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Published: June 17th 2011
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The official name of China is : The Peoples Republic of China ( PRC ) Hey Year 5 - I’ve been a busy boy and jet setting around the world lately. While living in Australia /OZ I decided to head back to the UK for a few months. On my way to the UK, my plane stopped off in Beijing ( the capital of China ) so I decided to visit for 10 days. It was also a good excuse to leave the cold rainy winter of Oz and get a bit of warmth in China-where it was springtime and not yet too hot.
Anyways – the flight from Sydney was ok – except for the man sitting behind me who had really bad smelly feet and kept burping really loud!! The flight was about 9 hrs to Beijing – so I watched a few movies and ate some really bad airline food! I couldn’t wait for some good chinese noodles though.
I arrived into Beijing at around 6am and got the airport express train to the city centre and to a place called Dong-Zhi-Men (Dong–Zee-Men). From there I had to get onto the subway (like the Underground in London) for a few stops to my hostel. Luckily the subway stops were not only
Confucious Temple
Me with a statue of Confucious named in Chinese but also English – or else I would of ended up very lost.
I ended up staying in traveller’s lodges / hostels which housed many travellers from all around the world – especially Germans and Europeans. The traffic in China was crazy as well – a normal road would have 4 lanes of traffic but approximately 8 cars and at least 3-4 motorcycles etc.CRAZY. Bicycles and Motorbikes etc are very popular there and you definitely need an extra 2-3 sets of eyes in order to not get run over or seriously injured. Even normal pedestrian crossings with the green man walking sign don’t mean you can safely walk across a road. I think at times Jeff nearly became as flat as me!!!
Wow – what a culture shock China was!! What a very different way of life the locals experience there. Things that we would class as rude is accepted and normal there!! Things like spitting on the street and clearing their throats and burping very loud (rude but funny - Hee Hee !) are very common to see and hear – it takes a bit of getting used to . In the end I
Guardian Lion
Is a Male or Female Lion? ended up ignoring these offences and not even noticing the major differences – until a local accidentally spat on Jeff's feet – NICE - NOT!!!!! I and Jeff weren’t very impressed to say the least!!!! ( But I did secretly have a chuckle when Jeff wasn't looking!)
My first day saw me visit a place called The Lama Temple and another place called Confucius Temple. The Lama Temple (Yong –Hee –Gong) is the largest and most perfectly preserved Buddhist Temple (similiar to a church) in all of China – so a good place to see the Buddhist culture that is practised by over 50% to 80% of the Chinese population ( which stands at over 1.3 Billion). Seeing as the world’s population is around 6.7 Billion – that means that approximately 20% or 1 in 5 people on the planet live in China!!! That’s a lot of rice and noodles.
A Buddha is what Buddhists prayer too (sort of their version of a god) and a buddhist’s main belief is that you should be a good person and those who do good things will have good things done back to them. All living things in the world are
Amazing Acrobatics Show
Count how many people are on the bike!! seen as important (even the smallest of ants) and everyone , whatever their religion or whatever they believe are accepted. (Even people that are Christians , Catholics , Muslims etc)
The Confucius Temple is just over the road from the Lama Temple and is the 2nd largest temple dedicated to Confucius – ancient China’s greatest thinker and teacher. In the temple there are many red prayer boards placed by followers and believers. People write down their prayers and wishes and pray for them to come true.
Even though I was pretty exhausted – especially after my flight and my first days sightseeing – Jeff took me to a Chinese Acrobatics Show which was amazing. The acrobats must train very hard for years and practise every day in order to do their tricks every night. One girl used 4 pieces of spinning cloth (one on each of her hands and feet) and span them all at the same time. While another guy juggled around 9 balls in the air! Some of acrobats put their bodies into such flexible positions that I was scared that they were going to either injure themselves or break themselves in half !!! I know
Acrobatics Show
You wouldnt want an itchy nose !!! that I am folded in half at times – but these guys really do flatten themselves in half as easily as me!
On my second day – Jeff took me to a place called The Summer Palace. It was the royal palace built by the Emperor Qianlong and where his family and him would spend their holidays and relaxation time. Today, it is one of Beijing’s best preserved and biggest royal gardens. At the entrance to what is called ‘The Tower of Buddhist Incense’ a fierce bronze lion guards one of the main gates to the palace. They are believed to have powerful mystical powers and are usually placed in front of imperial tombs ( royal graves) and important buildings. The lions are usually placed in pairs – with the male lion holding a figure of the world and the female holding a cub lion. Try and guess which one I had a photo with?
The Summer Palace is dominated by a huge lake called Kunming Lake and was totally man made. The soil from the lake area was then used to build up another main area of the palace called Wanshou Hill. On the lake it is
Acrobatics Show
A big bowl of noodles is probably not a good idea before doing this! possible to take pleasure boats called dragon boats – to areas further along the lake shore. One such area is known as Nanhu Island where from you can walk along the huge ’17 Arch Bridge’. I accidentally lost my footing while I was posing for a photo and went for a swim in Kunming Lake. Luckily it wasn’t too cold but I had to walk around with wet clothes and dry off in the warm china sun. Lucky it wasn’t winter as it snows and rains a lot here.
Well seeing as I'd spent way longer than expected at the Summer Palace, the day had escaped me. It was already 6pm and I had booked in to do a traditional chinese cooking class. It allowed me to make food from different ethnic backgrounds of China and not just the normal sweet and sour pork or fried rice that is so common in restaurants back home. It was a fun night which included eating our creations for our dinner.
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