My Awesome China Adventure: by a 12 Year Old: Part I

Asia » China » Beijing » Forbidden City
October 29th 2011

Published: October 29th 2011

Day 1
Beijing

When we got out of the plane, I looked up and the sun was red!
Not only that, but the smog was so bad you could hardly see anything.

When we got to the baggage carousel my bag had been badly damaged and it had all these holes on them like it had been crushed by the luggage car.

We were picked up by a taxi driver who was holding an Intrepid tour sign. He drove a better car than I had been in my life. (but don't expect normal Beijing taxis to be like this). We drove for what probably was an eternity through Beijing's winding ringroads and highways and got caught in a traffic jam. The pollution burns your face when you're not used to it.

When we finally got to our hotel room I switched the tv on. Chinese tv is not all just news and propaganda. The kids channel has really good shows. Like this one with a kid with these big ears.

We decided to go for a walk around the city when we came to St. Josephs's Cathedral which had a Catholic goods store - what the heck is that? We kept on walking until we ended up in Wangfujing St - the main shopping street in Beijing. it's very impressive with a awesome night market, a huge clock tower and when you're walking along someone on a bicycle honks loudly and rides past centimetres from hitting you.

Cyclists in beijing are fearless. They just ride in the middle of the road with all these cars driving centimetres away from bowling them over.

We walk down the night market where there is a shop selling deep fried scorpions impaled on a stick. We buy some and I reluctantly take a bite. DELICIOUS! They should really make these back home.
We walk further down where they are selling lots of random stuff.
We stop and buy. This stall keeper grabs hold of me and I shout HELPPPP! to my Mum and she trys to pull me away. Human tug o war.

Day 2
Beijing
Today was be the day we meet our tour group for the first time.
Not only that, but we also made an attempt to get to the Yashow clothing market, so we got the the hotel concierge to tick one of the taxi card boxes that said Yashow market. We got in a taxi and showed the taxi driver the card. My Mum pointed at the Yashow market box but the driver thought it was the Flea market. Still i thought the flea market was good anyway.

We then decided to go to the Beijing Natural History Museum. The taxi driver dropped us off at an intersection. Then I realised we would have to cross an 8 or something lane road to get across. Really scary at first but then you get used to it.

After we managed to get in we looked at all paleontology and botany.But I really wanted to look at the anthropology section. It apparently had carcass of humans and pickled limbs and cadavers. but we couldn't find it so we truged back disappointed.

Everyone in the Intrepid Family Tour China Adventure gathered in the lobby. At first i was really reluctant about going on a tour with a bunch of people who I would be glued to but my fears certainly weren't realised.

Day 3
Beijing
Today we walked down to Tiananmen Square. We went through all these parks with awesome chinglish in them. Tiananmen Square was huge with thousands of people. It was nearly Liberation Day, so things were going to get very busy. It's just amazing - the hugeness of it all.

We then get to go to the Forbidden City, which is amazing because just 100 years ago nobody except the Emperor, his servants and officials could enter the Forbidden City and now even foreigners can go in.

The area is gigantic. But is completly treeless. We were taken to the concubine area. Concubines were secondry wifes. They lived pretty badly unless they were high ranking concubines.

So after that we were taken through a rock garden with '' perilous'' hills according to the sign, which was in chinglish.

We caught the bus to a hutong area then from there we rode rickshaws around until we got to Mr Wong's house where we had lunch. And this guy called Mr Cricket came. That really confused me.

Then we went to an awesome shopping street were I got lost.
Then we all had a debate on whether to catch a bus or hire many many many taxis to go to the subway station then catch the subway to the acrobatics theatre. Bus won.

After all that travelling across Beijing we watched the acrobats which were really cool. The group had split up and found their own way back. Unfortunatly for us I lost my camera. By the time I'd found it, the traffic had clogged up to a maximum and many taxis wouldn't pick us up. We didn't know how to get back to the train station, so we ran across a foot bridge to a Japanese restraunt. we asked them for help. No luck.

Eventully we did manage to get a taxi andget back to the hotel. Our tour guide was still waiting for us. It must have taken 4 hours to get back, including 2 hours stuck in a traffic jam.

Day 4 Beijing/Great Wall Of China

We all piled into a bus and headed off to the Great Wall, which took 2 hours (every bus trip in china seems to be 2 hours). We got out and started climbing up a steep hill to the cable car. The scenery is the most beautiful I have every seen in my existence! Get up on the Great Wall and look around. AMAZING! You walk along and every view you get is incredible.

Sometimes you feel like you're slipping on the Wall. Also there is a great echo so when your Mum gives up because of her arthritis, you can still talk to each other by echo. Just don't shout about things you wouldn't shout out to your mum in public moments at home. It makes for extremely awkward moments.

i kept on going right up to the battlement before the gateway to the stairs where the last battlement was. I ran right back and we hurried back to the cable car station and we were the first back.

On the ride back I fell asleep - nothing else to do when you're incrediblly bored and tired on an incredibly boring bus trip back to your hotel.

That night we went out to the aerobics that are held every night in front of St Joseph's Cathedral and had a go. The locals took pity on our misrable attempts at the aerobics and they got us a teacher. At first I was terrible, but then I went in with the locals and followed them. The teacher gave me the thumbs up.

Day 5
Beijing/Loyang

Today we went to the Llama Temple. In the Llama Temple they have all these huge Buddhas. That's about all. Then we had lunch at a Taiwanese restauraunt which was awesome food. Then we checked out of the hotel and sat in the lobby talking about the Moran family ( a Melbourne killing family). Then we all took the bus to west Beijing station, the busiest sation of Beijing.

My Awesome China Adventure: by a 12 Year Old: Part I

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