away with Mao related souvenirs. I got a sweet Mao watch ad he waves with each second….it broke though. SO much cool stuff to buy but can’t carry it all. It only got worse when we went to silk street, a big market with knock off clothing. So so so cheap and all very cool. We all brought a few things after hard bargaining and fighting with very angry and persistent shop assistants. You can get jeans for about $25 and I got some gold chucks for about $12….sad I don’t have room in my bag for a whole new wardrobe!
We also checked out Mao himself, in all his waxy glory, preserved just like Lenin but in a much grader complex. Its a huge deal to see him and you wait in a very long but fast moving lie with thousands of Chinese seeing their hero, strange China’s relationship with Mao after everything he did. Because there are so many people you don’t get a good a look as with Lenin, but seen him now so done.
We stopped by the night market one evening which had a whole street of things on sticks, much pricier than other places but we tried silk worms-surprisingly good ad some sort of sea snake.
(Mmmm, grilled silk worms)
It was mostly just a fun thing to go and see and watch what is possible to eat. And that is everything…
We also spent the entire day at the summer palace. A huge palace set around a lake the emperors used to sped their summers in. Its really massive and you walk around the lake for about half an hour before getting to the main temple which is set on this big hill with so many different bits to go and look in.
Its pretty busy but because it is so big if doesn’t feel so overwhelming and there are lots of bits with hardly anyone there. It was beautiful and so many different things to see. I like it a lot better than the forbidden city By the ed of the day though we were stuffed from walking, but it was back to the hostel to grab our bags and jump on the over night train to Xian.
We had brought our tickets the night before and were ready for a huge ordeal trying to get then, but it was so easy, only 2 metro stops away, a foreigners desk with no one else there, a lady who spoke english, the tickets and beds we wanted and pretty cheap. It took about 2 mins to get them and then we were heading back home. Amazing! I love this country….
So Beijing, great city, so much cool stuff to see ad we didn’t even get to a quarter of it. Food was great, we had some awesome meals, like hotpot, things on sticks, random street food. I can’t even begin to describe everything we did as it was a crazy busy few days with so much going on and so many crazy things. Will definitely be back in this city sometime though- I love it!
Tags: 1, China, TRAVELS 2008
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Gross Arnika – stop eating dead things on sticks!!! Mum xxx