Blogs from Beijing, China, Asia - page 3

14 juillet Air China, vol CA880. La porte de l'astronef enfin s'ouvre sur Pékin (Beijing). Il est 17h00 ici, et 5am au Québec. Déboussolé, je m'accroche à la foule et me laisse guider par la vague qui déferle hors du sas. Je sors du tube qui rattache l'avion au Terminal et tente d'accélérer le pas dans la masse. Tous les corridors se rejoignent: l'aéroport tentaculaire de Pékin est certainement l'un des plus vaste au monde. Presqu'une ville. Mon billet d'Air China vers Ulaan Batar (capitale de la Mongolie) m'oblige à passer ici un 15h30 d'escale. Au départ, je pensais devoir passer ma nuit en itinérance à l'aéroport comme je l'ai fait quelques fois auparavant (à Reykjavik ou à Sydney), recroquevillé sur des couchettes improvisées pour essayer de m'éteindre un peu. Mais les grandes compagnies aériennes cachent ... read more

15th Jun: We weren't meeting for breakfast until rather late, so I decided to go for one last walk around. I headed over to East is Red Square, Which is right next to the hotel. It was still pretty early, but it was already hot outside. The square was really quiet, and a complete contrast to the evening before. I headed over to the large statue of Mao in the centre and got some photos. I then made my way around the four large portraits of Stalin, Lenin, Marx, and Engels. This place is definitely one of the most surreal places I've been to. Next to the square, there was a small park, that I hadn't been to yet, so I took a look around there. It was pretyy quiet, too. Only a few old people ... read more

Day 2 - May 5th - Beijing – Pearl Factory, Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Downtown. After a great buffet breakfast we headed for our first stop at a Pearl factory. Unbelievable! I have never seen so many pearls. Mostly fresh water but also some sea water pearly. The place was enormous! And there were stacks of tour buses in there, so plenty of people ready to snap up the specials on offer – which we ignored! Then a bus ride to Tiananmen Square and we were most surprised how well the traffic flowed although it was a Sunday. There are no trucks on the road as most things are transported around the country and into Europe using the very fast trains (300 kph). There are a lot of scooters ( electric) and shared bicycles (no motor ... read more

Thursday, 25th April 2019 My final day in Beijing before the red-eye flight back to Singapore. I decided to make a trip to the Shijia Hutong Museum located in Dengshikou district where many of the old Hutongs survived. These are traditional courtyard houses in Beijing and it was nice that a museum was developed out of it. The small-sized museum was interesting to visit with many household items, toys and photographs from the olden days. The skies had cleared up from the rains of yesterday and it was nice to see the sun again. One lunch venue that I re-discovered was Sizzler, a western eatery with a huge variety of salad items. This was one of my to-go places for dinner when I was younger in Singapore. The food brought back great memories as a young ... read more

Tuesday, 23rd April 2019 Summer Palace is a long metro ride from downtown Beijing where I stayed. Tucked away at a north-western corner of the city towards the tail end of the metro line, this was where the Emperors would stay during the hot summers in the past. The Kunming Lake provided a cooling respite from the heat. No prize for guessing it correctly - the place is huge even by modern standards. Walking is probably the only way to get around even though there are boat rides around the lake for tired souls. I couldn't recall the places or the buildings that I visited today. All I remembered was the constant climbing of stairs to the top where views of the lake and the palace compounds could be had. It was a crowded time at ... read more