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Published: June 29th 2012
So, here we are at last. After a 12:30 hours flight from Johannesburg to Hong Kong, and another 2:30 hours flight to Beijing. Very tired, but extremely satisfied, we arrived in Beijing, took our time through customs, and eventually got a taxi to the Super 8 Hotel. Nothing fancy, but decent enough. With a very firm bed - and the empasize is on "very" we got a chance to catch up on some lost sleep. Woke up a couple of hours later, and decided to try out some local cuisine.
Now, as we expected there is some language barriers, but at least there is some photos attached on the menus so you can at least get an idea of what to expect. The problem is that carrots and chillies look very much the same on a photo in a dimly lit restaurant. Guess who ended up with a mouth on fire.
At the hotel we also had some moments of being lost in translation. It seems that the staff are not very keen in assisting in our enquiries, because of the language barrier, but luckily I brought myself a translator in the form of an iPad. This has been
very useful so far, except for the restaurant, maybe we need to get the translator to join us for dinner next time. There is some people that can speak english, you just have to look for them, or hope they cross your path when you need them.
Today we slept in a bit and eventally got on our walking shoes. We walked to the famous Tiananmen Square through a very nice shopping area, and mixed with the 9 million chinese tourists there. We haven't seen their bicycles yet, but I'm sure maybe tomorrow. After that we walked over to the just as famous Forbidden City. Very impressive and enormous. Not many western toursts around, mostly asian. After our walk through this site, we met a guide who persuaded us to go with him on his rickshaw through the Hutong areas in Beijing. Since our feet needed some rest we decided to take him up on his offer. This ride was very scenic and of course we ended up stopping at a tea house, sampling some very nice chinese teas. The best one was the Wu Long tea. We ended up buying some black tea, with a hint of litchi.
After the rickshaw ride we walked in a big park and ended up on a high hill overlooking the Forbidden City. It is very misty today, or maybe it is mist and pollution mixed. We will decide on this tomorrow when the rain passes.
We walked back to our hotel (about 5-6 km) and are now resting for our big trip to the Great Wall tomorrow.
At least we can say that we can walk the walk, but we cant talk the talk yet.
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Zahn
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hallo chinas!
sal jou nou leer dat wortels eet nog nooit goed vir enige mens was nie :) kan nie wag om die fotos van die great wall te sien nie!!