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Published: August 22nd 2011
Upgraded!
Who's a happy person!Thurs 18th - Beijing
If you ever have the chance to upgrade to Business or Club Class instead of economy on a flight – Do It!!! We quite innocently asked if we could change our seats as they were over the wing, and she very kindly just said she would upgrade us! Not sure why but hey ho!!
You have a personal space about the size of a single bed, with a seat that slides flat and a foot stool so that you can sleep on a flat surface! Chris was sat facing me in his personal space and there was a plastic partition that could come up in the middle. Greeted with a glass of champagne, free daily paper and then given a menu to choose our 3 course meal. Well, it was delicious! Parma ham and melon with a side salad and a warm bread roll followed by a tender piece of beef with a creamy pepper sauce served with beans and mini roast potatoes and finished off with a chocolate gateau. All through the meal the wine was topped up freely and hot towels were dished out at the end of the meal. Excellent service and I managed
to get a good 4 hours sleep as well before Chris woke me up as he didn’t want me to miss the also excellent 2 course breakfast!!
Beijing! The airport is enormous! We landed on a runway about a mile from the terminal and then had to get a train somewhere else to collect our luggage! Through security and into a taxi to the hotel which is a 4* hotel quite near Tianamen Square. The weather is very warm, sunny but hazy so we decided to just get out bearings and walked to the Square and have a look round the outside of the Forbidden City. We also went to Zhong Shan Park and wandered around under the trees looking at all the old pavilions and rocks, listening to a musician playing some weird instrument and having our photo taken with a lot of Chinese people! One group of women in particular seemed to want lots of photos taken and then they disappeared and put some costumes on and came back and wanted more photos! Very bizarre!
Anyway, a fairly easy day which would have been rounded off perfectly when we found this excellent Chinese cafe serving what looked like
excellent food! Only problem was that the tourists are given a different menu – twice the price and not even half as good! Oh well – live and learn!
On Saturday we decided to go and visit one of Beijings Highlights and caught a taxi to the Summer Palace (620CNY). It was about £3.00 each to go in to the 390 hectares and the Palace consists of a huge lake, walks and various Chinese buildings including the magnificent Tower of Buddhist Incense, the Longest Painted Gallery in the World and the weeping willow and mulberry tree causeway that forms a chain, linked with various marble bridges across the centre of the lake. There are a lot of information boards advising that many of the treasures and buildings were destroyed in the 1760’s by the Anglo / French but have subsequently renovated and repaired! But still, very pleasant day just wandering around the lake and taking in the sights.
Caught another taxi back to Tianamen Square where we watched, along with the rest of the crowd, the daily evening ceremony of the soldiers lowering the Chinese Flag. Back to the hotel for a meal and bed.
The next morning we decided
to visit the old area of Beijing – The Hutongs! The hotel staff kindly wrote down (in Chinese) where we wanted and a taxi duly dropped us off! Wandered around the tiny back streets peering into narrow alleyways where (if the electricity meters are anything to go by!) about 20 familys lived in very small rooms. Had a cold drink on a roof terrace overlooking the alleyways watching the world go by! We then walked to the old Drum Tower where we were lucky enough to catch, after walking up a very, very steep, long, staircase, a demonstration of drum beating. We are not sure what the old Drum Tower was for – must be either warnings for the old town, or maybe time telling??? Anyway, opposite the Drum Tower is the Old Bell Tower! Another long, very steep flight of stairs to arrive at a platform with a huge bell! This was used, in the old days, to tell the time to the people of the old town. A very different time telling system to ours as the day was divided into seven Gengs!
Took another taxi (£1.00!!) to the Lama Temple, which is an old Buddhist temple where
there was a lot of Chinese people burning incense and praying as you walk from one temple to another. Each temple increases in size as you walk through to the next courtyard, the final temple housing a 9 metre Buddhah carves out of one piece of sandalwood! Quite impressive!
We decided to try and negotiate the metro back to the hotel and it was actually quite simple! Arrived back in time to have a shower before meeting the rest of our tour group and after a short briefing we all went for a Chinese meal together! Very nice! Back to the hotel for early night as coach leaving at 7.30am tomorrow to go and see the Great Wall!
