Blogs from Beijing, China, Asia - page 8

In China it is well documented that Facebook and Google are forbidden. This has nothing to do with West versus East. China doesn’t want a similar occurrence to another ‘Arab Spring’to spread across their country. Arab Spring was a series of both violent and non-violent demonstrations, protests and riots. This was spread through North Africa by the use of Google and Facebook. China now require internet providers to submit to Government censorship. As these companies won’t comply with these sort of censorship regulations, China has outlawed both sites and blocked any sort of interaction with them. This doesn’t help the blog as the maps function is powered by Google Apps. I spent an hour cursing before I realised the maps not loading had nothing to do with a poor wi-fi connection!! Our accommodation, the ... read more

. Today we began the adventure of train travel 800 miles across China to hanoi In 3 days on train will arrive Hanoi Saturday morning at 6 am, probably not get much sleep. so it's buy to China and hello Vietnam. china is one of the cleanest country I have ever been too not a speck of litter. each block has a street sweeper who keeps Thier area spotless. The people's clothes are spotless clean . Some of the ladies look like fashion models. All in the latest fashion .The teenagers dress like American teenagers. There are huge modern malls. There are police and security every where never felt so safe like this. Hardly any crime . the people look straight ahead and very few look at us. a few wanted a pic with us. This ... read more

We arrived in Bejing after a 14 hoir flight from Dallas thought we would never ger there. when we arrived here visiblitu was a few hundred feet due to smog. But tofay turned out to be 83 with breeze and blue skys a perfect day . We were picked up at our hotel by Carolyn our tour guide she took us to the forbidden Citu built 600 years ago for emperor and his 25 wives ( how would you guys like his honey do list!! ). its been a muedeum since 1925. carolyn also took us to temple of heaven not a religious plave but where the emperor prayed for good crops. We saw Mao resting hall and tineman square. Some chinese from the North visiying Bejing have never seen a foriegner before wanted us to ... read more

Retour de Hong-Kong à Pékin avant de quitter l'Asie demain. Gros trous d'airs lors de la descente vers Pekin, heureusement que le plateau repas était avalé. On se sent presque de retour à la maison après le tumulte de HK ? Les passants nous dévisagent à nouveau et les parents demandent à leurs enfants de nous dire "hello" en souriant, bref on retrouve nos habitudes des premières semaines avec plaisir. J'oubliais ceux qui nous prennent en photos ou vidéos "pirate", que Marlène détecte sans relâche. La dernière auberge est située dans un quartier typique de Hutong et bien agréable, hormis le wifi capricieux qui a nécessité une heure pour enregistrer le vol de demain. Nous n'avons pas résisté au plaisir d'un dernier canard laqué, les filles ont avalé la dernière bouchée en se demandant avec angoisse ... read more

Aujourd'hui, visite de la cité interdite, le fameux palais imperial des grandes dynasties chinoises! Mais la visite se mérite : une heure de trajet puis différentes files d'attente avant de pénétrer dans l'enceinte... Cité, oui : elle est immense et entourée de grands murs d'enceinte. Interdite, pas vraiment : des milliers de touristes se pressent aux portes des salles ou se reposent dans les petites cours intérieures. Malgré la foule, cela reste impressionnant : l'architecture, les peintures, la végétation rendent le lieu très beau. Il y a aussi des expositions de céramiques et d'horloges plus originales les unes que les autres! On peut ensuite admirer la cité du ciel en montant au temple en haut de la colline qui la surplombe. Il est aussi possible de se déguiser en empereur et impératrice puis de poser pour ... read more