Advertisement
Published: April 7th 2008
Edit Blog Post
The Great Wall and Us
It was quiet an ordeal to get there, but it was well worth it. Hi Everyone,
Greetings for Beijing. We arrived in Beijing on the 3rd of April, the day before a public holiday and everyone was out on the road. The bus in from the airport took us hour and a half!!! We wandered around Beijing for about half an hour looking for the hotel, Grand Hyatt Beijing. Stephen finally let me get a taxi to the airport and we were just around the corner!!! Very Frustrasting.
The next day we decided to have a lazy day and just go Tiananmen Square, the world largest public square. It was quite a warm day, I even got a little burnt. And just explored the city around the hotel.
Saturday the 5th April was far more productive. Stephen and I decided to take public transport to Mutianyu, to see the Great Wall of China. It was an early start, and took some time trying to find the correct bus, going the right way. We were told to get off the bus at this stop in the middle of nowhere. It was only due to the kindness of an Indonesian couple that were heading the same way, that we found we had to take
Temple of Heaven
Far more impressive than the Forbidden CIty. a mini bus up the hill to Matianyu. In China you have to pay extra for everything, you are consently handing over RMB and heading to the ATM.
The Great Wall was fantastic, we have taken some great photos except I can't seem to load them onto the blog. The cow was very impress and insisted on having it's photo taken lots of time. The adventure began again when we had to head back to the bus stop down the hill. It took us 30mins to find a minibus that would charge us 20 Yuan for both instead of 40 each. Bearing in mind we made it up the hill for 15 Yuan for both of us!! Once down the hill, getting onto the bus to return to Beijing was the easy bit.
That night we went to QuanJade Roast Duck Restaurant, which is quite a well know duck restaurant, basically everything on the menu was duck. People piled in, they didn't take reservations so you just had to wait. Outside people would take their photo along side a yellow rubber ducky. We decided to try the Peking Duck, it was yummy. They brought out the ducks on a baking dish at the front of the restaurant and carved them up in front of you. The resturant was so busy, it was pretty much a steady stream of ducks the whole time we were there.
Sunday the 6th April, today we decided to try the Forbidden City again, but much earlier to avoid the lines. We got there and were kinda disappointment. Firstly the audio guide was not the voice of Roger Moore, which we'd heard it was going to be and it was just so big. I guess it didn't help that the main temple thing was being renovated, for the games.
We also left the Hyatt today and joined our Vodkatrain group. It consists of four Aussies, four Kiwis and two poms.
Monday 7th April, today we went to the Temple of Heaven, which is a massive park. It was a great place as there we're lots of locals playing cards, singing, dancing and playing this thing like hacky, but with a feather thing instead.
We also went to the Lama Temple, which is the largest Tibetian Monastry outside Tibet. They have a Buddha there in the Guiness Book of Records, it's 18 metres tall and carved out of one piece of sandelwood.
Tomorrow we board the train bright and early for Mongolia. Hope all is well and we'll touch base once we're in Moscow.
Much love,
Shelle and Stephen.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.109s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 8; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0516s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb