China China

DAY 1: So our story starts here in the oldest city in Asia - Beijing. We caught the Air France flight to Paris and then on to Beijing. The flights were uneventful but due to excitement getting the best of us neither of us slept very well. We arrived at Beijing airport just before 12 noon local time to the most efficient and organised visa & customs system we have ever encountered, even with the quarantine checks for Swine Flu. So we ventured onto the Beijing subway system, with our rather heavy backpacks and easily found our way to our hostel.

DAY 2: We awoke with a shiver late on Sunday morning to find a blanket of snow covering the ground outside and a very brisk minus 4c showing on the temperature gauge. This came as a shock to both us and the locals; apparently snow is unusual this time of year. After much debate we decided to venture out in the snow even though we had very little in the way of suitable clothing for these weather conditions, with a number of layers on we made our way down to Wangfujing Shopping Centre in search of ‘the best Peking duck in Beijing’ to our disappointment after a 30 min walk we found it was closed between 1.30 - 4.30pm, now cold and a quite hungry we decided to search for an alternative and came across the Wangfujing Snack Street which is a great collection of street vendors and stalls selling everything from fried noodles and barbequed pork belly to scorpions and seahorse on a stick. When we finally ventured back to the hostel we had a cosy evening in with some fellow travelers from Germany, Australia and America, talking, drinking and sharing stories until the late evening.

DAY 3: We had an early start this morning with breakfast at 7am and onto a bus at 7.40am to visit the Great Wall of China. We were wearing jumpers with sweatshirts on top covered by windbreaker jackets. It was minus 3c when we ventured out to our bus which unfortunately didn’t have any heating, after a 2 hour drive north of Beijing we had lost almost all feeling in our feet and hands. We arrived at the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall at 11.00am to clear blue skies and caught the chair lift up. This section of the wall was first built during the Northern Qi Dynasty (550 - 557). It was then rebuilt during the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644) by Tan Lun and Qi Jiguang, two famous generals, in order to strengthen its defensive potential when they guarded the strategic pass. The entire wall was covered in snow and ice from the previous day - it was rather treacherous but also very beautiful. After 2 hours of climbing around the wall we decided to take the toboggan down but to our disappointment it was closed due the ice. We then had a fantastic lunch at a restaurant our tour guide took us to. We had a quiet journey back to our hostel and our toasty heater.

DAY 4: We visited the Forbidden City today in the centre of Beijing and only a 15 min walk from our hostel. We knew we had arrived when we came across an impressive moat surrounding the Imperial Palace. We started at the North Gate which housed the ‘inner court’ including the gardens where the Chinese emperor resided. We walked our way South through the city with the scale of the buildings and courtyards ever increasing. The city covers 72 hectares and is enormous with some of the oldest wooden buildings in China. We came out of the Forbidden City to stand on the edge of Tiananmen Square which is absolutely massive - there was a giant portrait of Chairman Mao behind us facing out over the square. We then walked back to the main shopping street to have some lunch and thought we would brave a rick-a-shaw to take us back to the hostel. It was a fully enclosed tuk-tuk over a motorbike with two seats at the back. We searched for a driver who could speak English without much luck so in the end we managed to agree, with hand signals, on 30 Yuan to get a tour of the city. Instead, to our disappointment, we saw many back streets and arrived promptly back at the hostel. That would have been fine, but the driver tried to charge us 30 Yuan each, without much success! Later we decided to find a restaurant that had been recommended to us by new found friends in the hostel. It is a 5 min walk from where we are staying and aptly called ‘Noodles’ on Dongsi North St just a couple of minutes north of Dongsi Station. It was good food costing only 38 Yuan for both of us with drinks - that’s about £3.80. We are tempted to go back another night.

DAY 5: Today the jet lag caught up with us and we managed to sleep through the road works outside our window until noon. We decided to go to the Temple of Heaven today and made our way to the subway and when we arrived we realised that neither of us had a map. We knew it was south so we decided to get a ticket and take a chance as we had very little luck asking for directions. We took the subway from Dongsi to Ciqikou. When we arrived we couldn’t see the Temple of Heaven anywhere, bearing in mind we were looking for a park 273 square metres in size, we knew we weren’t close. However luckily Teresa picked the right direction to walk in and we found it by the exit to Tiantandongmen station. The Temple of Heaven is very similar to the Forbidden City in size, symmetry and magnitude. The park was magnificent, just inside the East gate there were many locals gathered along a corridor. All were engaged in some kind of activity; playing cards, selling goods, knitting, karaoke, playing instruments it looked very much like a regular social event. All in all it was a good day and worth the through ticket for 30 Yuan which gave access to all areas of the park. We had not eaten much at that point so decided to treat ourselves to Peking duck at one the best restaurants in Beijing, Quanjude Roast Duck just off Wangfujing. It lived up to its reputation; they carved the duck at our table and it melted in our mouths! After dinner we decided we wanted something sweet to eat having seen many stalls selling toffee fruit we decided to try some. We had baby apples and mandarins in toffee which were very, very tasty - highly recommended!

DAY 6: Today we decided to get up early to get our train tickets to Hong Kong which can only be brought 7-10 days in advance. We were originally going to book the tickets through our hostel but decided against this as there was a fee of 60 Yuan for the service. So we hopped on the subway and found Beijing West Station easily. We brought two tickets from Beijing to Jiulong (also know as Hung Hom or Kowloon) for Saturday 7th November for 741 Yuan each which gave us a total saving of 224 Yuan on booking through the hostel. We then made it back to the hostel and decided to have a relaxing afternoon reading and catching up on some sleep. We went out for dinner to another restaurant recommended to us by fellow backpackers; it was a Korean Barbeque on Dongsi North Street, 5 minutes north of the station. Our table which had an extraction vent above it and a grill built in. We ordered chicken and pork which arrived raw and we cooked it ourselves on the grill at our table - it was a fun dining experience. Our only concern was the cold salad that said it had dog meat in it - really hoping it was a typo - needless to say we went for the vegetable salad with our meal. We got back to the hostel and decided to have a nightcap in the hostel bar. We met up with Robert and Deborah, a lovely couple from Spain who were flying home the next day, we chatted late into the night sharing stories.


DAY 7: We woke up a little worse for wear this morning following our late night chat in the Happy Dragon Bar. We had intended to visit the Summer Palace but just couldn’t face the trip to the north west of Beijing. So we opted for the much closer Beihai Park. It was a beautiful walk. We entered in the West Gate and walked around the whole of Beihai Lake exiting at the South Gate. The lake itself was shrouded in mist which made for an eerie and serene setting. We came back to the hostel as Teresa was feeling a little under the weather - unfortunately this developed further throughout the evening into our first case of traveller’s sickness. We leave for Hong Kong tomorrow so fingers crossed she will recover quickly.


DAY 8: Teresa is still a little worse for wear but ok as we made our way to the Beijing to Hong Kong train. The train journey was excellent. All the facilites onboard were very modern and we had a four person cabin to ourselves. It was very strange travelling through the industrial heart of China - as we looked out of the window throughout the afternoon we could see a permenant haze clouding the horizon. The landscape was covered with factories and looked generally quite desolate. We watched a few films in the evening, played cards (I'm refusing to play with Teresa anymore as I was beaten in every game) and then we bedded down for the night.

DAY 9: We woke up this morning in a completely different place the view from our window was now all green and lush. The factories had been replaced by farms and the desolate landscape by rolling hills covered in vegitation. The temperture had also become much warmer. We became excited as we approached Hong Kong - the next stage in our journey. We don't have much internet access in Hong Kong but we will write again as soon as we can.

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Part of trip: TCV Asia Tour

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