Everyone in our group arrived promptly, on time, at 7.30am which was quite impressive as some of them had only flown in yesterday! It was a two hour drive to the Mutianyu section of the Wall and it took us about 1hr for our mini-bus driver to negotiate the traffic and leave the city. Quite a hair-raising journey as all drivers weave in and out of four laned traffic, jumping into wherever there is a space or where the queue is
the shortest! Bit like driving on a computer game only with live traffic!
We drove up into the mountains and arrived at the bottom of the Great Wall. Now I had always assumed that you went to the Wall, saw it, walked a little way and that was it! Wrong! It was either a good half hour hike up to the Wall or (my favourite!) a Cable Car! We opted for the Cable Car, which wasn’t actually too bad at all as the cars didn’t swing too much and arrived at the top, by watchtower 14, in about 10mins!
We had a choice of turning right or left at the top, and it’s only as you start walking along it you realise just how huge this Wall is! Four thousand miles long and it follows the contours of the mountains so there are a lot of steps and slopes, interspersed with the huge Watchtowers. We had turned left at the top and decided to walk as far as we could on this section, which was to the 20th Watchtower, which was reached by a climb of 460 steps! Back down again and then back to Watchtower 14 and downwards and
onwards to Watchtower 6. The whole trek took us in excess of 2 hours but it was an amazing feeling to actually be walking this Great Wall. A definite highlight of the trip! Anyway, Chris opted for the toboggan slide down to the bottom again whilst I opted for the more sedate wander down through the woods!
Back to the Hotel for a rest then taxi to Lake Houhai in the Hutong. Had a pleasant enough stroll around the lake, looking at all the colourful trendy restaurants and had something to eat before returning to the Hotel. Lie in tomorrow as we are not meeting until 8.00am!!
Tuesday – We walked as a group to Tianamen Square and duly walked around Chairman Mao’s mausoleum (didn’t go inside as queue was too long!) and then across to the Forbidden City. Its built very similar to everything else we have also seen – a series of buildings, one after the other increasing in importance and size with a courtyard in front of each building! The whole walled city is enormous – our guide put it into perspective by saying there were nearly 10,000 rooms and it would take 27 years if the
Emperor slept in a different room each night. After the morning tour finished we walked across to Jingshon Park and walked to the temple at the top for a view over the Forbidden City. There was also a huge butterfly netted enclosure with some unusual butterflies and caterpillars.
After a snack lunch of beef noodles and egg fried rice we explored the Winter Palace in Beihei Park, walking up again to the massive 16thC marble tower to get good views of the lake. Unfortunately because of the haze/ smog visibility was reduced!
Anyway, back to the hotel and then out to our dinner of the famous Peking Duck with the group. We had to take the bus and after our delicious meal walked along the night market, with vendors selling street food such as fried snake, centipedes, seahorses and turtles! Mmmmm!!! Also one stall had live scorpions on a stick still wriggling about and waited to be cooked!
The next day, our last in Beijing we decided to visit the Temple of Heaven a short walk from the hotel. It was a very different temple as it was circular and a Chinese architectural masterpiece in the Ming Dynasty. We saw
the various parts of the temple such as The Mound, The Long Corridor, etc before catching the Subway to the shopping mall to try and find Subway to get something for our dinner tonight on the train! Unfortunately after wandering around various malls, (one with an ice-rink in the centre!) we gave up and caught a rickshaw back to the hotel and bought some snacks in the local supermarket!
Arrived, after a short journey on the public bus, at Beijing train Station and duly waited for an hour for the night train. There were six people sleeping the one compartment and we were paired with the couple from Norway and a couple of Chinese people who were very friendly and offered us food and smiled a lot! We had the bottom bunk and the top bunk (the Chinese couple having the middles bunks!) and Chris, very kindly, offered to go to the top bunk which must have been about 8 ft off the ground and was reached by climbing a series of crampons!! Lights out at 10.00pm and we all settled down to ‘sleep’!
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tracie
non-member comment
WOW!!
Want an upgrade!! Not too sure about the cable car to the great wall or the interesting food at the markets but the gardens and temples sound great :)