Blogs from Forbidden City, Beijing, China, Asia - page 3

A few hours’ sleep, somehow despite the obvious the seat designers of planes have not yet figured out that the shape of a person sleeping (in a chair) is different to sitting upright. A strange tasting omelette keeps us fortified, while for me, Monsters University whiles away the early hours. The sun rises, bright orange over China. I watch endless ‘suburbs’ of multi-storey apartment blocks marching away to the horizon. We (in Australia) really have no idea what we’re complaining about – this one city could swallow Australia’s population in one bite (they’d have to pick us up with chopsticks first, though, so be prepared to wiggle). Immigration and customs is straight forward, then we spot our tour guide, Tina, at arrivals. A friendly greeting and a comfy ride along tree-lined motorways see us arrive at ... read more

We were up at 4.30am for the sunrise. We hiked up the side of the wall which is all unrecognisable shrubbery with am overgrown path.... Of sorts! The path led us to a tumble down area of the original wall which we climbed up. I am fairly certain, no I fact I am certain that there has been no health and safety risk assessment done on this activity! But I am afraid, yet again, we never saw the sunrise! Although the walk did wake me up! To be fair, apart from the effects of the cold, the camping event wasn't too bad! My blocked sinuses and cold have definitely got worse over night, but after being vertical for a while, they did seem to improve! I felt so poorly through the night, I am hoping that ... read more

24 March 2013 Sunday. The massage I had the evening before seemed to work wonders, and my knees (sore from compensating for my foot) were feeling much better. I was almost tempted to do without the wheel chair, but in the end decided that two and a half hours of walking through Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City would likely deal me a sever setback. My son Will turned out to be a life saver by pushing me in the wheel chair for the longer distances across the courtyards, and I walked thorugh the palaces. In addition to the Forbidden City, our tour took us to a traditional Chinese medicine pharmacy, the Temple of Heaven, and the Summer Palace. The tour included all the amenities provided in the previous day's tour at a cost of $48/person...another ... read more

As usual, we decided to dive head first and begin our first full day in Beijing with Tiananman Square and the Forbidden City. Tiananman Square is basically just a large public square (the largest in the world, in fact!) with a memorial, monument, museum, and a few other landmarks that are easy to miss unless you know what to look for. O, and a lot of security. The square is easily accessible from the ring subway line (line 2), but we ran into some long security lines when trying to get into the square. I would recommend bringing your passport or ID with you everywhere in China, but especially here since they were checking IDs. I guess we looked foreign enough that they waived us through. Being with kids, there isn't a whole lot to do ... read more

Day 2...well, if the rest of my journey is anything like the past two days, I'm in for quite the ride! So, what are the odds of having a 11.5 hour flight out of chinatown (aka Vancouver) to China and sitting in an emergency exit window seat beside an oil typhoon? I guess the odds are in my favour because that is what happened to me. I do have to say, before finishing this particular part of this story, that since I'm traveling alone, I really have to trust & listen to my instincts about people and situations. After 12 hours of chatting to this guy, I felt like I had a good read on him and his business partner. So, rather than arriving in a city of 20 million people with no clue of where ... read more