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Published: June 12th 2011
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Our final stop on our epic 5 month tour of Asia! After our rather epic journey to get there - from Xi'an that is, not our starting point of Bangalore - we took it easy with a wander around Tiananmen Square. Although let's be honest, nothing is ever easy on our trip! Unlike most other cities, Beijing has a slight aversion to pedestrians crossing the road. This involves either several underground passes or the assistance of 7, yes 7, traffic policemen to help you cross a one-way street. Excessive? Just a bit! And if you think the underground passes seem preferable, then that's before you've put your bag through the X-ray machine a gazillion times! You'd think visiting a square would be simple but between the road crossings and security checks, it's quite simply not!
Considering we were in Beijing/Peking, it seemed compulsory to have the Peking duck pancakes we had been craving for so long. And they were good! Yes, the other restaurant goers laughed and stared at us but we've taken to laughing along now as if we understand what's so funny... when obviously we don't!
The next day, we walked to the Forbidden City. Neither a
city nor forbidden anymore, it once was a grand complex of pagodas and temples and gardens frequented by emperors and empresses of various dynasties. Today, it makes for a fascinating visit to see the grand buildings that were once hidden away from so many.
And then it was time for the thing that we have been waiting so long for - drum roll... our second wonder of the world... The Great Wall! Chosing to visit at Mutianyu, we caught the cablecar up the steep hill and set foot on the magnificent wall. Surrounded by beautiful mountains, the wall can be seen all around. What you might not realise though is just how steep some of the sections are. Working from watchtower 6 to 1, some of the steps were nearly as big as some of the children attempting to climb them! Add to that, the unrelenting sun and it made for a rather exhausting, although of course well worthwhile, hike! We came down by tobbogan (unfortunately the Jamaican bobsleigh team were not there that day!) and were met with a delicious Chinese lunch! We even got sweet and sour chicken!
Beijing's metro is unbelievable value at 2RMB (20p)
to go absolutely anywhere but it is also one of the most illogical systems. To arrive at a stop just north of the "Circle Line" we had to change 3 times and it took us 45 minutes. Aiming to visit the Science and Technology Museum, we arrived in the middle of nowhere and found the Olympic Stadium instead! Here, we became "celebrities" having to pose next to the "Beijing Olympics 2008" sign with various individuals. All in a day's work!
When we decided to attempt finding the Sci Tech Museum another day, we got entirely lost again. We arrived at a stop around 5km away, crossed the motorway a good 6 times and this was all in the blazing heat. Of course, there were no road signs and despite the museum having an English name, no one knew what we were talking about. Even the phrasebook was silent but after a long walk we found it!
We thought finding it was the hard part, we were wrong! We approached the "individual ticketting desk" - "piao" we ask. He points us outside. Outside is cinema tickets so in we return, going through the standard bag check again and attempting
the automatic ticket machines. Well the machines would have made more sense had they been in double dutch to be honest so back we go to the ticket counter. He chats to us in Mandarin - adding subtitles for him, he was clearing saying "Tickets? Why would you get tickets from the ticket office?!" Admittedly, we asked him this very question but he didn't understand. Then hurray, an English speaker explained the various tickets - no, we wouldn't be requiring one for the room for 3 to 10 year olds - and took us to the machines to purchase them. What exactly the ticket office does we don't know!
Inside the musem was Bedlam. Hundreds and hundreds of screaming children on school trips banging the displays, pulling any lever that is or is not meant to be pulled and spinning the wheels frantically! The museum was educative (if you spoke Mandarin) but more importantly hands on and fun! KC got strapped into a spinning contraption that tips you upside down and we watched a short film in the motion theatre.
That evening, we visited the famous Lao She Teahouse for, yes you guessed it, tea and snacks and
to see some traditional Chinese "entertainment". Beijing opera, long beak tea demonstrations, comedy duo (their humour didn't translate unfortunately), changing faces (KC's future act for BGT) and kung fu (JK's favourite!).
We also visited the Summer Palace, just on the outskirts of the City Centre and spent the day wandering round the 600 hectares. Well the land part anyway! Then it was time for our comedy mission - make as many people laugh as possible without actually saying anything. JK single-handedly caused uproar with her new headpiece reducing every passer-by into hysterics. They are certainly an easy audience to please here!
And so for our last full day we decided to walk to the Temple of Heaven despite our achy legs and were once again baffled by its sheer size. We were also deafened by the "cute" people singing. Being at the echo wall, the origins of Chinese Whispers we reckon, we gave it a try but unfortunately it didn't seem to work!
In the afternoon, we headed out for a spot of last minute shopping and chose the 15 minutes where the heavens opened to go out! Everyone else cowered inside shops but not us! Once
again, we became the local entertainment - hey we're British, we don't let a spot of rain stop us from shopping! For our final proper dinner we returned to the old classic of Peking duck pancakes - yum! And then a ratherstrong/disgusting cocktail!
And so here we are, waiting to catch our flight home after having spent the morning packing (5 months means a lot of "stuff") and visiting the Lama Temple - the biggest Tibetan temple outside of Tibet itself but sadly with no actual lamas...
We have had an absolutely incredible 5 months which have quite literally flown by and would like to thank you all for following our blog - hope you enjoyed it and see you soon very soon!
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