Advertisement
Published: February 16th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Tianamen square
A bit on the windy side Beijing - December 07
We loved our time in Beijing. As I write this we are in Cambodia and have been to 6 countries so far. Beijing is definitely one of our favourite places. It was a massive plus that I had a friend there so after many dodgy hostels we stayed (probably overstayed !) at my friends apartment in central Beijing. Having friends who knew the city well was great, not having to look at the lonely planet for help on every subject was a nice change. We were taken to fantastic bars and restaurants that you would never find if you didn't know the city. We sampled many different types of chinese cuisine, our favourite being the chinese version of hotpot which we went on to sample many more times in China. Thankyou to Ian and Anne-Charlotte for everything!!
Probably the highlight of our time there as well as the great wall was the marathon 5 hour karaoke session! Clearly we had a few drinks beforehand to improve performance. We hired a booth by the hour complete with everything needed and a waitress to help maintain our alcohol levels ! It was quality. The chinese take this
Cabbie and Mao
or ... entrance to Forbidden City all very seriously, we however preferred to bounce around on the sofa's belting out power ballads !
On a lot of days we woke up with hangovers but eventually managed to drag ourselves around the main sights. Annoyingly a lot of them were being 'touched up' when we were there, ready for the Olympics. Tianamen square is absolutely huge, on the day we were there though it was freezing with the wind nearly blowing you over so it was a brief visit. We used the underground to get there and I don't think I will complain about London's tubes again! It was absolutely jam-packed, not just in rush hour but all the time. We even saw the staff helping to push the crowds of people into the carriages. The Chinese don't seem to have a sense of personal space !
We made our way into the forbidden city with it's massive Mao portrait hanging on the front, bizarrely the man is still a legend all over the country and they sell everything with his face on it. We wandered around inside for a couple of hours, it is enormous and really impressive. At the back there is a
nice park with a viewing point looking all over the city, we went up to get some photo's. This tired us out so we needed some dinner and a sit down (that is lunch to you shandy drinking southeners). Whilst wandering to a main street looking for some restaurants, we came across a little park. there were old ladies playing table tennis (they were really good to). We also saw exercise machines of various styles, all being used by old fellas to 'work out'. It was superb to watch and makes a nice change to the chav teenage park culture at home. Not just in Beijing but across all of China we saw this type of gathering in parks for people ( normally over 50) to play cards/ dominos or put music on and dance. Strange to us but nice to see.
One evening we had to make our way accross a square full of people dancing. When in Rome we thought and we waltzed (kind of) from one side to the other with me standing on Gill's feet all the way. Strictly come dancing it was not.
One day when we were feeling a bit 'templed out'
we hired bikes and went around the older sections of Beijing known as the Hutongs. This was great for a couple of hours especially as there are lots of little bars tucked away so we frequently stopped for beer breaks. It was freezing and the lakes were frozen in places, yet this didn't stop fellas swimming in there ! Apparantley some of them swim in there every day, it would have taken a lot of money to get me in there!
With only a few days left we woke up to a cloudy miserable day. We wanted to see the summer palace and the great wall, both day trips. With the weather being dodgy we made our way to the summer palace. It was a beautiful place but the weather was awful so you couldn't see across the lake so we got some pictures and 'ticked it off'. We were worried about the weather for the great wall but we got lucky and the next day it was beautiful clear skies and the wall looked amazing.
Beijing had been brilliant. Hong Kong and Shanghai were great but felt a bit too western were as Beijing felt like a
more traditional Chinese city. We are a bit gutted to not be going back for the olympics !
Advertisement
Tot: 0.117s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 60; dbt: 0.0764s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb