Beijing-People people everywhere!!

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So then , we are nearly at our last day in Beijing and to be honest, its about time.

Day 3 here we made our own way by train to the Great Wall at Badaling.Thinking it would be easy by metro then from Beijing North to Badaling seemed simple, until we reached Beijing North. Not one sign in english,no clues, no hints, we are basically dumb and illeterate, we tried 3 queues to get tickets before a nice young chinese student told us it was the last booth!Thankfully the guy selling the tickets knew where all the foreigners go from here so didnt bat an eyelid dishing out the tickets.

Afterwards, it was relatively easy as Badaling is the last stop on the line, train nice and big ,spacious and very very clean.We exited at Badaling and walked the 1km or so up to the entrance for The Great Wall, wow, again China amazes, so many times on tv but seeing it with the mountain backdrop is possibly a life lasting memory.

As we bought our tickets and made our way onto the wall we had 2 choices , West direction or East direction?

Just at that moment approximately 77000 schoolchildren from 5 years old to 9 or so arrived and all took the East route, hence to say , we went West, after 30 calf buckling minutes we realised the kids had taken the East as it is not so steep!!

Great views up there though and will hopefully never forget the day.

Day 4 we headed on the metro down to the Temple of Heaven Park in south Beijing, nice views, lovely walks, exceptionally clean yet again and lots of toiurists!

We headed back to the metro but we"re diverted as over the road we saw a large sign for Hongqiao market, the place you can buy possibly everything and more.

I asked Jina to promise not to buy anything until we came back to Beijing to leave but of course........she has had her eye on a i-pad, tablet notebook thingy for a while ( similair to yours mum)!

First place she asks they want 1500 yuan just for the pad and no accessories, (about 200 euros),

within 5 minutes Jina has aqcuired the pad, case, keyboard , headphones etc etc for 500 yuan plus 2 Samsung Galaxy 3 phones with all accessories for less than another 500 yuan, cant fault her really!!

We then headed to "Ghost Street" near Andingmen for something nice to eat while passing the evening away, lovely place with all the red lanterns hanging above the sidewalks to create a special chinese atmosphere, hundreds of restaurants and fruit stalls but we settled on a great seafood place where we passed a couple of hours.

Today we had a nice lay in , then we exited to go to get some breakfast, oh my god, the place is mental, now originally we were supposed to leave Beijing today and now i know why.

Its the start of the big holiday here, if there isnt enough people in Beijing as it is, what seems like a few million more have descended on Tian anmen near our hotel, to boot we now realise we are staying in a chinese tourist hotspot! The metros closed, the roads are blocked, theres dodgy looking police chiefs in black SUVs everywhere, you cant walk 5 yards in 10 minutes near our hotel so probably wont be going far today, but to escape ,maybe tomorrow The Summer Palace, if we can get there.................................

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Comments

[Su]

jealous
sounds great so far! Glad you are having fun. Saw Monique and the kids on sat. All doing well.

[Auntie Jen]

Remember it well !
You are going to get Chinese tourists all week as although holiday supposedly 1st Oct goes on all week - we hit it on 5th and guides told us it was quiet compared to 1st !Seems Tianemin Square the place all Chinese want to go.Bet you didn't queue to see Mao .Still you get the flowers which aren't there any other time apparently. Even out of holiday time wherever you go it is busy. Jina a girl for a bargain . There may be little English spoken but the locals understand bargaining in any language. Hope you got to the Summer palace although it would be busy it is a bigger area. Forgot to say don't sit on the grass in Beijing - not allowed to as so many people they would destroy the grass !! Had to sit on the kerb instead. Lovely reading your blogs as bringing back great memories. Enjoy Shanghai. x

[MarkJina]

Mao
Mao, no thanks, queued for an hour in Hanoi to see Ho Chi Minh,,dead bodies not that exciting........