Beijing Part 2

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Day 143

This morning we met up with Perdy, Charlotte and Ben on the subway on our way to the Olympic Park. The Beijing Olympics was held here in 2008. Over 1.5 million people we relocated in order for the gigantic Olympic Park to be build. It is reported that China spent billions on a city makeover including, extending the subway and building a new airport terminal. After seeing the whole of Shanghai under construction we are glad that Beijing is all complete as it has nearly been a year since the Olympics were held.

Our first stop was to see the architectural wonder of the National Stadium otherwise known as the iconic Birds Nest Stadium. As we entered the concrete nest we were surprised to see the bowl of the stadium sunk about 30 foot below ground level, with another 2 tiers of seats above. Although this stadium is big somehow we all thought it felt smaller than it should.

We sat on a row of seats to absorb the atmosphere of the stadium and watched the many Chinese visitors taking pictures (sometimes of us!). At one end of the stadium there was a stage set up ready for a summer concert, it took up a lot of the athletics pitch. There were 6 people (who must have been melting in todays temperatures) dressed up in large blow up panda outfits, the mascots for the games that children clearly loved,. We were disappointed that we could not see the Olympic torch from inside the stadium, however there was a large TV screen showing clips from the games.

Outside the stadium people were setting up ping pong tables (approx 1000 tables) for what must be a massive competition. Across the square stood the Water Cube where the swimming competitions were held and many more administrative buildings. Perdy and Charlotte were not feeling very well so got a taxi back to their hotel. We went to take some pictures of the lake before getting the subway back to our hostel.

We called at the American chain Subway for a sandwich for lunch in posh Raffles City shopping mall. After a rest in our room we made our way back across the city to hopefully collect our Mongolian visas. It was 3.45pm and there was a small queue waiting for the office to open at 4pm. As we were in the queue wet met an English lady who is doing the same journey as us over the next few weeks. Our passports had a valid visa for Mongolia so we are all set for the last leg of our adventure.

For any other travellers reading this for visa information here is a few things we have found out. We submitted our passports with a completed visa application form with photograph and included a service letter provided by our hostel in Ulaanbaatar. Some websites including the Mongolian Embassy in Beijing state that you need a visa invitation from a company or agency in Mongolia. For a tourist visa we had no issues with our simple letter of invitation. We also found out that the lady in the queue had to send her passport back to the UK to get a Russian visa, as they would not do it in Sydney while she was in Australia. We had no problems when we sent our applications off and all we can think that it was to do with that the fact that we purchased visas that were valid for more than 90 days, after reading a website before we left home.

Happy that we had got our passports back and valid visas for our epic Trans-Mongolian journey we headed to the Silk Market to buy some souvenirs. Charlotte, Perdy, Oli and I bargained hard and enjoyed doing some shopping, as you can pick up some great stuff in China. In the evening we met up with Ben and had our last meal as a group. Tomorrow Perdy and Charlotte fly to Heathrow, while Ben takes a flight back to Shanghai where he will spend a further 4 weeks working in China.

As we took the subway back to our hostel we realised we were
on our own again. We have really enjoyed the last 3 weeks being with a group of people, we could not have wished for a better group to spend our time in China with. Then there was 2.....................................

20/6

Day 144

Today we had a much needed rest day as we have been on the move constantly for the last 3 weeks. We enjoyed watching TV programmes from home on the laptop and nearly forgot we were still in Beijing!

21/6

Day 145

In the morning we returned to Tiananmen Square where we queued up to visit Chairman Mao's Mausoleum. The Memorial Hall was build in 1976 just after the death of Chairman Mao. As we entered the huge building via the front steps, people were leaving white flowers to pay their respect to their former communist leader. Impatient guards ushered us through the room where Mao's mummified corpse lays in a glass cabinet, his body draped with the red flag of China. The next room we entered was the gift shop which we swiftly exited through.

Tiananmen Square was very busy as it was Sunday and the sky was a lot clearer than in recent days. We took the subway to the Military Museum where we spent a couple of hours looking at the exhibitions, including tanks, aeroplanes and guns on display. The museum seemed to concentrate on military history since the communist rise of China and was a show case for the power of the PLA (Peoples Liberation Army). Although the museum is huge there is more a focus on the future than the past, with hardly any record of Chinas ancient history and its many dynasty's. There is more oriental ancient weaponry in the Armorial in Leeds than there is in the Military Museum in Beijing!

After the museum we headed for the Lama Temple where we found a restaurant for lunch. We felt too tired to visit the temple so we walked back to hostel for a rest. I had got fed up of my bag from Peru breaking so we returned to the Silk Market where I picked a new one up for a bargain price.

For our Sunday dinner we enjoyed a KFC bargain bucket while watching the British Grand Prix!


22/6

Day 146

The friendly hostel reception staff pointed us in the right direction of the number 107 public bus (30 minutes ride, 4 pence each) to take us directly to Beijing Zoo. As we had not been to Chengdu we hoped to see some giants pandas before we left China. Once in the zoo we headed straight to the panda enclosures where we saw several giant pandas resting in their living quarters.

This zoo is as far from Australia zoo in terms of location and animal welfare as it could be. All the small animal enclosures looked like concrete cells with many of them much too open for the public and animals safety. While visiting the lion enclosure we noticed the Chinese visitors throwing plastic bottles at the sleeping lions to wake them up. In the nocturnal enclosures all the glass windows had been previously broken and now patched up with sheets of glass over the broken panes.

We are not massive animal lovers but this zoo was very difficult to visit as none of the animals looked happy, in fact we saw no zoo keepers during the whole time of our 2 hour visit over lunchtime. The most upsetting enclosure we visited was the brown bears. Here the 4 bears lived in a round concrete enclosure with a few weeds in the middle for them to climb. Several of the bears were walking round in circles as if they were bored. After watching people throw food in to make the bears dance we left struggling to take in what we had just seen.

Next we took a boat trip up the canal from the zoo to the Summer Palace. As we travelled along the canal we saw many local people swimming, it must be clean water here. It took over an hour and it dropped us off at a lake overlooking the Summer Palace. We walked through the lovely parkland in the sunshine stopping occasionally for a rest on the lakeside. The royal garden is full of palaces, temples and pavilions. We spent all afternoon here enjoying a stroll round the tranquil grounds.

As we left the Summer Palace we knew it was quite a way to the nearest subway so got a rickshaw ride. The man cycling the rickshaw had agreed for us to pay 4 Yuan for the journey, however we were not certain this would be the case. Sure enough after 15 minutes he pulled up at the side of a busy road and showed us a price list, stating that it would now cost us 40 Yuan. Even though it was still cheap it was a matter of principle so we threw 10 Yuan in his basket and jumped over the railings to continue our journey on foot.

It must have taken us about another 40 minutes to find the subway and as we got on the train we collapsed into some empty seats. The train got busier each stop as it was just after rush hour. It had been a very long day so we grabbed some fast food before returning to our hostel to pack.

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Photos

National Military Museum
U2 Spy plane shot down by Chinese during the Cold War