Advertisement
Published: October 18th 2007
Anyone for starfish?
Nightmarket in Bejing.Ok so I admit that most of my blogs so far has been written retrospectively. It's not that easy finding a computer and I'm not that keen on spending my entire trip cooped up in front of one. So you will get 3 entries in a row now, and I'll try my best to update you correctly. Ok, here goes:
I arrived in Beijing on Friday 5th October and made it to my hostel with a kiwi couple I met on the train, who, coincidentally were staying at the same place as me. It was a nice hostel, quiet and clean with friendly (English speaking!!!) staff. I was sad to have ended my Trans Siberian journey, but happy to start a new adventure. Most of my fears start now, knowing that the unkown awaits- I love it!!
I met up with George, Ross, Steve and Gary from the train on the Saturday to go see the Forbidden City. It was, well, a lot of temples and at the end of the day I felt rather "templed out", hehe. Although it was interesting to see such an important piece of Chinese history. After the Forbidden City we went to the
White Pagoda and then we had the most amazing meal of, ehrm, Chinese food (although I guess here one would just call it food, lol!). We then headed over to my hostel for some drinking games and all got pretty hammered- good times! I said goodbye to most of the guys, as we were all heading off into different directions and I might not see them again. We all "added" each other as friends on facebook, which seem to be a big thing over here, go figure! 😉
On the Monday I went to the summer palace which was incredible, and I enjoyed it much more than the Forbidden City. I went there with the Kiwi couple, Tina and Mike and met some other travellers along the way. Summer palace is in a beautiful location by a lake and it was where the emperor went for the summer (hence the name, if you haven't figured that one out, hehe). We had all booked tickets to go to the Great Wall on the Tuesday and I had booked my train ticket to Shanghai on the Wednesday evening so I felt quite organised.
Tuesday came, and I got up early.
The weather so far had been good, much warmer than Mongolia but very smoggy. October is known as the best month of the year to visit Beijing, as the smog is at its lowest. Also, when I arrived it was Golden Week, which means the Chinese have a week of work to celebrate their national day. Unlucky for us there are about 2 million more Chinese tourists in Beijing that week, so it was rather crowded. Fortunately though, was that the week had just ended and the week after was much quieter. The part of the wall I went to was Jin Shan Long to Simatai, which isn't touristy or busy but oh so steep. The walk from one end to the other is about 4hrs and included 30 watchtowers, ie going up and up and up. After about five minutes I was cursing myself for signing up for this, as the wall is very steep in several places, and not refurbished at all. "I will die on this wall" I thought to myself. Well, as you probably guessed by now, I obviously survived- barely!! Somehow, after walking for 2hrs, I managed to fall and sprain my ankle, very badly
might I add!! I had to wobble down the wall for another 2hrs with the help of a local guide holding my hand. It could have been worse, but I kept thinking "what if something's seriously wrong with my foot?". People that passed me by probably thought I was just fishing for sympathy, but a kiwi girl had a support sock with her, which she very kindly gave to me. I was, and am, very proud to have made it to the end, and maybe in the future I will be able to laugh at this anecdote. As a souvenir, maybe I should make a T- shirt that says:
"I went to the Wall, and all I got was this lousy sprain!!!" 😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.109s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0569s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
