Blogs from Forbidden City, Beijing, China, Asia - page 8

This was the last leg of my epic train journey and I will have to say the best, for several reasons, the scenery seemed to get even more vast and forever changing the carriages seemed to be getting bigger and more airy (thankfully) and of course how could I forget travelling across the second biggest desert in the world, the Gobi Desert and last but not least the other passengers. It seemed that this was the tourist train, there were no locals on this one t all and we were bumping into people we had met at previous stops. Another particular bonus was the beer was cheaper on this train and the restaurant carriage was like a film set from Out of Mongolia (just made that film up). Another fact, the distance we covered on this ... read more

We flew into Beijing on Saturday morning! This post is gonna be real short, cause I'm so tired! Saturday: Arrived at hotel around lunchtime, then had lunch on the 20th floor of the hotel at a dumb, way over-priced Italian restaurant. Most of our group was tired of Chinese food. Silly. Expensive Italian food in Beijing? Don't do it. However, we did have an excellent view of Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City! After lunch, we walked to The Forbidden City and walked around it for a while. My freshman RA, Dale, from Cedarville met me at the entrance and we walked around together for the afternoon. He has been in Beijing for about 9 months to teach English through Cedarville. So good to see him on the other side of the world! For dinner, we ... read more

Wednesday we woke up and headed off to the Forbidden City! It was amazing how many tours were already there and it was still pretty early! We walked inside the gates and headed over to where we thought we were supposed to buy the tickets. Luckily a really sweet lady, who also turned out to be a tour guide, came up and pointed us in the direction of the ticket office. On the way to get our tickets we started talking to her and ended up hiring her to take us through the Forbidden City. We started off by passing through the inner set of gates and touching the gold nobs on the door (because it was good luck or something?). After pushing our way through the crowds we were able to find a secluded spot ... read more

It was hot today and the Forbidden City was huge. It blows you away to think over a thousand years just up until 100 years ago that 1 family would control this entire place. The city is inside of Beijing and there are about 10,000 different rooms. We went to see only 6 of them and that took 3 hours to walk around to. We enjoyed the views but everyone was itching to shop more so we went to the famous Silk Market. Well it could have been a shoppers paradise but the shop keepers are super rude and aggressive. Uncle Leslie was called names by a tiny lady that tried to attack him because he wouldn't buy a purse. Aunt Amana got an earful when she changed her mind. But.... we bought a lot and ... read more

As we complete our 6,854 nautical mile trip from Sydney, Australia (with a total of 10,000 miles from Auckland, New Zealand) we prepare for disembarkation at Tianjin, China, the seaport gateway to this large nation's capital – Beijing. Packing and saying goodbye to both staff and guests we've shared many experiences with on SS Voyager we are faced with packing for a side trip of two days in Xi'an of the total of five days in China. It's amazing to see how the crew works together to simultaneously disembark 270 people and their belongings, embark a like number on board for the next segment and facilitate several hundred ashore for single or multiple day excursions. After our last sumptuous breakfast aboard, a bus trip of 2 ½ hours brings us from the ship to the heart ... read more