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Published: October 12th 2007
Mmm down in one!
Now you see it now you don't!Spent a week in Beijing, our longest stop on our trip so far. We visited temples, tourist sites including the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, eating snakes and scorpions and the famous Peking duck, survived riding bikes, rickshaws and squashing on buses with busy commuters. The blog entries are split up as we have so many photos!
Our first hostel had a Moon party, to celebrate the Moon festival, the 10th moon of the year (I think). So we went to the free BBQ, ate vast quantities of meat kebabs, not quite sure what meat it actually was but it tasted good and Zoe drank her first bottle of beer as that was the only drink available! Chatting to other like minded travellers - all doing the same route around Asia, the time passed quickly and before we knew it, it was midnight!
The Forbidden City took us 5 hours to walk around with an audio guide, but even then, we only saw half of the city. It is a huge place, with really interesting history. There were crowds of people (as there seems to be everywhere we go!) around the entrance, not amused we still ventured inside. As
Ming Dynasty architecture
Happy snap inside the Forbidden City we walked through the beginning park / garden area, the crowds depleted. The whole concept of the Forbidden City's history is quite amazing. Emporers, Princesses, a ranking of concubines, an heir required to follow the throne, bought trouble among the Emporer and his ladies. Horrid threats among the concubines, some even died because of their importance to the Emporer. The Forbidden City covers a huge area, an expanse of impressive, colourful buildings, ranked in order of importance, which can be noted by the number of dragons on its roof edges. This was one of the highlights of our Beijing visit.
The food market in Beijing was amusing! A street with loads of stalls all selling food, some kebabs, some noodles, a variety of seafood, various kinds of meat and many tourists having a good old look! Phil was brave, he ate a snake kebab and 3 scorpions too! Our sensible heads took us into a restaurant to satisfy our craving for more Peking duck though!
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